For some reason this past week has just been insane!!!! I didn’t get to sleep before midnight any night of the week and I was doing fun and exciting things every day. It was GREAT and so much fun!
It all started out that on Shabbat my fan and bug zapper got turned off with our new Shabbat Clock that cuts the electricity to part of the house on hours when we don’t need to save electricity. I was too hot and didn’t sleep at all during the night and I also didn’t get a nap because it was so damn hot! I don’t know how it happened but I didn’t go to bed until midnight on sat. night either.
Sunday I woke up early to go to the licensing office to pick up my drivers license!! Went to school and then came home and attempted to nap. I was so tired that it just didn’t really work. That evening was Student Day (and also the start of Jerusalem Day) which is a huge concert and party downtown. For 30 NIS we get entrance to the concert and then at 2 am most venues in town were holding activities ( old Israeli songs and beer, Jazz, poetry readings, dance clubs, etc) for free with a wristband and serious discounts on drinks. I went with Becca, Aaron, and our friend Arielle. It was amazing. Complete with Bungee Jumping. Unfortunately I was SO tired that I couldn’t take it. I sat down in the nargila tent and almost fell asleep during the Hadag Nachash concert. From there I went home and attempted to sleep. I had to do my usual facebook and jpost routine before bed and didn’t get to sleep till around 2- stupid I know.
Monday was Yom Yerushaliyim!! I was so exhausted from the day before that I didn’t get up till around noon. I had some breakfast and then took a 2-hour nap. I wrote an essay I needed for Hebrew class and then Arielle and I went to get something to eat. I stupidly had a HUGE ice coffee not realizing how late in the day it was and forgetting to take into account that the caffeine really affects me. We then headed to town for the huge parade and “flag dancing”. It is a huge parade through the entire city and into the old city to celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem in ’67. Thousands and Thousands of people march through the streets singing and dancing and it is one of the most beautiful and inspirational things I have ever seen. We stood on one place for an hour and watched the sea of people go by and it was still continuing by the time we headed to the old city. We went to the Kotel and danced there for about an hour. It was super amazing. Thousands of people cramped together singing and dancing and celebrating. It made me feel so idealistic and proud to be here. One very obvious thing that was quite distressing was that the only sector of the country represented was the national religious community. The Charedim are anti- anything Israel related and the non-religious don’t care that much and don’t see the reunification and the opening of the Kotel as a miracle and an important event in Jewish and Israeli history. It made me really sad. Am I part of a tiny piece of the county that is the only piece that still cares about anything anymore? That still sees this place as a miracle? That wakes up in the morning feeling lucky and wonderful to be here? The answer for the most part is sadly yes. The trends are scary: the Arabs hate us, the Charedim think we are defying g-d’s will my existing, and the non-religious could care less that we exist and if they could get visas many would go elsewhere.
Tuesday I had a dress fitting in Efrat and then I went back to school and had a field trip (and it was SO hot) and then I went back to Efrat for a Kallah Class. It was my most calm day but I still didn’t get to bed till after midnight.
Wednesday was also relaxed but that evening Becca and I went to a wedding and I was already so wiped out from the rest of the week! But the really exciting thing was that my cousins lent me their car so I could drive to the wedding which was on a kibbutz far from easy transportation. It was so cool to be driving! The wedding was beautiful and I’m so happy I got to go!!
Thursday was a usual day- David came home! We went out for dinner and to the Israeli Book Week. (A celebration of Hebrew books- all books are on extreme discount and there is a huge field set up with thousands of books being sold fair style—it’s so cool!) At the Fair we bough David a set of Gemara as a wedding present. Then we hung out with some friends and then went to sleep after midnight. I am pooped but it was a great week!!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Bureaucracy is Expensive
I feel like I have been up to my neck in bureaucracy over the past few weeks and I would like to share a bit of the experience. In order to have a legal Jewish wedding in this country every couple must register with the religious authorities. The process is pretty complicated and rather expensive and if you aren’t at least somewhat religious and understanding of the necessity of a central rabbinic authority, it can be an absolute nightmare. Each member of the couple must bring witnesses attesting to their status as an unmarried single (if you have been previously married you must provide a divorce certificate or a death certificate etc). Then each must bring their parents ketubah (as proof of Jewishness), a kosher certificate from their wedding hall, a certificate that their rabbi is allowed to perform the wedding according to the religious authority’s standards, a certificate that the woman has completed a course in the laws of marital purity, and a hefty chunk of money. Fortunately we are student/soldier so we get a significant discount…but still. They definitely don’t make it easy even to REGISTER to get married here. We are also fortunate that David lives in Efrat and they have their own branch of the religious authority here AND that the Rabbi who is marrying us happens to be the head of it! We can register everything for the wedding here in Efrat, but I had to bring my single certificate from my place of residence (aka Jerusalem).
Unfortunately for me the process in Jerusalem is a bit nightmarish. I tried to go a few months ago to the Rabbinate to get my certificate and after an hour and a half of waiting and being shuttled around from desk to desk I was informed that I couldn’t get it anyway because it only lasts 3 months and it would be expired before the wedding came around and I’d have to do it again anyway!!! I was so flustered and stressed when I left there that I ended up going on a shopping spree to calm myself down! The Rabbinate building is dark and cramped and everyone is angry about something and it was just a really unpleasant atmosphere. It is also very unsettling that some unsympathetic religious guy can potentially control my future!
Last week I decided to try to register at my other option, another branch of similar something (I’m not really sure how it really works anyway). I brought my witnesses with me (Noam and Becca’s boyfriend Aaron) so that we could get it done on the spot and everything would be great. We got to the office and immediately were sent to talk to the head of the place because something in the paperwork I had didn’t look right. Turns out the letter that my Rabbi from home had written attesting to my Jewishness couldn’t be accepted because he didn’t show up in their computer system as a real Rabbi. He refused to register me until we could prove that he really was a Rabbi. Our options were to let him fax it to another office and we could have waited a week OR we could schlep to the other side of town and go to that office ourselves. Obviously we decided to take it in our own hands and not rely on him to fax it or do anything to help me. We rode to the other side of town and waited for 45 minutes in the lobby of the Chief Rabbi’s (both of them) Office for a really nice pregnant woman (the only person who smiled at me throughout this whole process) to have one of the Rabbis check up on the status of my Rabbi in the states. It was really strange that the Sefardi and Ashkenazi Rabbis had two different sides of the building and there was no connection between the two other than through the lobby… as if this place didn’t have enough problems!! Fortunately they were able to verify his status and wrote me a letter to give to the other authority so I could get my certificate. We then raced back to the other office and I was able to fill everything out. My witnesses testified and all is good. I almost had at least 3 nervous breakdowns that day but all in all I survived!
My other bureaucratic messiness was getting my drivers license!!! I had to take 1 lesson and 1 test if all went well, but first I had to do a whole bunch of stuff: get a special form from only 1 place in the whole city, get an eye test, get a doctor to sign it (almost 100 NIS), go to the licensing office to have them sign it, find a teacher, take the lesson, have him sign me up for the test, take the test, go back to the licensing office to pick up my license, and THEN go to the bank to pay for it so it would be valid. It took me about 5 months in total to get everything done. Obviously I didn’t do it all at once, but still!! After just about 1000 NIS I am now a licensed driver in Israel and SOO glad it’s all over.
All in all it wasn’t so bad to deal with the bureaucracy, but as I was talking with a girl who was on my aliyah flight we made an interesting observation: this is not an easy place to live. If you really want to be here because it’s where you believe you’re meant to be then yea the bureaucracy junk is annoying but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter that much. If you don’t want to be here more than anything, I can guarantee that within a few years you will have returned to where you came from because it’s just not worth the headache if being here isn’t worth it. For me, being here is worth every second and every penny.
Unfortunately for me the process in Jerusalem is a bit nightmarish. I tried to go a few months ago to the Rabbinate to get my certificate and after an hour and a half of waiting and being shuttled around from desk to desk I was informed that I couldn’t get it anyway because it only lasts 3 months and it would be expired before the wedding came around and I’d have to do it again anyway!!! I was so flustered and stressed when I left there that I ended up going on a shopping spree to calm myself down! The Rabbinate building is dark and cramped and everyone is angry about something and it was just a really unpleasant atmosphere. It is also very unsettling that some unsympathetic religious guy can potentially control my future!
Last week I decided to try to register at my other option, another branch of similar something (I’m not really sure how it really works anyway). I brought my witnesses with me (Noam and Becca’s boyfriend Aaron) so that we could get it done on the spot and everything would be great. We got to the office and immediately were sent to talk to the head of the place because something in the paperwork I had didn’t look right. Turns out the letter that my Rabbi from home had written attesting to my Jewishness couldn’t be accepted because he didn’t show up in their computer system as a real Rabbi. He refused to register me until we could prove that he really was a Rabbi. Our options were to let him fax it to another office and we could have waited a week OR we could schlep to the other side of town and go to that office ourselves. Obviously we decided to take it in our own hands and not rely on him to fax it or do anything to help me. We rode to the other side of town and waited for 45 minutes in the lobby of the Chief Rabbi’s (both of them) Office for a really nice pregnant woman (the only person who smiled at me throughout this whole process) to have one of the Rabbis check up on the status of my Rabbi in the states. It was really strange that the Sefardi and Ashkenazi Rabbis had two different sides of the building and there was no connection between the two other than through the lobby… as if this place didn’t have enough problems!! Fortunately they were able to verify his status and wrote me a letter to give to the other authority so I could get my certificate. We then raced back to the other office and I was able to fill everything out. My witnesses testified and all is good. I almost had at least 3 nervous breakdowns that day but all in all I survived!
My other bureaucratic messiness was getting my drivers license!!! I had to take 1 lesson and 1 test if all went well, but first I had to do a whole bunch of stuff: get a special form from only 1 place in the whole city, get an eye test, get a doctor to sign it (almost 100 NIS), go to the licensing office to have them sign it, find a teacher, take the lesson, have him sign me up for the test, take the test, go back to the licensing office to pick up my license, and THEN go to the bank to pay for it so it would be valid. It took me about 5 months in total to get everything done. Obviously I didn’t do it all at once, but still!! After just about 1000 NIS I am now a licensed driver in Israel and SOO glad it’s all over.
All in all it wasn’t so bad to deal with the bureaucracy, but as I was talking with a girl who was on my aliyah flight we made an interesting observation: this is not an easy place to live. If you really want to be here because it’s where you believe you’re meant to be then yea the bureaucracy junk is annoying but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter that much. If you don’t want to be here more than anything, I can guarantee that within a few years you will have returned to where you came from because it’s just not worth the headache if being here isn’t worth it. For me, being here is worth every second and every penny.
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