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...