A Family Holiday

My mother always jokes how Pesach is a "family holiday". It's a week-long occasion when for better or worse everyone is more or less stuck under one roof making varying efforts to get along with each other. It's beautiful to be together, and everybody breathes a huge sigh of relief when it's all over.

Two weeks ago my family celebrated a family holiday of a different sort. On December 23rd, my Grandma Rose turned 100. When Gila and I started discussing logistics for the gan, on the list was how I would take off for this occasion. Chanukah vacation was planned accordingly. I was not going to miss this. My brother and his family made their plans to come in from Israel and my sister made plans to come in from DC. We were all going to be together. No yom tov and a house with an endless supply of bagels and muffins- this was going to be good.

It was spectacular. After my grandma got over the crazy idea that we all just came because we thought she was dying, we all shared a special weekend together. The birthday cards came pouring in. A "little birdie" (who I call Ema) made sure that cards were received from President Obama and Governor Patrick. One of the most beautiful acknowledgements came from Yad Sarah, an organization my grandmother has supported for years. They posted a birthday message to my grandmother on their digital message board outside the building and had it up for all of Chanukah.

On Grandma Rose's actual birthday we had a photographer come to do family pictures. I had been trying to get at least my siblings to do this for years and they would just whine about it. Suddenly everyone thought it was a great idea. I can't wait to see how they came out.

Visitors came throughout the day and over shabbat. Grandma Rose got a phonecall from her cardiologist and a special visit from her visiting nurse and cardiac nurse. They brought her flowers, as did tens of other people. This visit made my grandmother's day and she was glowing through shabbat dinner after they left. Her day health aide had bought a camera special for the occasion of her birthday and took a picture of them. These people have kept my grandmother alive and healthy, and we are grateful for their love and care.

My niece and her parents arrived just in time for the first night of Chanukah. Having four generations light candles together was really special. On Saturday night everyone was together. Can't remember the last time the three of us siblings were together for Chanukah.

My trip started out with my usual jumping around from place to place. I spent my first morning at my Aunt and Uncle's house in New Jersey and then journeyed to NY for an evening out with friends. It's always fun making a bunch of friends for all different times in my life have dinner together and all become friends with each other. But for most of my trip I stayed still. Well, I spent hours and hours at stores shopping for the gan and once in awhile for myself, but I more or less stayed still. I got to light Chanukah candles every night with my family and see my niece every morning when I woke up ("Becca jammies!") and best of all was the monkey pajama party with my niece (we both have footsie pajamas with a monkey on them).

We are confident that Grandma Rose enjoyed her birthday. We did not know what to expect. I hope she realized that we were there fully to celebrate her long life and not in anticipation of what is to come. As exciting as it is to have a grandmother that old it is incredibly daunting, but every day since I got back I have thought about how beautiful my trip and her birthday celebration was.

It was a family holiday, but one we are still celebrating.

Opening a gan: It's as easy as....

It is Succot, which means I have a week and a half off from gan. I have a whole list of exciting things to get done this week: cleaning my room, starting my final paper for my MA program, getting a blood test. Exciting, right? This year the fun will have to wait a bit and I will enjoy the simple relief of catching up on life.

On August 31st Gila and I opened Gan Shelanu. We did it. We have a beautiful three room apartment with a yard Gila's husband slaved away to make safe. The three of us painted one wall of each room in bright shades of orange, green, and blue. There are really cute animal wall stickers up everywhere. My favorite is the dragonfly sitting on a hippo's nose.


The Friday before gan started we thought we had 12 kids. Two days later it was 10, and somehow on the first day of gan we had 7. We had to let our wonderful hired staff go, which sucked. I felt that we failed them. They just moved to Israel, and the last thing I wanted to do was have others experience disappointment like I experienced with some babysitting jobs when I got here. Aside from that we had no time to dwell on our misfortune. And anyway, misfortune is all relative. We were about to fulfill our dream.

Thursday, September 1st, was the first day the kids had in gan without their parents. We had given the parents strict instructions to come early and leave quickly. No saying "just 5 more minutes". One kid cried. Just one! Out of seven! One mom left with tears in her eyes. When she came for pick-up (just two hours later) she told us that she had been in labor with this kid for five days, and that those were the hardest two hours of her life. Her daughter, of course, did not even want to leave, and seemed indifferent to her mom showing up at all.

The next day, two kids cried, but only a little. Clearly we're doing something right here.

Six weeks have flown by. We pretty much have our routine down. The kids come in, push their parents out the door, and settle in to play. Breakfast is prepared during morning circle time and lunch is prepared while they are outside. For circle time we do stretches (much inspired by our gym classes with Mr. D. at Maimo) and sing "ידיים למעלה" as well as "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". We sing it slowly, then really fast, and then "so fast if you blink you'll miss it!"

We fully encourage them to eat with their hands if that is what is more comfortable for them (and gets more food in their mouths). They can eat standing up if they stay right next to the table. Kids should be comfortable when they eat. They may only eat from their own plates, and we are trying to get them out of the habit of eating off the floor instead of just asking for more. We also try to discourage spitting out pre-chewed food and feeding it to your neighbor. Anything not finished by the other kids by the end of the meal gets piled onto the plate of this one kid who will eat almost anything and eat until there is no food left. After meals we take them one by one into the bathroom to be hosed down (sometimes literally). One girl even has her own towel for after we've cleaned the sauce off her stomach and from under her armpits. Lets just say many of our stories from gan are gross stories about the kids' eating habits, but gan is all about learning life skills, right?

After breakfast the kids play outside or we go on short walks. We had been singing "Wheels on the Bus" a lot so we went up to the main street by our gan and watched buses go by and talked about what color they are (green). Then we went back to gan and painted a cardboard bus cutout green. Then I had fun drawing pictures of a bus driver beeping the horn and made doors that go open and shut. The kids helped me attach them. Before Succot we walked down the small road behind the gan and collected branches that could be used for schach for a Succah. The day before Succot vacation we walked to the home of one of the kids and visited his Succah.

We finally figured out how to get all the kids napping at the same time, and to be asleep for at least a half hour after the two short day kids leave. Singing "המלאך" 5000 times in a row just wasn't working for all of them. One parent gave us a fan for the napping room so the kids would wake up less sweaty. Fans create white noise. White noise keeps kids asleep. Amazing. On one of the first days the kids all slept, Gila and I skipped the chicken we served for lunch and downed a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream after all the kids were asleep. The joys of being your own boss.

A couple weeks ago we got our first new kid. Things hadn't worked out for her at the gan she started at. Her parents came in to see the gan one last time before making their decision. They went outside to confer for a moment, and came back in and asked if they could just leave her there for the rest of the day. We were sitting at breakfast, and the other kids were marveling at how this child was wearing a shirt and had on not one but two shoes. We told the kids that yes, this was another child JUST like them. They were amazed. The next day when this new girl was picked up her father told us how much of a relief it was to see his child smiling at the end of the day. We can only imagine what her old gan was like, but this was the best compliment we could ever receive.

We now have four prospective kids to start after Succot. Three of them are boys. We currently have seven girls and one boy. This should make things interesting. Throughout September I felt like we were holding our breaths waiting for new kids. Now that we have them, it is a huge relief. Sure enough we built it and they came (two of my favorite things in life- gan and baseball).

I am asked all the time HOW I opened a gan. If I were to write a guidebook (which my final MA paper will hopefully somewhat resemble) I could write a whole chapter about scavenging government websites for rules and regulations, most of which are impossible to follow (and we have chosen not to- as most private ganim do. I could also write about finding a good accountants. Ours is a wonderful and patient man. When he asked how the gan was doing I felt he was asking because it interested him personally, and not just because he needed to know so he could file my taxes. As for finding a bank, well I think opening this gan might have actually been easier than opening my now closed Discount Bank account (opened when I made aliyah), but opening our account for the gan was a pleasant and pain-free experience. Our account is at Bank HaPoalim on Emek Refaim. As an example of the amazing service we get there, the other day I came in and the clerk called out to me that she had a pile of papers to get through before she could meet with me, but that I should please come sit in her cubicle because she wanted to hear ALL about the gan as she worked.

I think I have written before about finding a location for our gan. We looked at yad2 ten times a day, made numerous phonecalls, got rejected constantly, and lost a lot of sleep. We are grateful to the family who is letting us use their apartment for our gan. We are also grateful to our kids who were all sitting around the table eating nicely when the owner (a tiny Israeli woman) made a surprise visit. It didn't hurt that all the kids smiled and said bye when she left. The apartment has been transformed into a beautiful gan that has become like a second home to us and the kids. I think this was the most miraculous part of the project.

To find the kids, we advertised on every relevant listserv. I snuck around putting fliers up around the area (don't be fooled by the thousands of fliers covering lightpoles- it is actually illegal to post things). Our best advertisers, and also our best supporters throughout this whole ordeal, were our friends and family. Yes you need ambition and be ready to work hard to open your own business, but most importantly you need people to back you up and cheer you up when for a moment it looks like the whole plan is falling apart. I have grown to appreciate my friends and family a tremendous amount over the past year, which is possibly the best gift that could come from this gan. It was especially special to realize who great friends I've made in the short four years I have lived in Israel. I was happy to express my appreciation with the seudat shlishit I hosted before Rosh Hashannah and the party in the gan we hosted Erev Succot.

When I tell people what I have done, they are amazed, and my disbelief grows. I never imagined myself with my own business (or rather sharing a business with a friend of twenty years). Despite the disbelief, it also seems so natural. Of course I opened a gan. Of course in my gan, the kids can eat with their hands, be silly, and most importantly be themselves (whether being themselves at any moments means jumping up and down, needing five feet of personal space, or throwing a tantrum because they can't find their shoes upon waking up from their nap). It is still going to take a long time for this all to become routine- if it ever does become routine. Every day in Gan Shelanu amazes me, and I couldn't ask for anything more of my life at this point, just a few weeks before my 27th birthday.

I thought of the name Gan Shelanu because Gila and I kept calling it "our gan" and besides the simple translation, I have always felt that Gan Shelanu has been bigger than us and belongs to everybody who took part in creating it- our friends for hearing out our complaining, our family for their generous support and donation of many of the toys and furniture, Hodaya for being our Toddler Consultant, the parents for trusting us both as educators and as entrepreneurs, and most importantly the kids who continue to shove their parents out the door every morning.

I see some irony in writing about fulfilling a dream after a year of so many sleepless nights (and probably more nightmares than dreams). I don't even know when this went from something hypothetical Gila and I would joke about and turned into a dream. I feel like it became a dream somewhere between being hypothetical and us realizing how not simple it would be. Deciding it was our dream, and not just something we were going to do, is probably what kept us going.

As we get closer to post-chaggim life and really starting a new year, I wish everyone the will-power, ambition, and most importantly the support from amazing friends like mine to do what you want to do, how you want to do it, and when you want to do it. We should all have dreams, big ones and small ones. Just pick one and go for it.

Learning to get along

This past Sunday was my final day in gan, and while there is much to write about my gan experience and the future that lies ahead of me, today is Tisha B'Av, so I will save many of those thoughts for another time.

When it came to teaching about bad things that happened to the Jewish people, we tended to water things down a bit. We had to be careful not to scare the kids, and we also wanted to focus their attentions on certain aspects of the story. For example, Haman was not an evil man. He was a not very nice man that did bad things. We wanted the children to understand the connection between one's actions and how others view that person, the connection between one's action and their impact on the world around them.

Probably one of my biggest frustrations where I worked these past two years is how quickly certain children developed reputations which got them tossed into timeout if they merely brushed against the person next to them. Okay, by "brush" I mean they knocked down a block tower or pushed a kid, but my colleagues all too often did not stop to really think about the child's actions and consider why they happened aside from thinking "well he always hits kids, so he must have started it."

In interviewing for assistants for my gan I posed the following question: Child A (as known to do) comes over to Child B and pulls a toy car out of his hand. In response, Child B shoves Child A backwards. Both children are now crying/upset, and Child A is hurt. He is shouting that he took the toy because he wanted it. Child B is upset because he was busy playing with that toy. The idea behind this question was to talk about emotional development and legitimizing children's feelings. Child B needs to know that his feelings of anger are legitimate, but his reaction can be worked on for the future. Child A needs to know that we, the teachers, understand that he got hurt, and that we agree hitting is wrong, but also that his feeling that he can have whatever he wants without asking or without waiting his turn is not okay.

I obviously did not pull this story put of my head. It is something that happened all the time at gan. This particular Child A was often grabbing toys away and getting upset when they were grabbed back. Child B would often hit other children, though I realized especially throughout the second year that he was almost never one to start a fight- and there were plenty of kids like that. There were kids who walked around purposefully knocking down block towers and disrupting play. Child B was not like that. You could tell that he knew he hit because he was upset, and that he tried really hard to curb those emotions and use his words instead of his fists. Sometimes you could even see him clench his fists, take deep breaths, and then come over to a teacher for help instead of fighting back.

Unfortunately while I often pointed this out to my colleagues, I am not convinced they ever saw things my way. They were overall great to work with, I learned a tremendous amount, and I understand that burnout often influenced their reactions towards the kids. I rarely saw emotional development as a priority, and that bothered me (though it only started bothering me as I gained experience and personal growth as an educator). Maybe it's the sabra Israeli attitude, but I started realizing that things were going to be different when I was in charge.

Sometimes you learn a lot about yourself by watching others experience the same thing. You can also learn a lot about yourself by watching young children. Young children are new at everything. They do not yet understand themselves let alone others. When a 2 year old's block tower gets demolished, you might as well have knocked their house down. It is absolutely tragic- something they built with their own hands is no longer there. Kids get angry and upset over all sorts of things. They hit and kick and bite and burst into tears that only end an hour later. But little by little they learn perspective. They learn that they are not alone in the world, and that there are others with feelings just like theirs.

I could get into a whole essay about emotional development, but I am on a bit of a break from my schoolwork and I don't think that's necessary. I just want to express my gratitude to the children I spent the last two years with. Among so many other things, they taught me compassion. Yes, I know when my own feelings are legitimate and can usually appropriately take part in a friend's happiness or sadness, but watching these feelings develop on the most basic level was absolutely inspiring. I think feeling is something often taken for granted. We get angry at ourselves for being upset over something trivial, but hey, maybe at this moment it's worth getting upset over. We should always believe that are feelings are legitimized, but we should always be conscious to how our feelings affect our interactions with other people.

Every month in gan we had a Rosh Chodesh celebration. Part of it included going up to the Beit Knesset to learn about that month. The director told the kids that during the month of Av there is Tisha B'Av, and that Tisha B'Av is a day when a lot of sad things happened to the Jewish people. One of these things was the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash and Jerusalem. As experts on what happened on Chanukah and well versed in stories of heroism for Yom Yerushalayim, the kids really understood what it meant for Jerusalem to be destroyed and the need to rebuild it again. The director also told them that one reason bad things happened was because people weren't be very nice to each other, and that people were finding it difficult to be good friends.

As the end of the year drew near, the kids were at each others throats much more often. While they might not have really understood that they were about to leave the gan and go their separate ways, they clearly felt that they had been in the same room with each other every day for a very long time. A lot of kids were finding it really hard to be good friends. They also were starting to realize that they knew each other extremely well. They knew how to push every one's buttons, but they also knew when to give their friend a hug or simply stand nearby during a tough moment. Getting along is not easy, but it can be learned given the right environment.

This is only my second day since finishing my two years at the gan, and it is also Tisha B'Av. My mind is still racing with reflections on my experience in the gan- my first real job experience. I am thinking about how grateful I am for the opportunity to work there and how it has gotten me to the point where I can move forward with mine and Gila's plans for our own gan.

Tisha B'Av is about remembering the past and looking towards the future. I'm not claiming that by putting a strong focus on emotional development in my new gan that I will pave the way for World Peace and the end of destruction in our time. Observing Tisha B'Av has a lot to do with conjuring up emotions and understanding our feelings about ourselves, each other, and the place of ourselves and the Jewish People in the world. Emotion is a tricky thing. I saw it in my kids at gan, and I see it in myself. What the kids at gan reminded me is that there is always learning to be done when it comes to emotions, but that it cannot be done without the help of our friends and those we look up to. We are allowed to be angry at each other. Anger is a legitimate feeling. We are also allowed and able to help our friend recreate their tower, invite them into our make-believe game about princesses and monsters, and make a place for them next to us at the table.

On days like Tisha B'Av we ask for compassion from Hashem, but maybe we should be demanding more compassion for each other. If the 4-year-olds can figure it out, I think we can too.

למרות הכל... אין לי ארץ אחרת

A wise man with the initials ASB once said, "the greatest wisdom is facebook is that everyone can have a complicated relationship with everything." This was in response to my complaint that the Rikudegalim (flag parade) for Yom Yerushalayim was rerouted this year in the stupidest way ever for even more ridiculous reasons. If my favorite event of the year was going to be ruined, it could at least be for logical reasons. However I live in Israel, in the city of Jerusalem, and after four years here if I still expect logic there's no way I'll make it through another four years. Like so many other things, my relationship with this country is often complicated.

So here I am, living in the holiest city of the world. The municipality claims I owe 50 shekels in property taxes for the last five days of 2010 even though I have a receipt for paying the entire 2010 bill. I am trying to open a business, which is an insane idea as it is, and I expect people sitting five feet from each other in the same office to be able to transfer my call from one to the other so that I can get correct information about how to do things legally. Today I actually met someone from the municipality and she was astonished to hear that no one she said I should call ever answers their phone.

But I digress... okay fine, I can go on a bit more. Alright I'll stop. This is supposed to be my annual optimistic no-venting post.

Today at gan this boy (who made aliyah two weeks before gan started last year) was quietly singing שישו את ירושלים to himself and doing a little dance with it. I think I teared up. A few weeks ago when we celebrated Yom Haatzmaut at gan, I loved watching the kids wave their flags and sing כחול ולבן זה הצבע שלי. Then Yom Haatzmaut night I was in town with thousands upon thousands of people who were simply overjoyed to be celebrating another year of a sovereign Jewish state. Today marks 44 years since Jerusalem was taken back, and while I am annoyed at the parade situation I keep thinking how unbelievable it is how different this city was under a half century ago. As much as I dread going to Hebrew U these days, it's a small miracle going through where Mandelbaum Gate once stood. No small miracle.




Miracles. That is what I love about living here. In Israel and I feel especially in Jerusalem, no small miracle is taken for granted. Every little thing seems to mean so much here. It goes back to what I wrote in my essay for Nefesh B'Nefesh when I made aliyah. I decided to make aliyah because I knew what I could contribute to society, and I felt it would mean so much more if I contributed to society here in Israel.

I am grateful to my friends who have been so supportive over the past year as Gila and I work on opening our gan. While sometimes I feel nagged when asked the same questions over and over again that I still don't have answers too, they have been there for me all the way. I know my friends are proud of me, and I am proud of them for taking an interest in my life and in general the way we all look out for each other.

In September Gila and I will be opening our gan, which will be nothing short of a big miracle, but I am looking forward to it being a place where lots of small miracles happen. It will be a place where little Israeli boys and girls learn to jump and skip, to share and work together. I can't wait until next year at this time when I hear a kid humming כחול ולבן and think "Hey, I taught him that!". It's going to be one more way I put my roots down in this country- one more step towards fully realizing my dream to live in Israel.

Every year I feel like Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim come to remind us how we all felt when we came to Israel on teen tours or to learn for the year after high school. We feel that silly giddiness about being so happy to be in Israel and for a few weeks we might even forget all the nonsense real life throws at us here. Every year we need it- maybe even more than each year before.

This year I have some other reminders. My cousin Stuart just posted the draft of the family tree project he did of my Grandma Elka's mother's family. My grandmother's father was a lower middle class tailor in Chicago, but was also a leader of the Zionist Commonwealth (as it seems it was called). He never made it to Israel but always fought for its existence. My grandmother planned to make aliyah shortly after the State of Israel was founded, but the plans fell through and she only visited a couple times throughout her life. I had been to Israel ten times before I made aliyah. The fact I could come so many times is a miracle in itself. I've been thinking about my family history a lot lately, and I feel that my living in Israel is in their merit. I think about and remember my Grandma Elka- how much she missed me but how proud of me she was, and that's sometimes what keeps me going here.

עומדות היו רגלינו בשעריך ירושלים
We once stood in the gates of Jerusalem. We stand in Jerusalem again, and we're not going anywhere this time.

שישו את ירושלים בגילו בה כל אוהביה

"Speak my name and I shall live"

“Speak my name and I shall live.” This is what my Grandma Elka lived by for her last few years and what she requested be written on her gravestone. As I write this I am on the train from Philadelphia to Boston, possibly for the last time - at least for awhile. Yesterday was Grandma Elka’s funeral, and by writing this I hope her name gets spoken that much more so that the memory of her life may live that much longer. I also have been informed by my Aunt Rena that when you google my grandmother’s name only one person comes up (as does this blog), so I’m going to give everyone something to talk about.

I received the news of my grandmother’s passing on Sunday while I was at work. One of the kids had just had his hand run over by a toy truck and of course was having an emotional breakdown. My phone rang, I answered, my mom immediately told me that she died, and I said I would call back in an hour and hung up. I was working with a sub, so I could not leave the room. Okay, I told myself, suck it up, hold it in, and get through this next hour. I acted as if nothing had happened. I doubt even my expression gave anything away. As I left my brother called. I told him to give me time to go home and let the news sink in. When I got home I broke down for maybe ten minutes. Then I got up, sent some important overdue emails, emailed my professor for the class I was supposed to be at today, sent my lead teacher at gan a text message telling her I might disappear over the next 24 hours, and shortly after that went to my brother’s apartment.

I haven’t really cried since then. Once in awhile I get teary-eyed thinking about something my Grandma Elka said or did, but it always seems like I simultaneously have a huge grin on my face. And no, thinking back on yesterday’s events, I’m all smiles. Yesterday was an incredibly special day. My parents got into Philadelphia Monday afternoon. Sam and I took an overnight flight Monday night to Newark and got to my grandmother’s house shortly after 9am. An hour or so later my sister arrived from Washington, DC. This was the first time the five of us were together in two years. Next my cousins arrived. My Aunt Cookie and Uncle John arrived with my cousin Dan and his wife Xhen who came in from California. I saw both of them last summer before they moved. Then my cousin Seth arrived and shortly thereafter my Aunt Rena and Uncle David arrived with my cousin Josh. I had not seen Seth in maybe ten years (I think I saw Josh since then). In any case, it was the first time all six of us cousins were together since Seth’s bar mitzvah. Seth graduated college last year.



Before my parents left Boston, my Grandma Rose told my mom that it’s a shame my Grandma Elka wouldn’t be around to see her grandchildren all together. My mom’s response was “How do you know that she didn’t orchestrate all this?”. Within minutes of being reunited each other we were busy getting things ready (in Philadelphia they throw rather lavish “after parties” for funerals) but also chatting and laughing about our Grandma. Grandma Elka always had stories to tell, and she left no shortage of stories to be told about her. The fun continued to the funeral home, where as we waiting for the funeral to start we continued the story telling. The funeral director gave us a look as he told us that it was time to quiet down and move into the chapel. Once seated in the first two rows, he had to tell us again to calm down as people were beginning to arrive. It wasn’t so easy - we were enjoying each other’s company so much. The place filled up with more relatives, Grandma Elka’s friends of all ages, her gardener, my dad’s 7th grade math teacher, and a couple friends of mine and my siblings who were so wonderful to come. My cousins and I were given the incredible honor of escorting Grandma Elka to her final resting place. In my mind I gave her a kiss and got one of her classic and strong Grandma Elka hugs in return.

But enough about that. Funerals are boring. Well, when my Aunt Rena ended her eulogy of Grandma Elka with one of her dirty jokes it was certainly not boring, but I will leave that one for the end as well. It will certainly make you remember my grandma and speak of her more (which is what I’m going for). Lets start with the beginning of her life. We would always say she’s so old that she was there when they invented the wheel. She would always insist that she was the one who gave them the idea. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t REALLY what happened. She was born while there was legislation in the works for giving women the right to vote (which they got shortly after Grandma Elka was born). This event was never lost on my Grandma.

I think that any one at any time can be considered a part of history in the making, and that living through the Great Depression, World War II, and everything thereafter won’t in another hundred years be considered a bigger deal than the great events I am living through now. But wow, what a time to be growing up then. Furthermore, what a time to be growing up in when your father is one of the founders of the Zionist congress in Chicago. Grandma Elka was frequently surrounded by the stars of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. At age 3 she sat on Chaim Wiezmann’s lap and he recited the shema with her before she went to bed. At age 6 she met Rav Avraham Kook on one of his visits to Chicago. When she was older she met Golda Meir and Louis Brandeis, a friend of her father’s. When I think about all this, I realize that my decision to make aliyah to Israel didn’t come out of nowhere. Grandma Elka was ready to do so herself in 1951, but then she suddenly found herself taking care of aging relatives. Her role as caregiver never ended as my grandfather became ill with Parkinson’s and she spent years caring for him. She insisted, in her practically and then completely bedridden condition, that if my parents decided to make aliyah she would be right behind them.

Grandma Elka was the keeper of the treasure trove of family stories. Most of the stories she told were probably even true. She was best for the skeleton-in-the closet ones - stories we thought only happened in the movies. She was also the one in the family who best took care of the children of those skeletons, welcoming them into her home and at her holiday dinner tables and often being the parent they never really had. I am grateful for my cousin Stuart, Grandma Elka’s nephew, who just over ten years ago began recording many of these stories. While she told the same ones over and over... and over and over again, I definitely did not inherit her phenomenal memory and I am glad someone took the time to preserve our family history. Whenever I came to visit, I had to be prepared to sit and listen, but what a treat it often was to do so.

Grandma Elka mostly reserved her lectures for phone calls. She even said that when I visited, she felt bad spending all my time with her telling me what I’m doing wrong. Also despite thousands of lectures about how to do my hair, what to wear, and the fifty year old pink shirt with blue sequins I must wear that she got on a trip to London that I MUST spend an hour searching the upstairs closet for, she would often pause and exclaim what a nice smile I had. On any visit she would inevitably tell me how much I looked like her grandmother (whose picture hung on the wall in the dining room) and then launch into a story about her.... which would usually lead into a story about how some other relative eloped, ran off to the West, or tried to bribe their brother into letting them adopt their niece (Grandma Elka being the niece, but lets leave that for another day). So as I said lectures were mainly for phone calls, which were at best once a week. She definitely had the attitude that she must get it all in while she can. Thank goodness for Skype and low call rates. I believe on my last phone call with her a week or two ago she told me that when I find a good guy I must grab him by the neck and reel him in. She then reminded me that as she did, I should only say yes to the third guy that proposes to me. I’ll see what I can do about that. At the cemetery the rabbi mentioned how funerals are a time to ask for forgiveness from the person who has just passed. I said to Grandma Elka’s lifelong friend Nita then I’m just sorry I couldn’t help her with her goal to catch up with Nita’s number of great-grandchildren (there are a lot of them).

Grandma Elka only had one great-grandchild, my niece Rinat Hodaya who was born just over a year ago. Grandma Elka met Hodaya last summer and was excited to see her again in a few weeks before Pesach. That she got to meet Hodaya at all was nothing short of a miracle. Last May we were told that Grandma Elka had taken a turn for the worse, and that while we had no reason to fly in we should be prepared for her to be gone by the end of the week. Somehow she made it through. She even agreed to finally start taking care of herself. Finally she had almost around the clock care, and health aides in addition to the ones who had been serving the family for over twenty years (and were grandmothers themselves). Perhaps it was too little too late, but what kept her going was the anticipation of finally meeting Hodaya, the great-grandchild born in a country she had once dreamed of living in herself.


Grandma Elka by that time was pretty much entirely bedridden. The surfaces in her room were covered with pictures of Hodaya. There is one picture there were two copies of - one on each side of the room so she could always see it. Grandma Elka claimed that Hodaya had an expression that said “Hello world, what are we going to do today?” and that attitude was what got her through these past through months. Nothing was ever going to slow my grandmother down. She spent her entire life planning events and looking towards the future, even during times she was sick at the hospital or in bed at home, and that was never going to change. Just a month ago she threw one of her famous post-birthday parties. These parties always took place a few weeks after her birthday because they were not just birthday parties, they were celebrations of life. She called this last party, the one following her 91st birthday, a celebration for the first day of the rest of her life. I believe it. Also just to tell a bit of what these parties entailed, they were held in her home, using fine china, a full setting of silverware for each guest, and usually involved a grandchild or two frantically running around, defrosting salmon she only remembered about minutes before guests started arriving, and having old ladies yell at her grandchild helpers for bringing luke warm water. Keep in mind that her guests were in their eighties and nineties and sat on folding chairs one up against the other. I had the, erm, pleasure of attending a few of these parties while in college. But who knows? Maybe in sixty years I’ll be inspired to do the same. I can only hope that I have the type of wonderful friends Grandma Elka had her entire life. Of course at my party I would probably just skip the fine china and bring out the fingerpaint.

Among the many other life lessons I learned from Grandma Elka, I learned to cherish my friends. Even when her health was declining she would find rides from friends to go visit friends who were in worst shape than her, and when she could no longer make it out she was still always good for a phone call. One of my favorite lines from her, in response to me commenting on how many friends she had, was “Well, there are friends, there are acquaintances, and then there are the relatives.” Maybe she really made these distinctions, but anyone from any of those groups (and anyone who could claim two or three degrees of separation from anyone) was always welcome at her Pesach seder or just to sleep over on a random night of the week.

My cousins and I are so fortunate to have had our grandmother in our lives for so long. I think it is so appropriate that she lived just past her 91st birthday. When she was 90 we thought we had lost her, but she snapped back and pushed herself those extra few months. They were months during which we all got to see her again, hear more stories, get more life advice, and months that gave her time for frequent Skype conversations with her great-granddaughter in Israel. Her friends say that she could never stop talking about us (although Hodaya kinda stole the show this past year!). She was proud of each and every one of us for our individual accomplishments and life goals. While on one hand she loved telling us what to do, she never doubted any decisions we made. While we knew she was always right, we knew she would love us no matter what.

Tuesday was exactly how it was supposed to be. Her children and grandchildren came together to laugh and celebrate her life. My cousin Dan said he had a dream the night after finding out she passed and in the dream Grandma Elka was running her own funeral and yelling at everyone for doing things wrong. She had, in fact, made her wishes very clear and they were being followed to the best of our abilities. However we knew exactly what Dan meant about his dream. I am sure she was shouting down from heaven that we were using the wrong napkins and that we should have used real dishes for when everyone came back to the house after the burial. My mom commented that all those years she made comments like “if anyone dares does X after I die I will haunt them” suddenly seems like a real threat as we wandered around her house putting sticky notes on the things we each wanted to keep and discussing how the house would be cleaned out. Before we went to bed we took out the last bits of Scotch we found in the liquor cabinet and made toasts to our grandmother, mostly about the individualized lectures we had all received over the course of our lives. I have no doubt that I will be hearing her voice in my head for years. Sometimes I feel like every time I get dressed for shul and look in the mirror I see her looking back at me frowning and contemplating what to tell me is wrong with my outfit before launching into a lecture about how fashion is not how it once was (Grandma Elka was a fashion designer in her day).

Grandma Elka’s influence on my life is visible every day. After years of family stories and history lectures (she read a few books a day ranging from history to sci-fi to trashy romance novels) I believe she was the driving force in me switching to be a History major my junior year. She instilled in me a love of learning and reading that I appreciate every single day. I am grateful for her treasure trove of family stories. It is an unbelievable thing to know so much about where I came from, where the family has been, and how our family history is tied into the history of everyone else. She once sat on Chaim Weizmann’s and recited shema with him, and now she has a great-granddaughter living in the country Weizmann’s helped create and learning to say shema every night. She believed so strongly in the State of Israel and while it meant only seeing her twice a year for two to three days at a time, she was so proud that two of her grandchildren had decided to make their home there. I admire her for giving up on a life dream to take care of her family, and while being so far away makes it very difficult sometimes I hope I can live up to her example even if I live 6,000 miles away.

Grandma Elka, we will speak your name for years to come, and your memory will live strongly in our hearts for the rest of our lives.


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A 10-year-old boy goes up to his mother and asks, “Mommy, what’s fornication?”. The mother goes beet red and quickly says “Go ask your father!”. The boy finds his father and asks, “Daddy, what’s fornication?”. His father shifts uncomfortably from foot and foot and says, “Go ask your grandmother!”. The boy goes to his grandmother and asks, “Grandma, what’s fornication?”. The grandmother says “Follow me.” and leads the boy upstairs to her room. She opens the door and motions for him to come in. The boy enters, and the grandmother beckons him towards her closet. He walks cautiously over to her and she opens the closet. The closet is full of all sorts of dresses and gowns from weddings, bar mitzvahs and gala dinners. She motions him even closer, pulls out one of the gowns, shoves it up close to the boy’s face and says, “See this? THIS is for-an-occasion.”

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יהיה זכרונה ברוך

To be progressive in Israel...

Disclaimer: I will probably ramble a lot in this post.

For background knowledge, please refer to Wikipedia's entry on the Reform Movement, because lets face it, where else does background knowledge come from?

As many of you know, I work at a synagogue preschool that is part of the "Reform Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel". Yeah, that's a mouthful. Wikipedia seems to have various theories on why in Israel the Reform Movement and Progressive Judaism go together. I wonder about this a lot.

First of all, lets think about how the Reform Movement started for a moment. It was a movement to make Judaism not tied down by halakhah and religious practice. As Wikipedia tells us:
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut writes "there is no such thing as a Jewish theological principle, policy, or doctrine." This is because Reform Judaism affirms "the fundamental principle of Liberalism: that the individual will approach this body of mitzvot and minhagim in the spirit of freedom and choice. Traditionally Israel started with harut, the commandment engraved upon the Tablets, which then became freedom. The Reform Jew starts with herut, the freedom to decide what will be harut - engraved upon the personal Tablets of his life." [3]
The way I always understood it, the Reform Movement made being Jewish more cultural. Not that it claimed Judaism was not a religion, just that anything Jewish was done more out of a sense of tradition and not religious obligation.

In Israel, if you are Jewish you are one of two things- dati (דתי) or chiloni (חילוני). And then there are charedis (חרדים), but lets keep things simple for now. They really like labels here. As much as I tried in my years of college to avoid using labels, they are all over the place here. And it's not just the labels that get to me- it's the boxes. During my first year at Hebrew U I would often wind up davenning shacharit at school between my first two classes. There I was, an American, with a history degree but in a social work program (Israelis don't really get liberal arts degrees for the sake of having a liberal arts degree), wearing pants, and praying regularly. Huh? No box for me. Since I never really spoke with my classmates, I never had any explaining to do. I have friends who know I wear pants but pray every day and some who probably don't. For all I know they try to put me into a box too, but it's just never an issue.

Now I work with native Israelis every day. It is not only that I work with native Israelis, it is that I do so at a preschool affiliated with a synagogue. So it's a religious preschool, but not, because it's part of the Reform movement. What does that mean? I ask myself that question a lot. Not too many people in the school seem to really have a grasp on what the movement is all about, what role the school has, and what is expected of the teachers as teachers in a Reform preschool. While the school is affiliated with the synagogue, most of the families with children in the preschool rarely if ever attend services and other programming. It used to be a requirement for admission to the preschool and is no longer, though the director and board members are working on ways to integrate the two bodies more and make the preschool more a part of the synagogue.

After an excruciating three month wait after my interview, I was called in for a final interview to meet with the director and the lead teacher I would be working with (pending her approval). The teacher, a woman in her 40's who immigrated from Belarus about twenty years ago, asked me how as a religious person I would handle working in a Reform preschool where most people did not practice Judaism the way I did. I responded that being from Boston, which I've noticed in retrospect is very unique. In Boston the different Jewish communities all get along. They all do stuff together. There's just no other way to put it. People tell me it's all those liberal academics. Who knows? I'm just grateful I was raised the way I was. The lead teacher seemed a bit skeptical, but thankfully the director is familiar with the community and assured her that I would be fine.

After a hectic year of six day work weeks, constantly being sick, and three graduate school courses, I am in my second year at the gan and much more conscious of the actions and opinions of those around me. I am also much more prone to being irritated by said actions and opinions. After years of avoiding labeling myself, I often find myself forced to do so. So okay, I am a דתיה, a religious person. But what about my coworker who worries about getting all her cooking in time for shabbat but would drive to her friends if invited out for a meal on shabbat? Or my other coworker who almost always travels on shabbat but always does הפרשת חלה? But what most astounds me at my workplace is that my coworkers seem to simply forget that I'm דתיה. Apparently, it is not tattooed on my forehead. When they first met my father and saw that he was wearing a kippah, they were surprised that he is religious (and I don't think it was because they had previously thought that my being religious was a divergence from how I was raised). I try not to eat at breakfast at gan because seriously, I just don't care to stuff my face with bread every morning, and every day they ask me why I'm not eating. Whenever I'm not eating because it's a fast day, they get this look of shock on their faces. "Oh, right, you do that sort of thing, okay then." On a side note, I was recently saying ברכת המזון (blessing after eating) to myself while standing on the curb waiting for a ride with two classmates (one Israeli and one Arab- see previous post) and realized how uncomfortable I would feel doing that in front of my coworkers. They are also seemingly surprised each and every time I mention shabbat meals I'm going to, hosting, and worrying about having time to cook for. Does me wearing pants really throw them off that much!?!?

Another example- once the day's staff consisted of me, the first coworker I mentioned, and a teacher who usually works in another gan who spent just over ten years working in a Reform synagogue preschool in New York. We were discussing how once during the year there is a special service in the adjoining shul for each of the older classes. The teachers are expected to attend. For me this will be no problem, as I live around the corner, and will probably hop back and forth from the shul next door that I usually go to. But what about the teachers who live farther away, don't necessarily have cars? My coworker said to the other teacher that she wonders what this other teacher did when her class had the service last year. Then she said that she didn't even understand how this teacher, a דתיה (for lack of a better word) teaches in the gan I work at at all since it is not a gan for דתיים (I keep using the Hebrew word because saying "gan for religious people" messes up the point I am trying to make, as I hope I eventually make clear). The teacher who spent time in the US explained that it really doesn't matter and where she worked that was often the case. The teachers can practice Judaism one way and work in a community where things are done differently. If you have an open mind, it's not a big deal at all. I just sat there listening, and again thinking that she was forgetting about me. The conversation started out between the three of us, but she only raised this issue with the other Israeli and not with me. I don't think she would ever think to ask me how I feel about it.

Now finally on to what I really and truly do not understand about the place I work at and the movement in general. How are members of the Reform Movement for Progressive in Israel different from חילונים ("non-religious Israelis"). Are they simply חילונים who go to shul every week? Who attend lectures at centers like the one I work at? Does one have to consciously be a member of the movement in order to be considered one? In the US, despite being anti-labels, I still consider myself a part of the Orthodox community. That doesn't mean I consider myself a cookie cutter copy of everyone else in the community, but it is still the community I identify with and that others would associate me with regardless of how I felt about it. I feel like my coworker who religious observant-wise is probably a lot like the members of the synagogue where I work would be astounded and possibly insulted if I made that comparison.

One of my conclusions is that what places like where I work provide is a community for Israelis who are less observant than the typical "דתי" Israeli (I hate terms like "less observant"... lets say "people who do less Jewish practices on a regular basis). In America there is a synagogue for almost everyone- especially Jews with similar lifestyles to חילונים. The Reform movement is much more clear in America. It is much more cultural and less religious. In cultures, there aren't obligations. There are demands the community may place on you, but they aren't really obligatory. The Reform synagogues match that mentality. In Israel, Judaism IS the culture- for everyone. The Coca Cola bottles and public buses had Happy Chanukah written on them for the past week. From Thursday you wish everyone a shabbat shalom when you say goodbye, even if shabbat for them will be watching movies all night and going to the beach the next day. This reality is what influences thousands of people to make aliyah every year (though not me- while the buses on Chanukah make me smile I have other reasons for being here, but that is for another post). It also has some unfortunate repercussions, one of which being that if someone is searching for a community, a synagogue in Israel is not the place to find one. While you might get to see friends in shul every week they are simply places to pray and rarely have any community building programs in place (and those that do are recent developments).

Once I thought about it that way, the existence of the Reform Movement in Israel begins to make more sense, even though I'm still not convinced it should be associated by name with the Reform Movement in America. The cultures in the two places are just too dramatically different from each other. Okay, on to the second part of the name. In Israel, it is the Reform Movement for Progressive Judaism. Maybe the "Reform Movement for Progressive Israeliness" would make more sense. It is a movement that brings Israelis together who don't want to be shoved into the חילוני or דתי boxes- who take family trips to the zoo on shabbat but want to be part of a community that makes Jewish traditions a part of their active lives. It provides a framework and communal atmosphere for developing a Jewish identity as part of an Israeli one.

A couple staff meetings ago one of the educational directors of the movement came to speak to us about a pamphlet they just completed of a curriculum for the movement. I was so glad to find see this sort of thing in print form as I never really understood what the educational goals of the gan were, though I am sure the end of the year party my class had about how everyone keeps shabbat in their own way that had absolutely no mention of attending prayer services would not necessarily be in line with those goals. The stuff in the pamphlet wasn't so surprising to me. They chose things like lighting candles, blessings on food, and mitzvot about behavior among people (בין אדם לחברו) and wrote out ways to teach these things to different age groups. In addition to preschools like mine, there is a growing network of elementary, middle, and high schools aimed at filling the gap between religious and non-religious public schools in Israel (ממלכתי and ממלכתי דתי). This is again what I think is more an example of Progressive Israeliness than it is of Progressive Judaism. The schools are very much like the Schechter Day Schools in the US. They teach religious practice but leave things more open ended. I'm a fan. I just hope it doesn't just turn into another box to squish Jewish Israelis into (though I guess if a society is going to be dominated by boxes, I suppose the more the better.

I finally got inspired to write this blog post (a somewhat organized mumble jumble of various rants from the past year) after a conference I was forced to sit through on Monday of Chanukah. The conference was at a place like the one I work at in Tel Aviv. It was teachers at preschools that are part of the movement. Pretty much everyone there felt very strongly that we should be on vacation like any other teacher and not forced to sit through lectures, but sadly we had no say in the matter. The theme of the conference was תפילה (prayer). I am still unclear on what the goals of the conference were. From what I gathered, it was to provide an opportunity for us teachers to learn more about ourselves as people and not just talk about our work all day. I found the lectures themselves kind of boring, the sing-a-long at the beginning annoying, and the ride from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv with my coworkers excruciating (I left a bit early and traveled back on my own- worth the money I had to spend). I hoped the conference would help me understand the movement better, but then realized that while I might have been the most different person there, it was not apparent at all which teachers actually identify with the movement.

Between being bored, not being the type to talk about my feelings with strangers, and the language barrier, I pretty much spent the entire time sitting quietly watching the scenes unfold before me. This was a few days after the devastating fires up north and the day it finally rained, so much of what was said had to do with that. The feeling in the air that rainy day was absolutely phenomenal. Everyone was happy. Everyone was expressing their thanks to God that the rain had finally arrived, that the fires could finally end, and that the country could be healed and be nourished. It was the opposite of what had been felt the previous few days when the nation was devastated, the sadness palpable. Rain is like Chanukah. All the Jews in Israel celebrate Chanukah, and all the Jews in Israel (well everyone really) celebrates rain. If it wasn't Chanukah, I wouldn't have been surprised if the buses had said "Happy Rainy Day" on them. Rain is a cause for celebration. When talking about תפילה, everyone agrees that rain is something to be prayed for.

Experiencing this expression of unity was awesome- this is what it means to be an Israeli. Sadly on the flipside, there was a lot of putting into boxes. There was a lot of "they do that but we do this". One woman said how the דתיים had a whole prayer event at the Kotel to pray for rain (part of a day of fasting) as an example of our prayers finally being answered and another responded "well the fire came first, and then the rain, so how do we know whose prayers are being answered?". It sounded a bit cynical. Also the first woman phrased her comment as talking about the other- a totally separate group of people. Why does it matter who prayed where? Why can't she just say "a large group of people prayed at the Kotel"? I constantly got the sense that the people around me felt a need to specify what type of Jew/Israeli they were talking about. Is being general so taboo?

The Reform Movement in America promotes social justice over halakhah, being a light onto the nations as a nation of good deed and not as a nation performing religious commandments (at least the way I see it). I think this is a beautiful thing. While I feel strongly about how I practice Judaism, an adherence to religious obligation, and continuing ancient traditions, I believe that what it really comes down to is being a good person, respecting oneself, and caring for others. I feel that my religious practices help me be that person, but that there are many ways to get to that point and that open mindedness is crucial for maintaining the greater Jewish community. The Reform Movement in America has done an excellent job making תיקון עולם, social justice, a priority for all the different denominations. In Boston it brought all the different congregations together, and they were mentioned as exactly that- congregations. The emphasis was that different synagogue communities were working together, not that Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews were finding something to agree on.

As I was getting at before, being progressive means different things in different societies. I still do not quite understand why the movement in Israel refers to itself both as Reform and as Progressive. The Reform Movement when founded was something very unique to Europe and America. It does not quite work the same way in Israel. I do understand why they would call themselves progressive, though how they are and will be progressive is very different from how the Reform Movement is progressive in America. Everyone has the right to choose how they want to be, but I think it is great that these "in between" Jews in Israel can be part of a community that serves their lifestyle and interests. I just hope that having an "in between", having something that isn't just דתי or just חילוני, will create a spectrum from one to the other, a spirit of open-mindedness, and not just another box to put people into. That would be progressive indeed.

הגיד לך אדם מה טוב ומה ה' דורש ממך כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד והצנע ללכת עם אלוקיך. –מיכה ו:ח

(While looking for a place I could copy and paste this verse from I came across this. Like buses wishing me a Happy Chanukah, it's things like this that get me excited about living in Israel.)

The Roadblock

In the introduction to her book History On Trial, Deborah Lipstadt describes an experience she had while studying abroad at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in the mid-sixties. One day she decided that she was determined to visit the Western Wall. Pre-1967, the Kotel (Western Wall), despite also being in Jerusalem and less than an hour's walk away, was in Jordan. Lipstadt came up with this crazy plan for her winter break to travel through Lebanon, England, Syria, and into Jordan (I forget the exact order) and make her way to the Kotel. Part of this plan involved "losing" her passport so that there would be no evidence when entering Jordan that she had been in Israel. Winter break was a good time to do this because there were certain times of the year (such as Christmas) that Mandelbaum Gate was open for Jordanian pilgrims to pass through into Israel, thereby providing Lipstadt with a way back to her dorm (Mandelbaum Gate is on what is now Route 1, about halfway between the Old City and Mount Scopus). From the Jordanian side of the gate she could easily see Mount Scopus and the nearby neighborhoods she would always take walks in. The Western Wall, such an important part of history and her Jewish heritage, was so close yet so far. She felt it was unfair to be kept from it (she then writes about coming back, just a few years later).

I think I wrote about this introduction in another blog post. I read it around the time I was beginning my degree at Hebrew University. Every time I travel there and back I pass by what was once Mandelbaum Gate. This critical checkpoint from just over forty years ago is now represented by a pillar surrounded by tracks for the future lightrail (I actually did see trains today but the seats were still covered in plastic wrap). I always think wow, this is incredible, I'm just gliding through on a bus- no passport or anything. Then from the rooftops of Hebrew University I get a stunning panoramic view of the city- a humbling experience indeed.

One doesn't have to read the news that often to figure out that the future of a united Jerusalem is a point of contention in the "peace process" (not putting it in quotes to be political... okay, maybe I am). Same goes for keeping the current borders of Israel (one vs. two state "solution"... oh there I go being political again- doesn't happen much, does it?). Checkpoints are still very much an everyday part of life in Israel. A few weeks ago I went to friends in the Gush for shabbat. It took just over a half hour to get there from my apartment in southern Jerusalem- I went up the street, got on a bus, rode it for less than ten minutes, crossed the street to the hitchhiking point/ bus stop, found someone driving to Neve Daniel, got in, and before I knew it I was there. The driver was originally from the US- not that I ever found out his name. I'm sure we know some of the same people. There is a checkpoint before the Gush but we barely had to stop. The driver glanced out the window, made eye contact with a soldier, and was waved through. No problem whatsoever. When you travel on a bus, a soldier will come on board and do a quick walk through but even that never takes so long. When my co-workers (native Israelis) found out where I went they were shocked- wasn't I scared? Isn't it dangerous? I thought they were being very silly. It's really amazing though. The Gush to them is an entirely foreign area. A few weeks later I went to the Gush again for Thanksgiving dinner. My friend invited his friends from the army. They were also in awe at being over the green line. To them this was a huge deal. It was like crawling into the wilderness. There is a lot I can say about my co-workers and their views on certain things, but that isn't the point of this post...

This year at Hebrew University I am in a class where the goal is to construct a project that will help other people. A couple weeks ago I missed a class at which a woman came to talk about a center she works at in East Jerusalem for children at risk. From my understanding these centers (which are all over Israel) are kind of like Israel's version of Head Start in the US. This was not my group's original plan, but my partners were impressed with the presentation and one of them (who is Arab) was asked directly by this woman to do her project there. The other two of us agreed, began researching what we could do to help based on what we knew about these centers in general, and today we were supposed to go visit and see for ourselves what we'd be dealing with.

The head of the center (the one who came to speak to the class) said she would come pick us up at school and drive us back. Because the center is in East Jerusalem, the Egged buses don't go there and it is not somewhere we would just walk over to, despite it being just a few minutes from the University. She picked us up as planned, we drove maybe two minutes, and then... road block. Our driver had started driving right through as she's used to when a soldier stopped us. Apparently this roadblock was only just set up because of recent events I am unclear about. She was perturbed. She said she was just driving to work. We said we were studies from the university out doing a project. Obviously this didn't matter to the soldiers.

You hear a lot about roadblocks in Israel on the news, so I must point out that these soldiers were perfectly cordial. They looked at all our IDs and told us that the driver and my Arab classmate were free to go in, but me and the other Israeli were not going to be let by so easily. It is not that we were forbidden to enter the area. The soldier informed us that if we did enter and something happened (I won't get into the examples he gives- they just aren't pleasant) the army would not be responsible for our safety. It would be a risk that we, as citizens of a democratic country and therefore allowed to make our own decisions, would choose to make. Discouraged, we turned around and drove back towards the school.

After discussing it amongst ourselves and our professor, we have decided not to continue with this project. While many Israeli professionals travel into the area every day, it is not something we can be sure we can do throughout the year. It is unfortunate that we can't, and the woman from the center will certainly be disappointed. I think she was the most put off by what happened. At the roadblock my Arab classmate nodded in quiet understanding while the other Israeli and I looked at each other, sitting together in the back seat, looked at each other wondering what to do. It is unfortunate that we are being kept from this experience and that the children at the center are being kept from the help and services we can provide. We were the perfect group for this project, each of us coming from a slightly different professional background that put together would have worked wonderfully.

When we got back to school, we just laughed about it. I'm glad we could. Here we were, two Arabs and two Israelis, laughing about the harsh realities of the country we live in. I joked that I would add it to the list of things not to tell my parents, though they will probably be relieved to find out I will not be doing a project in East Jerusalem. They are so supportive of me living in Israel that I try not to do anything to worry them, but this was an experience I really wanted to have. While there are so many parts of Israel I would never think of going (or am simply prohibited as an Israeli from going) because of safety concerns, I guess I never thought it could happen in a place next door to where thousands of Arabs and Jews study together every day. I want to believe that we could have gone through with this project and everything would have been fine- and maybe it would have. It just takes one person with a rock in his or her hand to turn everything upside down. It is my democratic right to choose to go where I please, but it is also my democratic right to choose to be safe. My co-workers' fears of the Gush are not unfounded, but I do wish they could speak about it more optimistically.

Our plan B (which was our original Plan A) is to work on programming for teenagers who are hard of hearing. My Israeli and Arab partners both have connections in their respective communities. We are hoping that we can provide both a service for deaf teenagers, and an opportunity for Arab and Israeli teens to communicate with each other. I am in this class because of my failed plan to write a thesis. I knew that doing a project instead wouldn't be a bad alternative, but I felt that I wanted to do something on my own and not have to deal with class and dealing with others. Each week I realize what a great experience this will be. My group is the only mixed Arab/Jewish group and the only one that is doing something with both communities. When I was first looking into schools I posted on a listserv asking about David Yellin, a teacher's college I considered going to. Someone wrote back telling me that I should be aware that there are Arabs there. I held back from responding, but I was thinking "Arabs wanted to study to be educators too? That sounds wonderful." It is such a positive experience being in a program of both Arabs and Jews. Great things can happen here.