I think it might be the nature of Jerusalem that makes it impossible not to find symbolism in even the smallest actions. To that end, and because a picture is worth a thousand words, I present a pictoral history of the free Gilad Shalit encampment, followed by photos I took a few weeks ago of workers dismantling that same encampment.

If I’ve learned anything so far in my excursion to Israel, it’s to have more respect for immigrants. Frankly, this is really, really, really hard. Small errands that used to take twenty minutes now turn into half day excursions. Methods I used to use to find information no longer work. The “fine print” has gone from time consuming to “completely unreadable” because it’s in another language. Even things which are supposed to be helpful (like traffic lights and signs) are suddenly of limited value due to either cultural or linguistic differences. I know in the long run these are all things which will get better – my language skills will improve, I will become more acclimated to the culture, I will find other support systems to replace the ones I’m used to (what’s the Israeli equivalent of slickdeals?), and I will eventually know the bus routes like the back of my hand. However right now, it’s just really really frustrating.

Seeing as I’m a big fan of his, I felt I had to try the Rambam’s drink when I found it at machane yehuda. It was very… almondy. Overall I can’t say it’s high on my list of food recommendations.

On a totally unrelated note for those of you who read this blog through the RSS feed and don’t see the images on the sidebar, I’ve added a bunch of photos to the flickr stream – both of sites in Jerusalem, and picture of the kids acting cute.

Rebecca and I realized we had nothing in particular that we had to do today (this is actually a first), so we decided to go to the old city and the kotel. When we got there, we discovered that it was the Ethiopian Jewish holiday of Sigd. (I discovered this of course by googling “what Ethiopian Jewish holiday is it today” on my iPhone when I noticed a large prayer service of Beta Israel chanting in Amharic.) There was initially a fairly basic prayer service (or at least, basic from the parts I overheard), followed by some sort of chanting in Amharic that was well coordinated between two people (perhaps reading from the torah). At one point several people got up from the group to start dancing, and that’s when everyone stopped to watch.

If you want to know more about the holiday, check out the IAEJ page – they have the best single description I could find on the web. The only problem is that for some reason their webserver keeps trying to redirect the user to a new website which doesn’t have all the same content, so just hit your browser’s stop button before you can be redirected. It’s worth the read.

For years now I’ve said that the race I’d most like to see/participate in would be to run up the down escalators at one of DC’s metro stops with the long escalators – perhaps Wheaton or Dupont circle. I can’t figure out why no local radio station has thought of this and turned it into a contest. (Also whenever I get off at Wheaton, I take it as a matter of pride to walk up all 230 feet without stopping for breath.)

Anyway, I now have something better – stair races. Holy cow do these things look awesome. It combines three of the things I like – meaningless competition, skyscrapers, and looking down on people. The famous Azrieli towers in Tel-Aviv host a stair race every year. That’s 1144 stairs, from the parking garage to floor 49. (Fairly awesome video of last year’s race). I’ve missed the cut off date for this year’s (the race is tomorrow), but you can bet I’ll be there next year. Here’s the real question though – where on earth do I train?

There is an Israeli food known as שניצל (shnitzel). I have eaten it many times, both in Israel and the US. To the best of my knowledge it has always been a fairly simple food – basically breaded fried chicken breast. The variety of types of shnitzel available here has taken me somewhat by surprise. In a few local grocery stores it seems like half the frozen food section is taken up by shnitzel. There are dozens of types – chicken, turkey, various styles of fake meat, broccoli, corn, fish, you name it. I honestly had no idea shnitzel could even refer to things other than chicken.

When Jews meet, we love to see who we know in common. In part it’s a way of confirming the other person is part of the same group as you, in part it’s a throwback to the days when Jews were geographically dispersed and wandering countrymen were the best way to get news about the rest of the tribe. Since Israel now has the majority of the world’s Jewish population it has become a great place for Jewish geography. Already I’ve run into:

• Dan D. – an old friend from DC who I didn’t know was even in Israel. He’s getting married in Dec and is working for a law firm here.
• Nili A. – another old friend from DC who I did know was living here.
• Mrs. Sacher – The grandmother of another old friend from DC happens to live across the hall from us.
• The paramedic who did CPR on the man who used to live in this apartment. Yeah, this is a small country.

With my year in Israel, I’d wanted to run the Jerusalem half marathon. My dad was going to be in town for Passover, but the half marathon was too far from passover for him to make one very long visit, and it doesn’t make sense to do two short trips so close together. Then he found the Tel-Aviv half marathon. It’s two weeks later, so he could include it in the Passover visit. Having accepted his challenge, I now have to start training. With all the craziness surrounding the move, I’ve only run twice since the 10K in Rockville about a month ago.

Today was my first run in Jerusalem, and I must say, running in this city is tough. All the roads are narrow and twisty, the sidewalks even more so, and cars park on the sidewalks. The terrain is extremely hilly. And when I finally did find my way to sacher park (the only flat place in the area), I discovered that for some reason joggers here run on the left. I can’t imagine why – they drive on the right, and I’d always assumed that the two were related.

Food shopping in Israel is a lot harder than in the US – there are so many more choices! In the states, let’s say I want to buy yogurt. While there are 50 brands, I know that my local grocery store carries about four which are kosher. Of those two are the extra-sugary type I don’t like, so that leaves me just two, so I buy whichever one is cheaper. I just came back from Rami-Levy where I must have spent 20 minutes in the yogurt section – there must have been 20 different kinds of yogurt. How am I supposed to choose? Not to mention that it’s all in Hebrew which makes everything take longer.

On Friday night my brother and his family came over for shabbat dinner. I walked them part way home, which ended up taking us through mea shearim - perhaps the most ultra-orthodox neighborhood in the world where almost all of the modern amenities (television, the internet, women working outside the home, miniskirts, red clothing, and birth control to name a few) are forbidden.  I’m not usually a big fan of gawking at chasidim so it’s a place I’ve only been when I had an actual reason to go, and this was the first time I’ve ever been there on shabbat. As you could expect, the streets were filled. What was most surprising was not that small children were in the streets – they’re blocked off to vehicular traffic on shabbat, but that kids as young as 5 seemed to be wandering around with no adult supervision. In Israel kids seem to be allowed to roam alone at far younger ages than in the states, but mea shearim really took the cake.

My brother also took me on a brief tour and explained the politics of the pashkvilim (street posters – the best way to disseminate information to a geographically contained group of people without radios, TVs, or computers). Since Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the rosh yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva had died earlier that week, the area was packed with death notices for him from a variety of groups. Since Finkel was a member of degel hatorah, some of the posters had been put up by degel hatorah and included their logo in the corner. Almost all of those had the degel hatorah logo ripped off by the locals – being in any way engaged in secular politics in considered to be engaging with the outside and unclean world. While Rb Finkel himself was too respected for his name to be torn down, any reference to a political party is still unwelcome.

Google translate has proven it’s weight in gold already by helping me translate information from banks, phone companies, cable companies, and more. While my Hebrew isn’t awful, the scope of my vocabulary is somewhat limited. My religious background has taught me a slew of words relating to mundane everyday activities. The Hebrew class I took taught me how to order food in a restaurant, make an appointment, and be a tourist. Nothing however has taught me how to open a bank account, order internet service, or read a warranty. It’s those situations where google translate comes in useful. Today for example, I went to the bank. After looking up a few words while waiting in line, I confidently strode up to the counter and announced to the clerk that I wanted to retreat.

Thankfully the man behind me in line spoke English and helped translate.

Shalom haver, a photo by bachrach44 on Flickr.

When I first moved to DC I remember one Friday I had no afternoon classes, so I took a walk to see the city. I didn’t have any particular destination in mind, but wandered randomly till I came to the whitehouse and was awestruck. How cool was it to live so close to the president?

Last Saturday night after the kids were asleep I went for a walk again. My initial purpose was to buy a corkscrew (I plan on drinking a lot of good kosher Israeli wine this year), but when that was accomplished quickly I just kept walking. I walked through emek refaim, and noticed I was close to yemin Moshe. When I walked to the windmill, I realized I was close to the old city. You can probably guess how this trip ended up. I ended up at the kotel, which is surprisingly busy at 11pm on a Saturday night. There were chasidic maariv minyans about every 5 minutes. A constant heavy stream of people coming and going, jetlagged tour groups there to sightsee, plenty of beggars, and even a gemarah shiur under Wilson’s arch.

Washington DC: 1
Jerusalem: 2