First Impressions

I write from “the belly button of the world,” Jerusalem. I have been in Israel exactly a week now, and in the city I face when I pray, since Sunday. The first night I was in the city that is the center, I had a huge craving for schnitzel. As many of you know, until this year, I had been a vegetarian since I was nine-years-old. My family came to Israel and stayed on a vegetarian Moshav for a few days. I met a girl named Be’eri who was around my age who didn’t eat meat. I decided I did not want to eat animals either. In the midst of senior year of college, fighting inevitable transition and craving self-initiated change I started slicing apart hunks of white meat. Here, so much of the meat is kosher, so I thought I might as well try a chicken sandwich with herbs and veggies and a shmear of sweet chili sauce. So I did.

The next day I wandered, like a good Jew, trying to learn the city. On the way back to a friend’s apartment, where I am staying temporarily, I passed a protest. A scroll of images was stretched across a small square of concrete, depicting the tragic fates that befall cows and chickens on their way to people’s bellies. The group had panels and pictures comparing the slaughter of animals to the murder of Jews during the Shoah. First, I thought about how this argument could only possibly be made this way in Israel. Then I thought, I’m in Jerusalem – this is a sign that I should say no to shnitzel, even though I’m not sure I believe in signs.

The signs here are in Hebrew and English and Arabic by law. The Hebrew language is thick with layers, like Jerusalem’s foundations, its winding walls of brown and peach stones. Words of Torah flicker in neon juices. Letters are loaded and locked like oozies. To make “aliyah” does not just mean “to immigrate,” it means “to ascend.” One cannot simply immigrate to Israel without ascending, if the Word has its way. I am not just from America - I am from “The land of the covenant.” Everything spoken in modern Hebrew has Biblical connotations, whether intended or not. By opening my mouth, I embody a 2,000 year-old narrative and write myself into it.

More on language . . .My favorite line from Kabbalat Shabbat is “Shamor V’Zachor B’Dibbur echad.” In two parts of the torah, the commandment to observe the Sabbath is worded differently. At one point, we are charged “Shamor” – take care of the Sabbath, and at another time, “Zachor” – remember Shabbat. Commentators, in explaining the change in wording of the same tenet of our faith, deduce that God gave both instructions in one utterance.

I did not only choose to major in linguistic-anthropology for the fancy name. I really find our ability to use language and symbols to be a fascinating and spiritual thing. I like to think that humans, who may believe we are created in the image of God (though not intelligently designed), imagine our God to be one with the power to code all sorts of meanings into one utterance.

I hope to study some Jewish texts while I am here. I am taking a class on “Psalms” at the Conservative Yeshiva on Sunday afternoons. I went with a friend to Pardes Monday evening and we studied this week’s Torah portion. It was invigorating to be in a room full of people of all ages and backgrounds parsing out messages from all sorts of books with voices and hands. Pardes is located above a Mazda dealer in the area known as Industrial Talpiyot, not far from the neighborhood where I’ll be living. Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night), I’ll move into an apartment in Baka. It was carved out of an artist’s studio. It has hard wood floors and a merpeset (balcony). The neighborhood is funky and close to friends. I’ll write more on this next week.

I am afraid of commitment. It took me a few days to let myself fall in love with Jerusalem. In the Psalms class, we looked at Psalm for Monday (48), which talks about the magnetic and overwhelming energy of the city. The authors describe people trembling like women in labor as they advance towards Jerusalem, the geographical and spiritual high-point of the land. “Count her towers, review her ramparts, scan her citadels,” it is written. Tiny pomegranates grow in yards here. If you leave your windows open at night, you may hear your neighbor practicing shofar. Citadels and towers mingle with espresso bars and cinemas.

I’m still in the process of figuring out where I will be working. I’ve been exploring some options dealing with community organizing and civil rights for individuals and communities who are marginalized here including new immigrants and Arabs. One of the organizations, Yedid, has eighteen citizen’s rights centers all around the country. They also run various language enrichment programs for kids. Meuravut (meaning inclusion) is focused on building grassroots networks of parents from different cultural backgrounds who will advocate for the rights of their children in the educational system.

Otherwise, I’m just dabbling, bumping into people from multiple walks of life, jogging to learn the street names. It’s like a Biblical storybook land here. And I’m eating lots of hummus and the best cucumbers ever. Shabbat starts earlier here than the rest of the world – so I gotta go and clean and shower.

Much love. Wishing every one a meaningful Shabbat. Praying for healing and wholeness for America during this time of uncertainty and scary weather.

Stay in touch.
Email: annerlewis@gmail.com
Phone (from U.S.A.) 011-972-52-302-3548
(from Ha'aretz) 052-302-3548

A poem I wrote about Israel in 2002 . . .

Holy

Sometimes I dream of the desert and forget it’s not real. Then I wake up and forget that it’s real and that I crushed chalky plates of sand under my boots and that a fine layer of dust settled into my pores, all salty and wind-tossed and my hair smelled like salty wind and stuck to my fingers when I tried to run them through.

I wore a sarong and the wind tossed it around and in my shadow I looked like a princess, skirt and hair rippling, faceless, colorless, just flowy, transparent, salty wind grains woven. They kept pressing names, but it didn’t need one because it was my inside out. Flutterings of last butterfly wings and one string of pearls that floated down generations. Each grain, six million, more.

Breath of spices and almonds, dried apricots, maroon fingertips popping pomegranate beads. Different tongues riding exhaust and rubber on pavement. Tzahal olive green always at attention. Barrels of olive juice with scuffed scoopers. Plastic trinkets, bright candy wrappers, whole fish dangling upside down. Gooey cinnamon filling dripping into pants of air. Salty wind grains woven to blocks, edges rounded, and mortar mossed. Solar powered flecks.

Aretz Zahav. Artzeinu. Why do they/we crush you like chalky plates, unravel you, scatter your wind gems, puncture your wings, throw glass through your stones? Yet you clutch us to your breast and we drink you unconditional. What’s parched and cracked, you bloom.