It’s Definitely Summer, but It Ain’t No Summer Vacation 18/8/09

I have been in an extended finals period since June 28^th. I have reached a point where I can no longer look at anything that has to do with school or my paper that I’m supposed to be writing or the three finals that I still have to take. It’s almost like a sick joke that Israel plays on its college students: we have “vacation” from the end of June until the end of October, but we are theoretically taking finals until mid-September. Its nuts. I mean I would rather spread out my 13 finals than take them all at once, but still, this is quite ridiculous.

Ok done complaining.

This summer I have had the opportunity to experience some pretty cool things through the framework of my studies. I spent 2 weeks on the archaeological dig at Tel E’ton

, about 10 Kilometers from Lachish. The dig was amazing. It was incredibly hard work: wake up at 4am, dig from 5am-1pm all hard physical labor, but I learned a lot and had a really amazing experience. One of the best experiences was one morning on the way to the dig I went with my friend in his car instead of taking the bus. He had the radio on to one of the national stations and just before the clock struck 5am they broadcast the Shema and then a Chapter of the Mishna (Oral Law) to start the day off with some Jewish learning. I had no idea that anything like that existed. My friend explained that at 5am on this channel and 6am on another they broadcast this every morning to mark the start of their new day (even though they broadcast continuously throughout the night). I was in shock. I was so pleased and impressed that the

country started its day with the Shema and some Jewish learning. There are so many times when the arguments about the character of this country and the fights between the secular Jews and religious Jews are unbearable, but this simple act that took less than 30 seconds helped make it clear that I live in the Jewish Homeland. It was inspiring and uplifting, and made me feel blessed that I was up at 5am to experience it.

This past week I also got to experience my First Anniversary. It is unbelievable that a year has gone by so quickly. It seems like it was only a few months ago that we got married! This has been a wonderful year for us where we have built our home and strengthened our relationship. To celebrate we stuffed our faces at the all-you-can-eat Brazilian Buffet at Papagaio (thanks mom and dad), we spent Friday playing on the beach and going sailing, and to top it all off we had a lovely, relaxing Shabbat together at home. It’s been really nice to be able to look back over the last year with such fond memories, and we look forward to many many many more happy years together!

I’m still here 5/7/09

I just wanted to drop a quick line and confirm my existence! I am currently in my second week of finals (that will last until September- woo hoo) and it’s a bit intense. I can’t believe that I have finished my coursework for my first year of University in Israel. Time has flown by so quickly. This year has been so wonderful. I have learned an amazing amount about Israel, her history, archaeology, and culture. It has been fascinating and I

can’t wait to start learning again next year! I am also a little sad though. This year was so much fun and I made such a amazing friends, but I know that next year won’t be the same. One of my closest friends is getting married and moving to Haifa, another of my closest friends is moving to the school of Social Work, and my department is splitting up between those who wish to concentrate on Archaeology and those who wish to focus of Geographical History. We have had so much this year and really built an amazing “Chevre”. We even had a picnic on the last day of classes because we like spending time together so much. I feel so blessed to have found such an amazing family in school, and I can’t wait to spend more time with them over the next few years! The summer is going to be hectic for me- I have 13 tests and a paper as well as 2 weeks of an academic archaeological dig so hopefully I’ll be able to check in every once in a while! Happy Summer everyone!

The Life of an Army Wife 17/5/09

I am very proud of David and the work he does in the army. He works very hard in a very important job, and I know that he is actively contributing to the security of this country. Unfortunately this all comes at the expense of his time with me. After about 3 and a half years together I am more than used to getting by on my own and filling my time without him, but I always have a guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach when I’m having fun without him. Usually, When David is away and I’m having fun he’s doing something physically and mentally tasking and not fun at all. A perfect example is our pre-wedding menu-tasting: David was on a field exercise eating kosher spam and barely sleeping while I got to have a fabulous gourmet meal with family and friends in anticipation of the wedding. I don’t think David has ever gotten over that disappointment and is still waiting for us to be invited to another wedding at the same hall so he can finally taste the food. We have finally reached a new stage in our “he leaves me home alone” relationship: I am starting to take longer trips for school and during the summer I will be gone for two weeks straight for an archaeological dig. And I’m torn. After all of this time that he’s had to leave me for really important things I feel even more guilty for leaving him and extending the stretches of time that we won’t be able to be together. I guess I have to get used to it if I want to be a tour guide and be bouncing around the country all the time! All of this is practice for the real world, because as I try to keep reminding myself, its not only the army that separates us, its life and we have to get used to being together while being apart. It sounds ironic that this would be an issue for us after all of the time I spent in the states while we were together, but its so different now that we’re married and have gotten used to seeing each other all the time!!

A Proper Memorial Day 7/5/09 (Warning, It’s Long)

Last Week was Israeli Memorial Day and Independace Day. The experience here in Israel is very different from that in America, and this year my experience was truly special. Unfortunately David was on duty the entire time so I made plans with friends to take the car and have a real Memorial Day. I went with my friends Merav and Shira who are both tour guides, know every inch of this country by heart, and love to find special things. I was their chauffer and they were my guides on what has so far been the most moving and meaningful Memorial Day I have ever experienced. We had to have David on base by 7am so we got a really early start. Our first destination was a place called “Givat Tom ve’Tomer” (Tom and Tomer Hill). It is a personal memorial on the outskirts of Kibbutz Negba to the 73 soldiers who were killed in the “Helicopter Tragedy” February 4, 1997. Two transport helicopters collided in mid-air and everyone aboard was killed. The father of one of the soldiers, a resident of the Kibbutz, had a very hard time recovering from the loss of his son. He decided to build a personal memorial and garden in memory of his son and of the other fallen soldiers. The site is barely a hill, but you can see it from far away because the electric pole that runs through is painted like a sky with 73 doves on it in memory of each of the soldiers. We were there by 7:30 just as the caretaker was setting up for the day- they already had tens of groups planning to come. He explained that the father had recently had a stroke and that he takes care of the garden for him. He asked us to help him clean off the signs as we were walking through if we didn’t mind. Obviously we didn’t. The garden was small but beautiful and so unbelievably peaceful. He purposely planted only plants that are indigenous to Israel because, as he wrote on one of the plaques in the garden, that this was the greenery that the soldiers walked through and served in and experienced during their service and it was a tribute to them. All throughout the garden are places to stop and sit and reflect as well as large stone memorials bearing the names of all of the fallen, where they were from, where they served, and whatever other little anecdotes their families wished to have added. All throughout the garden are newspaper clippings and letters from the families about their loved ones. It is a small and nondescript place, but it is filled with so much love and pain and memory that it was tangible. Places like this exist all over the country and it was nice to get to see one for myself. I had a very strange feeling while walking through the garden. I felt as if I were an outsider encroaching on other peoples lives and other peoples pain. My friends were very emotional thinking about all of their friends and loved ones who have fallen- and the number is unfortunately not small, and all I could think about was an additional facet to the sacrifice that I made when I decided to move here. My children will know this pain. They will be surrounded with it their entire lives and I have brought it upon them. My friends thought that this was a very interesting observation and I think started to understand a bit more what exactly is entailed in making Aliyah.
Our next stop was to a nearby hill that was capture by Battalion 53 of the Givati Bridage in the War of Independence. This Battalion doesn’t exist anymore, but many of its soldiers are still alive. Every year they have a ceremony on that hill (where there is also a memorial). Shira found the place a year and a half ago. She is from that area and had always passed by without ever stopping in to check it out. One day she went with friends just before Memorial Day and there was an old man there who was missing a hand and was setting things up. They started talking to him and it turns out that he was one of the soldiers in the Battalion (he lost his hand in the war… he was a sapper who had laid all of the mines in the whole area) and was in charge of the ceremony every year. The girls stayed there for a few hours listening to his story and they promised to come back for the ceremony. Shira couldn’t make it because her grandmother had passed away and she needed to be with her family so it was especially important for her to go this year. She had stayed in touch with him and he even sent her books that were written about the Battalion. His biggest fear is that once the remaining members of the Battalion pass away there will be no one to conduct the ceremony in honor of their fallen heroes from the War of Independence. When we got there he immediately recognized her and it was clear just how happy he was that we had come and that Shira had remembered. The ceremony was simple and sweet and showed that these men were true heroes. The man honored to light the memorial flame was in a wheelchair and needed 3 people to help him make it to the platform but he wanted to walk and nothing was going to stop him. This man had commanded a convoy that came under attack and then was abandoned by other forces when the convoy got stuck in the mud. He commanded his troops for almost 8 hours stuck inside their armored vehicles under constant enemy fire without food or water until help could reach them. He kept them all alive. The Battalion Commander, who is 94 and still completely lucid, also spoke. Even at 94 it was clear that this man was a wonderful leader and a powerful influence on people. He said that 61 years after the war he still feels the need to apologize to the families who’s sons and brothers and fathers he wasn’t able to keep safe. This man helped start the Nachal Brigade as well as was a founding member of a few of Israel’s cities. It was truly an honor to be part of such a special and rare and almost extinct ceremony.
Next we went to the military cemetery in Kiryat Anavim in the Jerusalem hills (actually it’s the town directly down the mountain from where I got married) where the fallen from the Palmach’s “Har’el Brigade” are buried. The ceremony itself was the usual standard government ceremony with yet another 2 minute siren (see my last post about the sirens). It was special because a distant relative of Merav’s was killed in the Battle for the Castel and her family came to visit his grave. The other reason coming to this specific ceremony is special is because all of the former Palmachniks who are still alive come to honor their friends. When the ceremony is over they stay and talk. They talk about their war experiences and their friends to anyone who is willing to listen. We stayed for two hours after the ceremony to listen to them talk. These men standing and sitting before us are the people who liberated Jerusalem and broke the siege. It was amazing to get to sit and listen to the people that I’ve been learning about in school talk about one of the most interesting and exciting times in Israel’s short history. I felt truly honored to be in their presence and still can’t believe that I was so lucky to be able to be there and here the stories first hand.
Since we were so close to my cousin’s house we popped in for a visit and then we had a picnic in nearby Yad Hashmona (a town that was founded in memory of Holocaust victims) in an area looking over the mountains. Shira and Merav had brought a guitar with them and had downloaded the chords and lyrics for every Memorial Day song that exists. All day during the drives they were playing and singing. During our picnic we just sat for hours singing songs and enjoying the wonderful country that we are so lucky to have.
For the transition ceremony between Memorial Day and Independence Day I went to Efrat with David’s family because they always have a really sweet and nice ceremony. During the ceremony they have people they wish to honor light torches “for the Glory of the State of Israel”. The first family honored to light a torch was the Goodman Family. Many of you will know them through their Houston branch. Their son Yoesf was killed in a parachuting accident in February 2006. The family currently has 3 other sons serving in the army. All of them are in combat positions and two are in the very same unit that Yosef served in. When Ann and Goodman (the mother) walked onto the stage with her sons all in uniform and their father Mordechai I already started to tear up. Ann walked up the microphone and said with pride in her voice that they were lighting the torch in honor of the soldiers and all of the defense forces with pride and love and understanding of personal sacrifice. I totally lost it. Standing in front of me were the true heroes of this country. Instead of being angry about the loss of their son and demanding that their others not go to the army or serve in only non-combat positions, they understand Zionism and love for this country and they sent their other sons to battle anyway. These are the people on whose backs and hearts this country has been built and is continuing to be supported. Without people like the Goodmans who are filled with the utmost sense of purpose and dedication we would be nowhere. I am proud to know a family like that and hope that one day I will be able to be even a fraction as strong as they are.

Heart Piercing Unity 21/4/09

Today is Yom Hashoah Ve’Hagevura (Holocaust Remembrance Day). The way Israel marks today as well as Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers (next week) is by the sounding of an air raid siren simultaneously across the whole country. Everything and Everyone stops and stands at attention during the siren in a moment of non-silence. The sound of the siren fills you in a similar way that I feel the shofar does. When you stand at attention and let the sound pierce your heart and mind it forces you to take a deep breath and really think about things. It is not a sound that one can ignore. This morning I had the privilege of being at home during the siren where I have a view of part of the Bar Ilan campus as well as Highway 4 which is one of Israel’s main North/South routes. I was almost afraid that people wouldn’t stop and respect the siren on the highway, but my worry was proven unfounded. Huge semi-trailers grounded to a halt, people got out of their cars, and people everywhere just stood at attention. Only in Israel could the entire country bind together for an entire minute and a half of complete unity and complete understanding of why there is a need to take time to remember in the first place. Being able to experience that unity so strikingly brings me to tears every time. I don’t think I would be willing to give up this remarkable place for anything.

Becoming a Soldier While Staying Human 28/1/09

Last night David and I had the incredible pleasure of standing in for Yoni’s parents at his unit’s Parent’s Night. Yoni is a lone soldier and one of our best friends. We have in many ways “adopted” him and are always thrilled to be able to be there for him in any way we can while he goes through so much and his family is so far away. Aside from the great experience of simply being there for Yoni, last night was a very inspiring evening and really got me thinking.

Yoni is a squad commander (I think that’s the translation…basically it’s the lowest level commander that belongs to each unit.) He has a small group of soldiers under his personal command and he is their link to the officers, the person with whom they come into contact the most, and the first person they go to with their problems. It was so nice to get to see him with his soldiers and to meet his officers and all of the people he spends all day every day with.

The evening started out with food (more munchies than dinner but whatever) and schmoozing. Then the commanding officer gave a nice speech and handed out certifications of recognition to soldiers and commanders who are excelling. After commending the soldiers, the commanding officer honored a few parents who have gone above and beyond to make sure that everything the unit needs is taken care of. They planned a Chanukkah Party for the unit and spoiled them like crazy apparently.

The end of the evening was a concert. One of the soldiers mothers used to be in a famous old school Israeli band (Gevatron) and organized to have a famous Mizrachi (the nasal whiney music that sounds like its in Arabic) singer come and perform for the soldiers and their families. The soldiers pretty quickly jumped out of their seats and went down to dance. It was so fun and funny watching them dance together. These awkward boys who have been in the army only 6 months were jumping around and having fun together, and their parents got to see it. The evening made me do a lot of thinking…

I have always wondered how Israeli society can exist as such a militarily centered society and still be so normal. (Israel has plenty of other problems, but I don’t think they come from the army exclusively.)The goal of basic and advanced training is to take boys and break them so they can be reshaped into men, into soldiers. I have many friends who are soldiers and it has always fascinated me how they seem to snap into and out of their army personas. David is not a combat soldier and while he has a bit of the same schizophrenia like personality change his are less extreme. Last night I got an interesting glimpse into the world that produces killing machines (for all intents and purposes) that can still go home to their families on the weekends and be the same person they were when they left. Watching the boys, and they are very very much still children, letting loose and dancing and smiling and having fun made me want to cry. Watching them dance with their units and officers and grow close to them was heartwarming. I couldn’t help but think that in the next war these boys would be fighting alongside these friends and putting their lives on the line for each other and for all of the rest of us. The importance of the trust and love and bonds between these boys as they grow into men was not lost on me. I don’t think it was lost on the parents present either.

Brothers in Arms I think is a great term to describe the phenomenon. The soldiers can stay human because the bonds built between them and their comrades are human. Together with their officers they are building a supportive family. They are working very hard to train for a very hard job that is for the benefit of us all. They can stay human because their task is a just task. Protecting the Jewish Nation is one of the most just tasks any Jew can take on. They go into battle with their heads held high because they know they are protecting themselves, their brothers, and all of their loved ones back at home. The path is not an easy one, and each one of those soldiers would rather be traveling the world or starting college. They understand the need for them and the importance of their mission. They have volunteered to be where they are because as long as we live in a place that needs protecting there will be people volunteering to protect us.

I don’t know how I’m going to feel as the years go by and my children enter the army. I maintain no illusions that by the time I have children and they are old enough to go into the army there will be no need for an army. Israel will always have to fight for its existence. It is depressing, but it is what I believe. At least right now I feel good knowing that the army they will be going into will at least try to build them into better and stronger people who understand the importance of their mission and who can hold their heads high while accomplishing it.

I Have Friends In Hebrew!!! 28/1/09

I have reached one of the most important milestones that a new immigrant to any place can reach. I have friends in Hebrew. They are real friends and not just people that I smile at during class while I sit alone too afraid and uncomfortably to really talk to. We hang out outside of class. We talk on the phone. We share things. We are real friends- and our only common language is not my mother tongue. It is relatively easy to reach a level of fluency where casual conversation with random people is possible or where grocery shopping isn’t a nightmare or where the bus drivers know what you are asking them. The next big step is being able to understand most of what you see or hear or read. That comes with a bit more effort and makes life so much easier. But to bridge the final gap that is more mental and cultural than anything else is where the real challenge lies.

Bar Ilan has a very large Anglo population. If I wanted, I could make a group of English speaking friends and only speak Hebrew in my actual classes. I speak English at home with David so there was no opportunity for me to practice before school started. Fortunately, I am in a department with no other native English speakers. There are some who were born here whose parents are American and who speak English fluently but they are Israeli’s and I didn’t realize they spoke English until months into the program. I entered a situation where it was either speak Hebrew or be lonely. I decided to just suck it up and speak Hebrew. It is such an amazing feeling when I realize that I spend entire days conversing and learning in the language that I have spent so much time and effort trying to learn. (Tip for potential Olim, Uplan is not a burden, it is the key to successful and easy absorption and it is a mistake to put it off.) I feel like I have really achieved something and I am so excited. My friends didn’t blink twice when they heard my accent or my sometimes halted speech. They just continued to talk to me as if nothing was strange. They correct me now and again for my benefit, but for the most part we have a completely normal relationship. It just makes me so happy and proud of myself. I no longer feel even a little bit left out of the world that I live in and now I really truly feel at home.

The only downside is that I am starting to lose my English. A friend told me that he heard that you can’t really learn a new language completely until you forget your mother tongue. Only then can you start to re-learn both languages at a truly fluent level. Well, I am at the stage of forgetting. Sometimes I can only think of a word in Hebrew and forget the English completely. The worst is when I know what I want to say but I can’t think of the exact word in either language. Then I feel completely lost. I am trying to keep up my reading in English but it only helps a little. David is useless in this matter because his English is much worse than mine and it is steadily declining the more he is in the army and has no opportunity to use English ever. Today I was giving a presentation on a paper I had written in Hebrew, but to be cute I wanted to say part of it in English since I had written about the US. In the middle I couldn’t think of a term and switched automatically back into Hebrew. It was really scary. I know that its just part of the normal process, but I hope that along with my gains in my new language my losses from my old won’t be too great.

New Year

**Disclaimer: I’m in bed sick with a sinus infection gone bad. I apologize in advance if some of the things I write don’t make complete sense. My brain is functioning on cold meds… but I couldn’t sit here anymore and not write anything.**

I just want to start out by stressing that David and I are both safe and sound. He is very busy in the army, but due to the nature of his job he is not and will not be fighting in any front lines. His unit is working in shifts so he is even able to come home relatively often to catch up on sleep and see me. We live in a city near Tel Aviv that is (for now at least) out of the range of the rockets coming in from Gaza.

It’s been a strange and surreal week and transition into the new year. It is surreal mostly because I am so far away from it all. I live too far away from Gaza to hear anything but the occasional jet flying overhead from one of the air force bases in the area. For all intents and purposes my life is going on completely normally. The main connection that I have to the war is the radio. They are announcing whenever there are sirens sounding in communities in the south. My only real picture of what it is like there is to read the news and to listen to the frequency of the sirens. It was the same way during the Second Lebanon War. I was in Jerusalem, and if I hadn’t been an informed citizen or hadn’t had a cousin fighting up there I would have had no idea that a war was on.

I’m not really sure what it is really that I am feeling or what it is that I mean to say. I pray and I hope with all of my being that this government doesn’t make the same mistakes it made two years ago. I hope we finish this fight and leave when we are ready and have fully achieved our goals to bring real security to the South. Last time, the government agreed on a cease-fire that brought us nothing because Hezbollah is still rearming and gathering strength on our Northern Border and UNIFIL is doing nothing to stop them. I hope that our soldiers are not going in and risking their lives for nothing. I am very scared for them. At this point in my life almost all of my friends are in the army. Most of them I know are not in Gaza itself, but there are many that I am not sure where they are or what they are doing. The scariest thing, I think is not knowing. I’ve been sitting at home (sick) for the last almost week and have been doing nothing but scouring the news for more and more information. Especially now that the ground incursion has started I listen to the news with bated breath and am relieved every time there is no report of new injuries.

It’s scary and upsetting the thought that we’re at war, but if we really can bring real quiet and security to the entire Southern part of the country then it is all worth it. We deserve the same right to self-defense that every other sovereign nation in the world deserves. I am proud that we are exercising it and pray the world will allow us to defend ourselves. The New Year passed here with little to no notice. Hopefully it will bring with it a new reality. Hopefully Israel can reassert its deterrence capability. Hopefully we can rid our borders of terrorists who’s goal is to destroy us.