Tuesday, February 27, 2007
In the Desert
Ive been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...
As turns out, there's plenty of pain in the hot, quiet desert. But like the song says, it felt really good to get out of the rain. Last week, Jamie and I went on the third and last HUC tiyul (trip). We spent 4 days in the Negev, the southern part of Israel and a really big desert. The majority of the trip was spent on hikes and the students were forced to listen to my incessant whining. Most of these pictures I took to prove that I actually did this stuff because I didn't think anyone at home would believe me.
We stayed at Kibbutz Yahel, a Reform kibbutz on the Jordanian border. We got to pick our own pomellos - a type of citrus. Right behind Jamie and our friends is Jordan.
Day 2: A full day hike up a mountain, down a mountain, up a mountain, down a...you get the point.
Then we stayed overnight in an enormous tent, which was supposed to give us an "authentic" Bedouin experience. Since this tourist facility is run by a bunch of Israeli hippies who played reggae and sold us beer and ice cream, it lacked some of that authenticity. Anyway, I survived a night in a big tent with 70 of my best friends.
Here we are in Eilat, the southern most city in Israel, standing next to the Red Sea. Behind us is Egypt and in the distance to the right is Saudi Arabia.
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...
As turns out, there's plenty of pain in the hot, quiet desert. But like the song says, it felt really good to get out of the rain. Last week, Jamie and I went on the third and last HUC tiyul (trip). We spent 4 days in the Negev, the southern part of Israel and a really big desert. The majority of the trip was spent on hikes and the students were forced to listen to my incessant whining. Most of these pictures I took to prove that I actually did this stuff because I didn't think anyone at home would believe me.
We stayed at Kibbutz Yahel, a Reform kibbutz on the Jordanian border. We got to pick our own pomellos - a type of citrus. Right behind Jamie and our friends is Jordan.
Day 2: A full day hike up a mountain, down a mountain, up a mountain, down a...you get the point.
Then we stayed overnight in an enormous tent, which was supposed to give us an "authentic" Bedouin experience. Since this tourist facility is run by a bunch of Israeli hippies who played reggae and sold us beer and ice cream, it lacked some of that authenticity. Anyway, I survived a night in a big tent with 70 of my best friends.
Here we are in Eilat, the southern most city in Israel, standing next to the Red Sea. Behind us is Egypt and in the distance to the right is Saudi Arabia.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Everyone's Favorite 3am Syrian Song Session
The cantors participated in Bakashot today, a song session to beat all song sessions. It's an old, old Middle Eastern tradition to get together as a community every Shabbat between Simchat Torah (October) until Passover (April) at 3am to sing songs. It's set up as a sort of contest, the congregation divided into two groups, each with a (ideally) virtuoso soloist. The singing alternates between improvised solos and group sing-a-longs, and though the big solos are done by the more experienced members, they have lots of little solos which they give to the younger or less experienced singers.
We went to the Aleppo Synagogue (Syrian) only a few blocks from our apartment. They offer free tea and coffee all night to help keep you awake. The whole community is welcome, and they have men and women, little children and teenagers all attending. (Of course, as is their tradition, the women are seated as usual upstairs in the women's section.) There are a lot of honorary positions as part of bakashot: who is the lead soloist, who takes the smaller solos, even who hands out the coffee and tea is an honored job. There's also an auction for who gets the honor of leading the kaddish [prayer for mourners] to close the song session.
Though we didn't know the melodies, it was a lot of fun. Some of them were really catchy, and since the congregational songs were mostly call and response, there was a lot of opportunity for us to participate. It was hard to listen to a solo and know if they were doing a good job or not; it's like a beginner listening to jazz, you have to understand the musical idiom. It was clear that some had better voices, and we found out afterwards that the soloist for "our" half of the synagogue is a very famous singer visiting from New York.
My favorite part was the respect for tradition demonstrated in every aspect of the event. The congregation was quiet for the big solos (for the most part =) and the main soloists would congratulate the younger guys for a good job. Imagine singing the same songs every week for six months; you're gonna know those songs. But the improvisational style, the sense of community bonding, the idea of honor through service, that's tradition that can't be explained in words. You have to experience it.
Everyone came back to our apartment afterwards for bagels at a thrilling 7am. (When was the last time I saw the sun rise?) Everyone left for their respective beds pretty quickly, but we all agreed it was a great experience. Now all I have to do is figure how to do a Reform version. =)
We went to the Aleppo Synagogue (Syrian) only a few blocks from our apartment. They offer free tea and coffee all night to help keep you awake. The whole community is welcome, and they have men and women, little children and teenagers all attending. (Of course, as is their tradition, the women are seated as usual upstairs in the women's section.) There are a lot of honorary positions as part of bakashot: who is the lead soloist, who takes the smaller solos, even who hands out the coffee and tea is an honored job. There's also an auction for who gets the honor of leading the kaddish [prayer for mourners] to close the song session.
Though we didn't know the melodies, it was a lot of fun. Some of them were really catchy, and since the congregational songs were mostly call and response, there was a lot of opportunity for us to participate. It was hard to listen to a solo and know if they were doing a good job or not; it's like a beginner listening to jazz, you have to understand the musical idiom. It was clear that some had better voices, and we found out afterwards that the soloist for "our" half of the synagogue is a very famous singer visiting from New York.
My favorite part was the respect for tradition demonstrated in every aspect of the event. The congregation was quiet for the big solos (for the most part =) and the main soloists would congratulate the younger guys for a good job. Imagine singing the same songs every week for six months; you're gonna know those songs. But the improvisational style, the sense of community bonding, the idea of honor through service, that's tradition that can't be explained in words. You have to experience it.
Everyone came back to our apartment afterwards for bagels at a thrilling 7am. (When was the last time I saw the sun rise?) Everyone left for their respective beds pretty quickly, but we all agreed it was a great experience. Now all I have to do is figure how to do a Reform version. =)
Monday, February 12, 2007
Israeli Living
We haven't posted in a while because there's really no new news here. So, I thought I'd do something a little different and give you a little taste of what it's like to live in Israel. Here's a tour of what's different in an Israeli apartment:
1. Hot Water: Water is heated in solar tanks on the roof. In the summer this is a great system, but during the winter the heat needs a boost. So, you turn on an electric heater directly above the shower. It takes about 2 hours to get the water hot. You'll also notice the light switch outside of the bathroom. The voltage is very high here, so all the switches are on the outside of the bathrooms. There are also no outlets, so you can't dry or curl your hair in the bathroom. And of course, you all remember our famous "shbath." Most people have hooks for their hoses to make the shbath into an actual shower.
2. Doors: For some reason, all the inside doors in this country seem to come with windows. The weirdest part about this is the bathroom. And no matter how nice the apartment, the paint job in every apartment I have been to never seems to be straight or to keep from bleeding (see the picture). Also, all the doors come equiped with locks, but they lock with keys, not buttons or knobs. However, in most of our homes (the students) the apartments are rather old and all the keys are either missing or don't work. Oh well.
3. Windows: Most windows and backdoors are equiped with a covering called a triese. This can block light, weather and some bugs. It rolls up into a box ontop of the window. You tug on it to make it go up or down.
4. Cooking: Israelis use electric kettles. What's fun about them is that they are called Coom-cooms. It's just fun to say. Because stoves and ovens often don't come built into kitchens, electric burners are very common. After our gas stove stopped working, our landlord bought us electric burners so that we could fit in. Do you see the irony of the electric burners (which work very poorly) sitting on top of a gas stove (which used to work very well)?
5. Outlets: Unsurprisingly, Israel has totally different outlets. After 7 months, I still think they look kind of funny. You can also see the adaptor we use for the computer. Outlets are also pretty far off the ground. My theory is that the apartments usually have tile floors for easy washing, so the outlets are high up to avoid getting water in them. Or just as really ugly decoration. Also, notice how the phone cable goes through the house on the outside of the wall. It connects to the phone cables which run all the way down around the outside of the building. Not kidding.
6. Closets: Israeli apartments rarely have closets. Often they have something called a closet, which we would call a cabinet. We have a wardrobe, which I think is much cooler anyway.
7. Laundry: We were told before we got here that washingmachines are an Israeli luxury. Perhaps, but I don't know anyone without one. Dryers, on the other hand, are an absolute luxury. Today it is sunny (not warm), so the clothes are outside. But lately, with the rain they've been inside and can easily take most of the week to dry.
8. Heat: The laundry brings me to the next point - there's no heat in these old apartments. The buildings have tile floors for easy cleaning and are desined to stay cool in the summer, so most of our friends (and us too) are freezing in our homes. So we have a little space heater that travels from room to room with us. We huddle around it like it's our fireplace. We've also figured out ways to drape clothes over a chair in front of the little heater to dry them. It's effective, although time consuming.
9. Mystery Circles: I have seen these in most apartments and have no idea what they are. We have a few of them. Their circles on the wall, where it looks like there might have been a smoke detector, but I can't figure out why you'd need so many in an apartment, or in one room for that matter. I think they're related to the crop circles:
That's about all the excitement in one apartment. You should also know that I've been updating our photo site on Shutterfly, http://princessandthegeek.shutterfly.com. There's a link listed on our blog, too.
Current countdown: 3 weeks until Purim, 4 'till family comes to visit, 6 'till we go to Ukraine, and in 15 weeks we come home.
1. Hot Water: Water is heated in solar tanks on the roof. In the summer this is a great system, but during the winter the heat needs a boost. So, you turn on an electric heater directly above the shower. It takes about 2 hours to get the water hot. You'll also notice the light switch outside of the bathroom. The voltage is very high here, so all the switches are on the outside of the bathrooms. There are also no outlets, so you can't dry or curl your hair in the bathroom. And of course, you all remember our famous "shbath." Most people have hooks for their hoses to make the shbath into an actual shower.
2. Doors: For some reason, all the inside doors in this country seem to come with windows. The weirdest part about this is the bathroom. And no matter how nice the apartment, the paint job in every apartment I have been to never seems to be straight or to keep from bleeding (see the picture). Also, all the doors come equiped with locks, but they lock with keys, not buttons or knobs. However, in most of our homes (the students) the apartments are rather old and all the keys are either missing or don't work. Oh well.
3. Windows: Most windows and backdoors are equiped with a covering called a triese. This can block light, weather and some bugs. It rolls up into a box ontop of the window. You tug on it to make it go up or down.
4. Cooking: Israelis use electric kettles. What's fun about them is that they are called Coom-cooms. It's just fun to say. Because stoves and ovens often don't come built into kitchens, electric burners are very common. After our gas stove stopped working, our landlord bought us electric burners so that we could fit in. Do you see the irony of the electric burners (which work very poorly) sitting on top of a gas stove (which used to work very well)?
5. Outlets: Unsurprisingly, Israel has totally different outlets. After 7 months, I still think they look kind of funny. You can also see the adaptor we use for the computer. Outlets are also pretty far off the ground. My theory is that the apartments usually have tile floors for easy washing, so the outlets are high up to avoid getting water in them. Or just as really ugly decoration. Also, notice how the phone cable goes through the house on the outside of the wall. It connects to the phone cables which run all the way down around the outside of the building. Not kidding.
6. Closets: Israeli apartments rarely have closets. Often they have something called a closet, which we would call a cabinet. We have a wardrobe, which I think is much cooler anyway.
7. Laundry: We were told before we got here that washingmachines are an Israeli luxury. Perhaps, but I don't know anyone without one. Dryers, on the other hand, are an absolute luxury. Today it is sunny (not warm), so the clothes are outside. But lately, with the rain they've been inside and can easily take most of the week to dry.
8. Heat: The laundry brings me to the next point - there's no heat in these old apartments. The buildings have tile floors for easy cleaning and are desined to stay cool in the summer, so most of our friends (and us too) are freezing in our homes. So we have a little space heater that travels from room to room with us. We huddle around it like it's our fireplace. We've also figured out ways to drape clothes over a chair in front of the little heater to dry them. It's effective, although time consuming.
9. Mystery Circles: I have seen these in most apartments and have no idea what they are. We have a few of them. Their circles on the wall, where it looks like there might have been a smoke detector, but I can't figure out why you'd need so many in an apartment, or in one room for that matter. I think they're related to the crop circles:
That's about all the excitement in one apartment. You should also know that I've been updating our photo site on Shutterfly, http://princessandthegeek.shutterfly.com. There's a link listed on our blog, too.
Current countdown: 3 weeks until Purim, 4 'till family comes to visit, 6 'till we go to Ukraine, and in 15 weeks we come home.
