Last week I was trapped with a migraine at a college reunion at a kibbutz outside the city; I finally got to Harel junction and all the buses to Tel Aviv went by without stopping. When one finally stopped after an hour, it was standing room only. I boarded the bus and announced in a loud voice that I was about to be sick and who was going to give me their seat. A woman who was a bit younger than me stood up immediately and spent the rest of the trip sitting on the bus floor, her bags settled around her. She even poured me water from her water bottle into my water bottle, and when I tried to thank her she seemed genuinely offended by such intrusive displays of gratitude. I sank into my seat, looked out the window into the familiar Jerusalem-Tel Aviv landscape and tried to look sicker than I already was. I thought, that's it, I don't want to leave here, I'm home.
I find such moments so confusing; it's as if I recognize home on the cellular level. A familiar song played on the radio I haven't heard since high school. A familiar smell. A familiar way of holding my body -- freely pushing my way into a crowd, not having to perform polite Americaness. I'm scared of what can be erased of my life in such overwhelming moments. All these years of working and reading and writing and talking.
In this week of Memorial sirens and Memorial Days -- that siren calling you into attention, into citizenship, into a feeling of belonging, there's something in me that wants to fight against this feeling. It's not really in my body, this feeling of Israeliness: it doesn't come from my cells or my bones. That's just a metaphor. And stones don't have human hearts. It's how we construct collective memory.
At the drugstore on the Eve of Independence Day, there's a special deal: buy 12 condoms, get a plastic hammer free. The hammers are for bashing each other. That's what you do on Independence Day, right?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Us and Them
On the bus to the reunion I meet my old T.A. who says people from Jerusalem are special. They're more serious than Tel-Avivians; they get him better. And these people, on the bus to the reunion of the Hebrew University Amirim Interdisciplinary Program, are the most Jerusalem of Jerusalem. The most serious, the most deep, the most geeky. He's almost overcome with geeky reverence.
When we get there, M. motions me aside. Instead of going into the colloquium on the Sorry State of the Humanities Today, we go off and smoke long feminine cigarettes that come in a rectangular box like high class tampons. He's the black sheep of his settler family. It's strange, we muse, how polite one's settler family can be. He gave a ride once to some settlers going off to volunteer for a disabled children's camp who in the same breath spoke murderous words about Arab killings. My settler relatives too, oblivious to our anger, continue to populate the hills around Jerusalem, killing off the peace process year by year, and invite me with relentless politeness to weddings and births.
M. says the warm blanket of approval I've felt since I've arrived in Israel isn't a contradiction to the latest horrible war in Gaza, but connected. When there's a "them" to be against the feeling of "us" gets stronger. When I arrived in Tel-Aviv with my prodigal daughter narrative, I made all of "us" feel better.
Meanwhile, the professors congratulated us and themselves for Hebrew University's pursuit of excellence, and I thought, like one of the bad sons at the Seder, why are there no Arabs here, or even Russians, Ethiopians - hardly any Sephardic Jews, hardly any women on the panel? They were not chosen by Hebrew University for excellence.
This week is sandwiched between Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, and Israeli Independence Day. So many Days to grieve and mourn and celebrate! So many days to feel "us". What do we do? We light memorial candles, we grill meat, we hang our flags from the window, we dance in the streets to shake off 2,000 years of exile. What do "they" do while "we" are doing our remembering?
When we get there, M. motions me aside. Instead of going into the colloquium on the Sorry State of the Humanities Today, we go off and smoke long feminine cigarettes that come in a rectangular box like high class tampons. He's the black sheep of his settler family. It's strange, we muse, how polite one's settler family can be. He gave a ride once to some settlers going off to volunteer for a disabled children's camp who in the same breath spoke murderous words about Arab killings. My settler relatives too, oblivious to our anger, continue to populate the hills around Jerusalem, killing off the peace process year by year, and invite me with relentless politeness to weddings and births.
M. says the warm blanket of approval I've felt since I've arrived in Israel isn't a contradiction to the latest horrible war in Gaza, but connected. When there's a "them" to be against the feeling of "us" gets stronger. When I arrived in Tel-Aviv with my prodigal daughter narrative, I made all of "us" feel better.
Meanwhile, the professors congratulated us and themselves for Hebrew University's pursuit of excellence, and I thought, like one of the bad sons at the Seder, why are there no Arabs here, or even Russians, Ethiopians - hardly any Sephardic Jews, hardly any women on the panel? They were not chosen by Hebrew University for excellence.
This week is sandwiched between Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, and Israeli Independence Day. So many Days to grieve and mourn and celebrate! So many days to feel "us". What do we do? We light memorial candles, we grill meat, we hang our flags from the window, we dance in the streets to shake off 2,000 years of exile. What do "they" do while "we" are doing our remembering?
Friday, April 17, 2009
Jericho and Jerusalem
When I was in high school there used to be a guy who used to stride down Agripas Street into the vegetable market in a blue robe and staff, a silver breastplate hung across his chest, as if he was practicing to be the high priest for the Third Temple. Also, there was a restaurant you could eat at in the Jewish Quarter that recreated life in Roman Times. They served you roasted meat and figs, whilst dressing you up in a white sheet. My parents got married at the Holy Land Hotel, famous for its historically accurate model of the Second Temple. Tourists can go see it, and then go see the Western Wall and see what's missing.
The latest musical trend in return and recreation of Psalms and Medieval liturgy seems to merit an entire posting, especially the work of the Avichai foundation, (="my father is alive") which hosts concerts and study groups, lectures and art exhibits to do with Jewish culture -- all with an agenda I haven't fully sniffed out yet -- but more on that in a later posting.
When I was invited to the "The Voices of the Levites: Tracing the lost musical instruments of the Temple," I expected a sophisticated version of these recreation activities. Some good new compositions of the Psalms, musicians in blue and white clothes with touches of silver with yearning, earnest looks on their faces. I suspect that this is what the kugel-fed crowd looking for a good Passover activity was also expecting. With the first deep and weird tones of the female vocalist (full disclaimer: my wonderful sister!) three men in large white kippot escaped the hall lest they be drawn into temptation hearing the nakedness of a woman's voice, and when she sang the explicit name of God another young couple left quietly, a guitar swinging from his back.
The Levites had to draw lots to serve in the Temple -- disembodied text flashed across the wall behind the musicians -- lest they push and shove each other. These Levites came through in fragments. Nobody was trying to actually be a Levite. (What a relief!) The recreation of the Levites voices in the temple, as well as a the imaginary instruments described in the Psalms was both a labor of love and a spectacular purposeful failure.
Though Ilan Green, formerly of the "the Tractor's Revenge," and the visioner of the project, built a a drum shaped like a star of David, shakers in the shapes of the seven species and an otherworldly tree hung with bells called Ayelet Hashachar (="the Doe of Dawn"?) the band did not actually play any psalms on the instruments. The texts were fragments: a few opening superscriptions (the "choir instructions" for the psalms that were probably added much later) a prayer from Qumran, something from the song of Songs, a meditation on King David as a man who lived his life in tents, always running.
At one point we heard that that the singing of the Psalms in the Temple were so loud they could hear it all the way to Jericho. Jericho is a city extra-sensitive to music, because Jericho's walls were brought down by music. These Psalms are ghosts, and we are not Jerusalem, though we are sitting in this opulent concert hall in the New Jerusalem. As moderns, we are Jericho, we are what has been destroyed by the violence of the ram's horns. What we recreate is our ability to listen.
After the concert a starry eyed bearded boy asks me if the instruments are historically accurate.
He says, "I think these musicians would have a lot to contribute when the Third Temple is rebuilt."
I say, "Well, not the woman. She couldn't sing at the temple." He nods his head regretfully, agreeing.
I say, "I think they would all have to move to Germany if they built a Third Temple."
"Really?"
"Yes, I would probably also move to Germany."
He says, "Are you Jewish?" I turn in profile to show him my nose.
"What do you think?"
The latest musical trend in return and recreation of Psalms and Medieval liturgy seems to merit an entire posting, especially the work of the Avichai foundation, (="my father is alive") which hosts concerts and study groups, lectures and art exhibits to do with Jewish culture -- all with an agenda I haven't fully sniffed out yet -- but more on that in a later posting.
When I was invited to the "The Voices of the Levites: Tracing the lost musical instruments of the Temple," I expected a sophisticated version of these recreation activities. Some good new compositions of the Psalms, musicians in blue and white clothes with touches of silver with yearning, earnest looks on their faces. I suspect that this is what the kugel-fed crowd looking for a good Passover activity was also expecting. With the first deep and weird tones of the female vocalist (full disclaimer: my wonderful sister!) three men in large white kippot escaped the hall lest they be drawn into temptation hearing the nakedness of a woman's voice, and when she sang the explicit name of God another young couple left quietly, a guitar swinging from his back.
The Levites had to draw lots to serve in the Temple -- disembodied text flashed across the wall behind the musicians -- lest they push and shove each other. These Levites came through in fragments. Nobody was trying to actually be a Levite. (What a relief!) The recreation of the Levites voices in the temple, as well as a the imaginary instruments described in the Psalms was both a labor of love and a spectacular purposeful failure.
Though Ilan Green, formerly of the "the Tractor's Revenge," and the visioner of the project, built a a drum shaped like a star of David, shakers in the shapes of the seven species and an otherworldly tree hung with bells called Ayelet Hashachar (="the Doe of Dawn"?) the band did not actually play any psalms on the instruments. The texts were fragments: a few opening superscriptions (the "choir instructions" for the psalms that were probably added much later) a prayer from Qumran, something from the song of Songs, a meditation on King David as a man who lived his life in tents, always running.
At one point we heard that that the singing of the Psalms in the Temple were so loud they could hear it all the way to Jericho. Jericho is a city extra-sensitive to music, because Jericho's walls were brought down by music. These Psalms are ghosts, and we are not Jerusalem, though we are sitting in this opulent concert hall in the New Jerusalem. As moderns, we are Jericho, we are what has been destroyed by the violence of the ram's horns. What we recreate is our ability to listen.
After the concert a starry eyed bearded boy asks me if the instruments are historically accurate.
He says, "I think these musicians would have a lot to contribute when the Third Temple is rebuilt."
I say, "Well, not the woman. She couldn't sing at the temple." He nods his head regretfully, agreeing.
I say, "I think they would all have to move to Germany if they built a Third Temple."
"Really?"
"Yes, I would probably also move to Germany."
He says, "Are you Jewish?" I turn in profile to show him my nose.
"What do you think?"
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Flour and Water
My mother says the matzah on the Seder table can be an object of meditation. Something we come back to again and again, like the breath. What is this matzah but flour and water? Just like us: dust and water. My mother's hair is flattened from lying down -- she hasn't been feeling well. Last year in Berkeley I said, "next year in Jerusalem" at the Seder with a kind of glee, conflating the literal and metaphorical. This year, the first day of Chol Hamoed, these passover pilgrims are everywhere, streaming out of the old city, making it hard to sit at a cafe and work.
The family dog knows the extended family: when we get to my half sisters' house, she runs up the stairs full of excitement and lets Odelia smush her ears in patiently. She goes into my sister Avital's house like it is her home and climbs up on the couch like she is a person, to watch Zoolander with us. But at the Seder itself we're shrunk down - it's just my father, my mother and me with some friends. It's confusing - all my friends are in Berkeley having a beautiful meal without me, and I'd like to be with them, but when I was in Berkeley I thought something was missing because I wasn't home...that there was some other Seder waiting for me full of family and meaning, with the old songs we used to sing, the old melodies.
My mother says the matzah on the table is on object for projection, transformation: what was once just flour and water becomes at the end of the meal the most sublime delight. A little afikomen square of goodness better than the best chocolate mousse cake. (We used to make it every year together, mixing fast, trying not to let the egg yokes congeal.) Our lives, our bodies, just water and dust. But if you keep chewing...
Driving home from watching the sunset on Samson Valley my friends are singing Waltzing Matilda in faint voices. This sweet nostalgia for somewhere I never was can be savored.
My mother says, after the Seder, let me lean on you. I take her elbow and she says, no, that's you leaning on me, so we change the clasp.
The family dog knows the extended family: when we get to my half sisters' house, she runs up the stairs full of excitement and lets Odelia smush her ears in patiently. She goes into my sister Avital's house like it is her home and climbs up on the couch like she is a person, to watch Zoolander with us. But at the Seder itself we're shrunk down - it's just my father, my mother and me with some friends. It's confusing - all my friends are in Berkeley having a beautiful meal without me, and I'd like to be with them, but when I was in Berkeley I thought something was missing because I wasn't home...that there was some other Seder waiting for me full of family and meaning, with the old songs we used to sing, the old melodies.
My mother says the matzah on the table is on object for projection, transformation: what was once just flour and water becomes at the end of the meal the most sublime delight. A little afikomen square of goodness better than the best chocolate mousse cake. (We used to make it every year together, mixing fast, trying not to let the egg yokes congeal.) Our lives, our bodies, just water and dust. But if you keep chewing...
Driving home from watching the sunset on Samson Valley my friends are singing Waltzing Matilda in faint voices. This sweet nostalgia for somewhere I never was can be savored.
My mother says, after the Seder, let me lean on you. I take her elbow and she says, no, that's you leaning on me, so we change the clasp.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Happy Birthday Tel Aviv!
Five days before Passover, and everyone* in Jerusalem is cleaning to save their lives; meanwhile, Tel Aviv is full of Dionysian spring energy, colored lights on Rothschild Blvd. and huge blown up old photos of old time Tel Aviv kitsch from the twenties and thirties: little girls playing with what looks like retro doll sets, stiff sepia photos taken to send back to the relatives in Europe - everything twice life sized. Tonight there's supposed to be dancing in the streets, fireworks maybe. In Jerusalem it's easier to see the seam lines: the yuppie neighborhoods still carry the names of the Arab villages they displaced. Here, one hundred years ago -- only sand. It's a more complicated mental exercise to imagine what if's. What if Tel Aviv weren't here? What would be here instead?
The kube soup guy at Rabin Square tells me he brings his kube all the way from Jerusalem, it's more authentic; the hipsters have taken over the old ladies' cafe on Ben Yehuda street, and the old ladies with the knotted silk scarves now order their cafes and sweet things at the new geletarias. The frozen yogurt trend is being replaced by a French rotisserie trend. Passports are the new pornography: this one has a Polish passport, this one a Hungarian one, a German one -- the German classes are full to the brim (I counted 8 beginner classes at Goethe and 12 intermediate), everyone says they want to get out, and they ride around the wide modernist boulevards without any helmets. The pregnant ladies wear skintight clothes (take note Berkeley pregnant ladies!), and at the beach eleven African tourists in full tribal garb stroll at the water. Apparently, I'm the only woman without a tattoo in the entire city. Happy Birthday Tel Aviv!
* Ok, hyperbolic...
The kube soup guy at Rabin Square tells me he brings his kube all the way from Jerusalem, it's more authentic; the hipsters have taken over the old ladies' cafe on Ben Yehuda street, and the old ladies with the knotted silk scarves now order their cafes and sweet things at the new geletarias. The frozen yogurt trend is being replaced by a French rotisserie trend. Passports are the new pornography: this one has a Polish passport, this one a Hungarian one, a German one -- the German classes are full to the brim (I counted 8 beginner classes at Goethe and 12 intermediate), everyone says they want to get out, and they ride around the wide modernist boulevards without any helmets. The pregnant ladies wear skintight clothes (take note Berkeley pregnant ladies!), and at the beach eleven African tourists in full tribal garb stroll at the water. Apparently, I'm the only woman without a tattoo in the entire city. Happy Birthday Tel Aviv!
* Ok, hyperbolic...
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