SAFE RETURN

My Iranian friend is returning today to Teheran. We spoke on the phone yesterday and a sensation of fear and stress was overwhelming my friend. Needless to say I am very worried.

If you are spirititually inclined, please pray for this person.

Lets hope the country will somehow not notice and not utter a sentence in any way.

JERUSALEM CITY OF GOLD

This place is growing on me. I am enjoying the people and discovering places to 'hang out'.
I moved into a house in Jerusalem with 6 guys and share my room with another girl. I am seeing the last few people from NGFP that are still in Israel and am already involved in the next seminar.
I wrote myself in for a programme, even though it wasn't very clear to me what to expect. I just knew I wanted to do something worthwhile and after some research and a little help from a friend I ended up here. 'Here' is a programme run by two American guys, giving young adults the chance to develop a project. Most already had one; one is setting up a Jewish ethnic dance troupe, another is putting bible stories on rap for educational purposes, my roommate is trying to expand her 'challah for hunger' initiative- baking and selling braided bread and sending the money to Darfur. I talked to the organisers and I decided to combine my two passions: writing and Judaism. I will keep a journal on the developments at http://www.rosella.weebly.com/. I do need a lot of help and feedback, so please go there and comment!!
During the day we are pretty free to do whatever we want, which means seeing people and working on the computer and in the evening we have lectures. It is a completely different experience than the previous fellowship. I add the international element to the seminar, as I am practically the only non-American. Even the Israelis are in truth American immigrants,- which is humor wise a problem for me, as irony is not so well understood, I am definitely the oldest -not that they are immature, but I have passed that stage in my life a long time ago. The lectures are also very different, (not as good!) mostly people from the practical side come to speak and we don't have that many discussions. I actually try to avoid them, as I am certainly more left-wing than most here. I am discovering I am more interested and inspired by the intellectual/academic approach. And I am one of the very few who is not religious. I am however lucky with my roommate, she does not keep Shabbat or thinks right-wing...not that we have spoken that much...

Religion is a hot issue here. As I stated in my previous entry, I don't notice much of the 'Palestinian situation'-even though I have a feeling Arabs are less part of society than before. But here everything is politics and the politics I do feel is the one that concerns religion. Orthodox Jews, dressed in the black that is reminiscent of the Polish shtettles in the 18th and 19th century are painting a picture of an observant city. Even though nobody is bothering anyone, it does make me feel less at home, it is a lifestyle I do not have much in common with and I find rather dogmatic. I do respect them, but in a sense, looking at the larger picture it seems to be a one way direction. A group of them don't even recognise the state of Israel (as the Messiah needs to do that), but are happy to live here and accept grants from the government to study, without having to serve in the army, which is all determining here.
Last week the gay parade took place. The 'real' parade takes normally place in Tel Aviv, this one here was a quiet procession, just to ask for equal rights and respect. The parade was only one street long, but 7000 police were around and the whole city had come to a halt. Haredi/ultra-orthodox Jews had their own contra-demonstration.
In Israel there seem to be two ways of religious identification: Orthodox (which varies from Modern to Ultra) and secular. I feel more and more learning about the difference streams that are existing, mainly in America (even though they originally come from Germany) and have more affinity with the conservative and reform movement, which have adapted themselves more to modern times and stress Tikkun Olam, which means 'repairing the world' aka social justice.

I don't have to miss Holland too much. My relatives live literally two minutes walk away from me, and even though they are past their mid-eighties, I am always welcome there and they have kept their house and friends very much in Dutch atmospheres. I was also so lucky to find out that one of my favourite (Dutch) violinists was playing in Jerusalem and went to see her and ended up having dinner with all the musicians.

By what it looks like now, I will be staying at least a month longer than planned...

ON NE VOIT BIEN QU'AVEC LE COEUR, L'ESSENTIEL EST INVISIBLE POUR LES YEUX

Israel. A place that evokes several emotions in me. I guess a lot of people associate it with war or terrorist related issues, but I don't. Being here you don't necessarily notice it. You just don't travel to certain areas and it seems like that since the fence has been put up (with all its arguments for and against it) buses don't explode as much as they used to. Even the many soldiers (girls serve 18 months and boys 3 years) carrying big guns that you see everywhere and showing your bag before entering a shop become part of the ' normal'.

I guess in a way, for me, there is a sense of feeling related to worldjewry (whatever that may be). This means also feeling a connection to the only Jewish country in the world, to the extend that living here could be an option. Not that I am considering that. It is also feeling some kind of a connection to other Jews from around the world.
Well, hey, ha, we are not one big family, there are many streams and ideas I do not agree with and simply a lot of people I don't like (yeah even we are people).
It has often been disappointing meeting Israelis, especially abroad. My experience for example in South America was that we greeted the many Israelis with enthusiasm, but only few showed interest (but do read this blog till the end!). While we in the diaspora/galut choose to live a certain Judaism, in Israel it is a part of society and the national identity prevails above that.

One programme in which I found that connection very strongly is the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Programme, which exactly two years ago I joined in Sweden.
Ten days of lectures and discussions, lead by various high level teachers from America and Israel. It was a fantastic experience, as the topics were really interesting and because I met some beautiful people. In a way that seminar was the start of various positive life turns.
This time the same Fellowship took place, in Israel and for people who had done this before. It was wonderful to see my friends from Rio, New York, Israel and Denmark again..And it wasn't just them, I made some new friends from South-Africa, Australia and Singapore, just to name a few. NGFP just knows how to select motivated, interesting and diverse participants.
I can not display all the moving personal stories I heard, but I however need to mention the Iranian participant. This person joined us, with danger, as president Ahmadinejad, besides spending time on Holocaust denial, forbids its population to even suggest any Israeli contact. It is hard to understand for us why Jews still choose to live in Iran, (but then again easy to say) a country where people are still hanged, but the hopes seem positive and with all my heart I hope this fellow will get home safely (through another country) without any repercussions.

We listened, while wrapped in shawls and blankets because of the air conditioning to many good lecturers again, but it was a bit disappointing to find the same ones as two years earlier. At a few occasions it felt they somehow were more or less representing the same views: male and orthodox, even with a lot of room for discussion. Towards the end I was completely exhausted, 8 hours of listening, talking and discussing, not many more words could enter my head. It did however not stop me from socialising and swimming at midnight in the Kinneret (sea of Galilea, you know, Jesus walked on it) on which shores we were based, needless the say the views were breathtaking.

In one of the more personal sessions, one girl expressed the concern that there were more than twice as many women than men, and not just that, the men were almost all married. A rabbi had an actual explanation for it, he said that demographically there are more women and a lot of Jewish men marry 'out', while a lot of Jewish girls prefer not to. He also emphasized a lot of girls are more 'spiritual' , while a lot of men just focus on their work. It did not spoil the fun. There was a real warm and affectionate atmosphere between us girls, lying on the banks of the lake, staring at the stars.
Anyway, I have nothing to worry about, a lovely woman from Buenos Aires was keen on becoming my mother-in-law, as her son will be moving to London around the same time as me.

I am not specifically seeking touristy places, I just see wherever I am taken; an artistic village/moshav called Ein Hod, Zichron Ya'acov; one of the first settlements, the tunnels under/along the Kotel/wailing wall. Israelis are as we all know rude and awful drivers, but most of all terribly hospitable, wherever I go, I am invited over, beds are made and I am stuffed with food.