MONTH IN REVIEW

SINLESS BIRTHDAY

When I told people my birthday fell on Yom Kippur this year, they responded with speechlessness and sympathy. No frosted cupcakes or frothy beers for you this year. Just judgement, fasting and flagellating. It turned out to be one of my favorite days in Israel. On a day where we are obsess over transformation, hopeful and fearful, the entire city transforms. Normally, the roads near my apartment are busy with cars and trucks and busses spitting fumes. Most people wait for the electronic man to blink green before even thinking about crossing the street as the drivers are a bit agressive in this country. Jaywalking here could be a sport in the X-Games. Elisheva, my supervisor from Shatil gave the social justice fellows photocopies from a book about cultural exchanges between Americans and Israelis. One page contained a diagram of an Israeli parking lot and an American one. In the rendering of the Israeli lot, cars were parked in all different directions, on top of sidewalks and blocking each other in. What a country. Anyway, on Yom Kippur, no one drives. Instead, the streets are full of kids full of glee pedaling bicycles and circling on scooters. My favorite vehicle I spotted was a tricycle on a stick. Parents pushed kids along the paved surfaces of the busy Emek Refaim and General Pierre Koenig Streets. Couples in white flowy clothing walked with dogs. A group of teenage girls sat gossiping in the middle of the street. The city stopped to breathe. It was a refreshing day. After the sun slipped down and the gates swung shut, I celebrated being 22 with a delicious meal at the Jakar household and a gathering at a bar/movie theatre with new and old friends.

The country has been swept off its feet the past month, spinning from one chag (holiday) to the next. Wooden, leafy booths have descended on every kosher restaurant in the city, on balconies and in backyards. Many pilgrims have flocked to the city for the festival of Sukkoth. Some have even tried to lay the cornerstone for the Third Temple. A few nights ago, I dined with fellow Ramahnicks in the sukkah of the Seyah Family, who spent their first summer in Lake Como, PA this year with their three ridiculously adorable sons. Sheryl Seyah happens to be in the catering business. We reminisced about Ramah while nibbling on baked brie, roasted artichoke and goat cheese dip and plum torte. I am thankful for the Ramah connection - I have bumped into shlichim (Israelis who worked at camp) in coffee shops in my neighborhood, at bus stops in Ashkelon. I spent Rosh Hashannah with the Jakar and Brown families, who I grew up with at camp and the holidays felt like home.

GRAIL FOR SALE

I spent the beginning of sukkoth wandering in the desert, land reputed to be the grazing and stomping ground of the Israelites en route to the Promised Land. I took a four day trip to Jordan's Hashemite Kingdom with Hannah, her friend Ben from Morocco (from Philly) who is getting his Masters in Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University and Moshe, a frisbee playing geology buff studying at Ben Gurion University. Hannah is an Arabic wiz, which was not only vital in terms of getting around, but made the trip much more fun as she received multiple marriage proposals by men floored by her linguistic talents.

We crossed the border at the lip of the Red Sea, walking from Eilat to Aqabba. We hopped in the car with a "Turist Driver" we met a few steps into Jordan, who set us up with his friend Zeidan, who runs a Bedouin Meditation Camp in the patch of desert known as Wadi Rum. Zeidan drove off the road into a small village to fetch Mahmoud, who would be our guide for our day and a half of trekking in the desert. Zeidan and Mahmoud squeezed into the driver's seat together, speeding down strrips of road to Wadi Rum. I am mildly obsessed with the desert. Ever since I spent Passover in Namibia in 2004, I can't get enough of the red sand, dimpled dunes and towering ridges.

We arrived at the Bedouin Village inside the gate to the Wadi Rum nature reserve. Zedian offered us "shia," tea in his pink concrete home. We sat on cushions on the floor with floral patterns. On the wall, a picture was proudly displayed of Zeidan shaking hands with the King, the Crown Prince Abdullah. Many of the residents of the village had four-wheel drive vehicles parked in front of their homes, as guiding tourists through the desert is the main source of income for the village. We climbed into the back of a truck with a canvas roof and gripped the metal sides tightly as Mahmoud took off, spraying sand. There were footprints and hoof marks and jeep tracks in the grainy expanse. We stopped to see some Nabataean writings, to hop over boulders and to scale a shiny pumpkin colored dune. We arrived at the Meditation Camp for sunset. Mahmoud prepared more shia for us. He dug a pit of sand in which to roast shiny onions and potatoes, chicken (which I abstained from) and a stew of scarlet tomatoes, eggplant and cauliflower. The next morning we hiked back to the village. Upon arriving inside the border, the call to prayer blared from a speaker at the mosque. Each phrase stretched out in all directions, ricocheting off the massive faces of rock sourrounding the village.

We made our way to Wadi Musa (The Valley of Moses). As the story goes, somewhere around here, Moses struck the rock to get water for the parched Israelites and was consequently denied entry to the Promised Land. Wadi Musa is also the hub for tourist accomodations for people on their way to the lost city of Petra. We checked into a colorful hostel called the Valentine Inn, with tinsel decorations and posters imploring, "Smile!" The hotel boasted a 3JD (Jordanian Dinar) dinner buffet with over 20 salads and a "movie by consensus" every evening, which incidentally, always turns out to be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. At the entrance to Petra itself, you can visit the Indiana Jones Snack Shop, its marquis decorated with sketches of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. The Treasury at Petra is probably most famous for its role as the Temple in the film. Tourists like us flooded the dusty roads of Petra the next morning to gawk at the architectural wonders, columns carved from stone with rust, golden and violet swirls. Apparently Brown professor, Martha Joukowsky, was in charge of excavations at Petra. One of the many vendors selling drinks and jewelry inside Petra told us that there was a Brown University flag at the monastery. We ascended a trail that coiled around cliffs in search of this Holy Grail. We found only a lone donkey, grazing in front of the stone structure.

Our final destination on our Jordan jaunt was Amman, "a modern Arab city." We arrived in the afternoon. Moshe's father's colleague's brother Mohammed met up with us at our hostel in Amman the evening we arrived to give us a special tour of the city. He pointed out the Roman Ampitheatre, the monstrous U.S. Embassy, the largest in the Middle East and then led us on a pilgrimage to the Mecca Mall. During Ramadan, the city comes to life after sundown. The mall was packed with people. Children concentrated on cups of gelato. Men in Kafiyas wandered into the Timberland store. I saw a poster for the Chappelle Show DVD. A blend of tradition and change. There were women in hijabs (head scarves) and women with hair loose on their backs. In other parts of the city, it is rare to see women in cafes or restaurants at all. I was most struck by the Starbucks booth in the middle of the mall, with special marketing for the Ramadan season. "Share this special time. Gather. Enjoy," was scripted over an image of a the new Creme Brule Latte, its whipped cream dome huddling between silhouttes of mosques. Capitalism is indeed the universal language.

RAIN DANCING

The month of holidays drew to a close Tuesday evening, with the holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, squeezed into one day in Israel and spread over two days in the Diasporic world. We prayed for rain and danced with Torahs as we finished the cycle and rolled the scroll back to the beginning. I really love the prayer for rain. It courses through the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron mentioning the role of water in their lives and asking for water in ours "for a blessing, not a curse," and "for life and not death." (I'll be on the lookout a version that includes the matriarchs). This prayer spoke loudly to me after months of twirling tentacles of hurricanes tearing up homes in New Orleans, Mississippi, Texas, Mexico and Florida. Also, while guarantees of sunny days don't make me sad, I know the desert is thirsty. For the last round of holidays, I was content to celebrate our dynamic entanglements with nature and text in Jerusalem.

JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Prior to my tiyul (trip) in Jordan, I was a non-profit tourist for 6 weeks in Israel. There are so many issues in this nation(s)-state the size of Jersey, I'm dizzy often. "Seven Year Old Blames Sharon." Sometimes I think I am reading the Onion. A seven year old girl who was evacuated from Gaza has stopped eating as a form of protest against the Prime Minister. This makes national headlines?

At first I thought I wanted to work directly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - but the types of projects I have the opportunity to do with other organizations seem more interesting and challenging. I will be working with two different organizations. One is called "Kol HaIsha," which literally translates as "The Woman's Voice." The name plays on the Rabbinic prohibition of women's voices in spaces where men are praying. It's a multicultural feminist organization in downtown Jerusalem that provides crisis counseling, small business training for women from all ethnic/religious/socio-economic backgrounds and sexual orientations. The organization does public advocacy work for women's rights, economic justice and ending violence against women. It is home to the Antea gallery, a women's artspace, which explores controversial issues and recognizes the voices of new artists. I think I will be doing public relations work, grant-writing and programming for the gallery. But I'll keep you posted.

The second organization is called Yedid, which means friend. Yedid runs 18 citizen's rights centers around the country, in communities where many people are economically and socially marginalized. Yedid's goal is to help people help themselves, to become engaged in social issues and to break the cycle of poverty. People can come into Yedid for information and referrals regarding rights in terms of housing, employment, healthcare etc. The centers only have one permanent staff member each, the director. Otherwise, they are staffed entirely by volunteers. I'll be interning at the center in Ashkelon two days a week. Ashkelon is south of Jerusalem, on the coast and the city population is 40% immigrants, mostly from the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. I will be coordinating an afterschool program in Ashkelon. I will also be working on a community organizing initiative there with a guy from L.A. who has extensive background in labor organizing. I look forward to learning from him and from listening to the stories of people from all different backgrounds who are living Ashkelon.

WISCONSIN CHEESE

The Wisconsin Plan is a hot item on the agendas of many non-profit organizations in Israel concerned with economic justice. Israel recently imported America's Welfare to Work Program, along with private companies to implement it in 4 cities including Ashkelon, Jerusalem, Nazareth and Hadera (the site of yesterday's suicide bombing). These are among cities with the highest rates of poverty in a country where one third of children live below the poverty line. The program here is called Me Ha-Lev, which translates as "From the Heart." The way it works is that participants must report to the Wisconsin Center in their city for 30-40 hours a week in order to receive welfare benefits for their families. At the center, people wait to receive referrals and training and if they are unable to find employment, they are placed in mandatory community service positions. The Workers Advice Center in Israel identifies some of the major flaws of the Wisconsin Plan in Israel on its website. Along with the privatization of social services comes business incentives for the companies in charge often at the expense of the workers. The companies who run the Wisconsin centers increase their profits by cutting welfare costs. One of the major ways to scale back government welfare expenses is to deny benefits to people who fail to meet the program's requirements. Two thirds of Wisconsin plan participants are over the age of forty, making it more difficult for them to find work. Others are disabled or sick, single parents or Arab women, for some of whom working outside of the home is contrary to cultural values. In addition, the plan includes no vehicles for the creation of employment opportunities in non-professional sectors in Israel. It also has the potential of generating further unemployment by providing free, volunteer labor to charity organizations. I expect to learn more about the plan, especially the impact it is making on individuals and communities in Ashkelon. I just wanted to fill you in on a major economic justice issue in the country.