I’m currently getting some guilt from a colleague at work because I’m not spending enough time…. davening.

before and after shaving, a photo by bachrach44 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
There is a period of time in Judaism between passover and shavuot known as the Omer. Historically, the first 32 days of the Omer saw calamities, and as such it is a period of semi-mourning. (If you want more, I’m sure wikipedia has plenty). One of the things some people do during this period is to refrain from shaving or hair cutting. While I have never gotten a hair cut during this period, ever since college I’ve always had excuses for why I needed to shave – namely that I was a professional, meeting with clients. bosses, and colleagues, and needed to look the part. This year I had no such excuse. I work from home, I have no clients, my colleagues are all Jewish, and I’m sure a decent number of them will also be refraining from shaving, so even if they do see me on skype (it’s a startup – we all work from our respective homes), so no one would be at all surprised. So, much to Rebecca’s annoyance I grew my omer/Hockey playoff beard. Well the Flyers got bounced, and the 33rd day of the Omer (known as Log b’omer) arrived. I have never had a haircut feel this good in my life.

Here’s one I’m sure Ms. Manners never addressed – Bibi Netanyahu is sitting shiva for his father next door. Like right next door – I can actually here him saying kaddish as I type this and I already said hi to the sniper on the roof. (The building next door is shorter than ours so our balcony actually looks down on it). Do I pay a shiva call?

ancient pottery, a photo by bachrach44 on Flickr.

This was an awesome find. We were walking along the beach in northern Israel, about a mile south of Rosh Hanikrah. (the white limestone cliffs which sit on the Israeli-Lebanese border). Having been tipped off by biblewalks.com, I passed what was once an ancient rock quarry, near what was the biblical town of Misrephothmaim, which is mentioned in the book of Joshua as the farthest northern city that Joshua conquered. I looked at the remains of an ancient pier for a while and then started to walk inland again. The terrain was sandy and rocky. I looked at a pile of pebbles at my feet and noticed something – about half of them were not pebbles. Almost all the red rocks in this picture are actually ancient pottery.

Those of you who know me well know I love Pesach, and will probably have some Pesach related posts coming up (I’ve been reading some interesting archaeology books related to the exodus story, and some interesting works in the history of the haggadah). For now though, I have humor. Courtesy of Modest Proposals comes the haggadah roundup.

People keep asking me why I’m in Israel. While I’ve given different answers to different people, all of which are true, this is about as close to the whole truth as I can come. Years ago, while on a visit to Israel, I stumbled across the poem Tourists by Yehuda Amichai. My current sojourn to Israel has it’s root in the second half of that poem:

Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.” “But he’s moving, he’s moving!”

I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, ”You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.”

It took years for those words to sink in, and even longer for them to manifest into action. I am here, ultimately, because I want to change my perspective on Israel. I’ve seen Israel as a tourist on many occasions. I’ve read about it’s history and culture. I’ve explored the ruins, touched the stones of the western wall, and climbed Masada. I’ve stared at all the models in the museums and fathomed the depth and breadth of the history and holiness that is here. However, Amichai is right. it wasn’t enough to see Israel, I wanted to experience it. Not just the past, but the present and future of Israel, and by extension the present and future of all Jews. I wanted to be a part of it.

People keep asking me how Israel is going. The truth is, there have been many many negative experiences. Far more than I expected. It is very difficult, and compared to the way things were beforehand, life is really hard right now. But I’m okay with that. I didn’t come here for a positive experience, I came for experience itself.

As far as I can tell, a 60s-style cultural revolution never really happened in Israel. In the 60s and early 70s Israel was still a fledgling state fighting for survival. It fought major wars in 67 and 73, there was the so-called war of attrition from 67-70, incursions by the PLO in the 70s, and the first Lebanon war in 78. Frankly the Woodstock generation was busy.

One of the developments to come out of the 60s was the notion that separate but equal was wrong. (By this I mean on a societal level for all institutions – not the famous court case). In Israel, separate but equal is alive and well. There are separate schools for religious and non-religious children. In some areas Ashkenazi and Sephardi pupils are separated. Many parts of society seem to be divided along racial, ethnic, religious, and gender lines. They have separate neighborhoods, schools, civic organizations, ambulance services, political parties, newspapers, and citizenship requirements.

As an American I find this very confusing and a little disturbing because we believe that this type of segregation is inherently wrong, even if we can’t identify which group is the “oppressed” one. However, it doesn’t seem to bother the natives much. While their is clearly some jealousy (how come “they” get privilege X?), most seem happy to be given autonomy and not have to submit to the tyranny of the majority.

I don’t think I’m qualified to render a value judgement on this at this time. It does tend to lead to a certain lack of understanding or appreciation for “the other” and there is clearly tension where different “tribes” interact. However it has also allowed many distinct groups to retain an identity that would otherwise be absorbed into the whole.

We’re used to seeing personalized mouse pads, coffee mugs, keychains, and other knick-nacks thanks to websites like snapfish. The newest trend in Israel, at least judging from the deal-of-the-day websites I frequent, is personalized hagaddahs. (You can see one example here, although I’ve seen offers for several). It honestly seems like a great thing to do to keep the seder interesting for little kids – put in appropriate family photographs on various pages. Perhaps even stage a few photographs (allright kids, who wants to be the wicked son this year?), and you’ve got a great seder conversation piece. I would be tempted to buy one, except I don’t feel that I have the time to assemble one right now, and with small kids family pictures tend to become dated by the next year. Hopefully someone will be smart enough to bring these to the US by next year.

…for running.

This morning, I and thousands of other people ran in the Jerusalem marathon/half marathon/10K/4.2K race. I did the half marathon. Jerusalem is an extremely hard place to run. There simply aren’t any big parks or other spaces to run, so you either have to do 10 loops around Sacker park, or dodge cars, fumes, and red lights on the streets. It’s also very hilly, and at about a half mile of elevation. My last few training runs hadn’t gone so well (in part due to the aforementioned difficulties, plus bad weather and illness), so I wasn’t too sure of myself going in. It rained overnight and the weather was threatening all morning. It was also very windy, to the extent that I (and several other people I witnessed) had my kippah blow off my head multiple times. Then around mile 6 it started to hail. Not rain mind you, but bona-fide iceballs-falling-from-the-sky-and-bouncing-off-the-sidewalk type hail. I’ve run in light rain before, but hail is something else. The hail did eventually peter out and turn into a nice downpour the lasted till around mile 10.

Jerusalemites seem to always want an excuse to throw a carnival, and the weather did not dampen their spirits. Several places on the race course had clowns, jugglers, music, people, and stilt walkers. (Stilt walking is big here in Jerusalem – no pun intended). One area had even been taken over by South Africans blowing vuvuzelas. There were also a lot of little boys leaning over the barricades trying to high five all the runners as they passed – how can you not love it?

Somehow, I survived. Which, I guess, is the important part. Looking on the positive side, I can now say I’ve probably done the hardest race of my life, and everything else should be easier from here on out. Looking to the negatives, well, ow.

The talk of Israel right now is something known as the Iron Dome, (Or כיפת ברזל in Hebrew) but it’s received very little coverage in the American media, even in the context of the current hostilities between Israel and Gaza. For the last few days, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been sending a barrage of rockets into Israel, and Israel has been carrying out targeted killings in the Gaza strip. Although both of these are practically ongoing events in this area (which is why it’s always impossible to tell who actually “started” anything), there has been a marked uptick in intensity over the last few days. There have been over 300 rockets fired, and 23 targeted killings. This honestly looks a lot like the beginnings of the 2008 Gaza war, with one key exception – the Iron Dome.

The Iron Dome, partially underwritten by the Obama administration (I’m glad I get something for my tax dollars while I’m away), is a battery of missile intercepting rockets. It’s been working extremely well, to the point that as of right now, the death toll is Israel from this barrage is still zero. It’s interception rate was 90% for the first few days of hostilities, and about 75% to date. People seem to be generally impressed with the system’s performance, and it has provided Israelis with a sense of security that they haven’t had in some time. Hopefully that sense of security will help to prevent another Gaza war. It’s also just nice to see playing defense getting some attention for once. Whether in war or the NFL, it’s usually the offensive players that get the headlines while the defensive players labor in relative anonymity.

In the United States I’m sure all the grocery stores have had large sections of kosher for passover food out for about a month now. Here in Israel, matza only appeared in our local grocery store after purim, and other things have only begun to show up this week. The full blown kosher for passover food section is still a ways away. Partly this is because Israelis don’t have the storage space that Americans do. A lot of this though seems to be because Israelis just don’t seem to ever plan in advance. While it’s nice not to have to put up with constant holiday creep (tell me – where the Christmas decorations up before halloween this year?), it is a little frustrating, especially for someone like me who likes things planned in advance, to always be figuring things out on the fly.

I started working for an Israeli firm known as Appsec-labs a little while back. We’re a small company with no real office – everyone works from home or a client site, and we meet once a month in a cafe to get together, discuss business, have a few drinks, etc. Sunday was our most recent monthly get together. At one point early on we looked around and realized a few people were missing. One was running late because his bus was running late. A second wasn’t coming because it was a family member’s wedding. A third wasn’t coming because he lived in Ashdod, and he wanted to stay with his family while they were under attack. This was clearly the first time I’d heard this particular excuse used to miss a business meeting, and I guess my surprise showed. The Israelis were all somewhat amused (although completely unsurprised) by my reaction.