men?

why, yes, they are all stupid, thanks for asking.

ישראל שלי

היום הייתי בספרייה של מרכז טרומן. אני חוקרת את היחס פוליטי בין ישראל לבין הודו בישביל כיתה אחרת. בספרייה הזאת יש המון חומר. כבר ישבתי בספרייה הזאת יומיים בחדר קטן, עם רק ארבעה שולחנות ומדף ספריים עם ספרים בעברית, ערבית, אנגלית, ועוד שפות. הספרן הוא קצת מוזר אבל הוא עוזר לי המון ובן אדם משעשע. היום בספרייה דיברנו על ישראלים. הוא אמר לי שישראל כל הזמן משתנה ובימים האלה אף אחד לא דואגת לא משנה על מה שקורה לשכן שלו. הוא אמר שעכשיו תל אביב בדיוק כמו כל עיר בעולם. אין אהבת חינם בישראל בכלל. בעבר, הוא אמר, כולם עזרו לכל בן אדם והייתה אווירה קהילתית בארץ.

היום גם הייתי באוטובוס, בקו א4, ממרכז העיר לגבעת הצרפתית. ראיתי ארבעה אנשים שהציעו לעזור לאישה עם תינוקת לרדת מהאוטובוס.

ישראל שלי? הישראל שלי היא ארץ מאוד מבולבלת. ישראל שלי היא הארץ של התנ''ך, שאלוהים נתן ליהודים, ארץ קדושה מאוד. אבל הישראל שלי היא גם מדינה עכשוויתית, עם הרבה בעיות (ולא כל כך הרבה פתרונות), מדינה של היהודים וגם של הערבים. ישראל שלי היא דומה למה שהספרן אמר היום בספרייה, אך הוא גם המציאות שחוויתי בקו-א4.



qed

bumped his head on the foot of the bed

it rains

i live in israel, therefore making this a very odd occurrence, as jerusalem is in the desert and it is after shavuot/late late may.

i like rain. it clears all of our anger at roommates for not doing dishes and memories of the exam we just failed and embarrassment at telling boy she likes him and bewilderment of returning home in ten days and things that hang, hang in the air with the dust of a hamsin until rosh hashana with apples and honey arrives or we are soaked in our may t-shirts.

i place a pronoun here and a verb here and a subject here and now we have a sentence.
i needn't windex my window any longer. the rain blew sideways with the wind and the dirt is washed away.


sometimes i write so poetically i get myself confused. does this ever happen to bakria?

the affair

between me, the roof, and jerusalem continues.

looking down from the roof towards the student dorms and east jerusalem

sun setting beyond cvesh achad/road no. 1

air conditioners on the roof and clouds

moon in a blue sky

jerusalem, the lover, at night

skyline

it is night, almost mid, and i sit here summarizing hebrew newspaper articles and learning פועל. from my window, the few inches of shutter i have left up to encourage air flow and discourage mosquitoes show building four to the far left. there is one bedroom i can see from mine, on floor nine, on whose wall i notice an ancient map of the world. they are usually up later than i but the wall is dark. overhead a helicopter whirrs, and on the street an occasional car drives by. ahead is an apartment complex, with odd windows lit but revealing nothing beyond a haze of white or yellow light. over the roofs, past the rows of laundry shifting in the breeze, i gaze at an inch of the sparkling lights of jerusalem. they are yellow, green, white, and orange, i see no buildings but only lights, and these lights are my life.



the clouds today moved and danced and swam about. here, from my window, is the tail end of building four and the apartment complex and laundry drying across the street.

flowers and hikes and marzipan

last shabbat ventured with some north americans and israelis (they do exist!) on a "unity shabbaton" up north to nahal tavor. spent the morning hiking, which was splendid.


this here is a picture of the allah-goddess- tree from the hike. lovely.


here are some nice flowers in rocks. really beautiful.


here we have a wonderfully placed tree, cow, mountains in the background, and sparse looming clouds. really great.

the hike was lovely. afterwards, we went to the marzipan factory. fantastic! after seeing marzipan dioramas, we were ushered into a special room where honored visitors are encouraged, namely through the provision of a plastic box of colored pieces of sugary marzipan, to create their own sculptures. utterly outstanding!


here is our security guard from the trip, barak, with the marzipan gun he made. walla!


here is security guard barak again, but he has been convinced to seek peace and abstain from violence, as epitomized through his crafting of a rose instead of a gun. kol hakavod, barak!

so, dear honored reader, i realize you are thinking to yourself: "wow, rebecca just had the most spectacular day of her life! first the lovely hike with nice flowers and cows and muddy streams, then marzipan guns and roses, how fantastic! she is soooo lucky." well, dear reader, someone somewhere must really love me because IT GETS BETTER.

if you were to run a marzipan factory, what would you have in the gift shop?
"obviously," answers you, my dear reader, "a chocolate fondue fountain."
exactly right!
if you were to have a chocolate fondue fountain in the gift shop of your marzipan factory, and a really nice group of students studying at the hebrew university came by, all nice and sweaty after a morning hike, what would you do?
"clearly," answers you, my dear kind reader, "let them place their fingers underneath the stream of chocolate in the chocolate fondue fountain and eat the chocolate directly from their fingers."
but would that be all?
"of course not!" say you, dear reader, "these kind students would be allowed to lick the melted chocolate off of their fingers, savoring every morsel, and then put their fingers BACK into the chocolate fondue fountain and do it again!"

if you were to name my emotion at the moment, what would it be?
"without a doubt," answer you, my brilliant reader, "utter elation."

comma

here i am very stressed and therefore enjoying (with great need) some ben and jerry's (today my roommate said that our apartment never fights because we resolve our problems with a pint of ice cream) and i glanced at the lid looking at the description and i did not recognize the ingredient named and i thought i wonder what that is? so i looked close and it was russian.

by the rivers of babylon

it continues to rain.

i slip as i walk to the library-- crocs were made for israel but not for this. underneath the awning some students sit and watch the downpour like americans watch tv, mesmerized.

danny get your gun

Thursday night, choice to hear Olmert speak at the Masa Gala or see my friend Danny get sworn in at the Kotel. I chose Danny.

The Tekes (ceremony) Hasbaah (swearing in) at the Kotel marked the end of basic training for Zanchanim (paratroopers) who enlisted March 27 and their official swearing in. The soldiers receive their unit's pins and get their guns. Zanchanim is one of the most elite units in the IDF. The soldiers are young, most just out of high school.* The plaza in front of the Kotel was mobbed with adoring family members, girlfriends, and etcs. There were far more people there that night than had been at the Kotel for the Yom HaZikaron ceremony.

I ran into Tamir, one of Danny's friends from kibbutz, in the Old City and he, having been a zanchan himself, knew where to stand and other useful things like... ... zanchanim don't tuck their shirts in. We wandered to the entrance of the Kotel tunnels, where all of the zanchanim that were being sworn in were standing inside of. Exactly like an American football game where the team gets pepped in the tunnel before taking the field, the zanchanim were chanting and cheering. So much energy! Arms tingling, heart racing with excitement as I watch and listen and know that Danny is there, that he is part of this movement.



This is one of the officers standing in front of all the new zanchanim before they begin marching to the Kotel.



A row of hayallim, soldiers, advancing to the ceremony. איזה כוח




After the ceremony (a bit boring) one of the tzevets- staffs- of zanchanim gathers around their מפקד- commander- to receive instructions about returning to base.




Danny finds us! The new zanchan in a whirl of movement.


Attending the tekes with the mass of Israeli families and seeing Danny afterwards was one of my best experiences here. I generally do not judge experiences or anything in such a manner because a) I have a really bad memory and b) it does nothing for me, but this swirl of people and emotion was mamesh one of the first times I have genuinely felt included in Israeli society and life.




*and short also. I don't think this is related. Just one of those things you pick up on if you are tall. It shouldn't affect their fighting too much.

mmm!

to jerusalem nights

in the start of summer with warmth
but no melting, exuberance and not
exhaustion, love and hope and dreams
and other unidentifiable things that
are blown our way across the negev
up the hills to reach us here in
jerusalem, city of gold, to our-not-
quite-circle on the green matted grass
where we sit surrounded by best
friends and secret crushes and
towering jerusalem stone buildings
and the freedom of the end of the
week and being a young twenty-
something having ice cream and not
knowing for the moment--free--of
where we will live next year and
what we shall do with our lives! and
this, this black sky that is red and
heavy with the wind of hamseen,
this is life.

the decisive moment.

the office of academic affairs - hebrew u america- is having a "photo exhibit extravaganza" entitled CRISPEE. fantastic. the theme is "what most typifies your experience at the hebrew university and/or israel to you." each participant may submit up to four photographs, due some day in july. i do plan on adventuring off to take some more pictures before then, but here are my favorite of the year thus far. please leave comments and let me know which ones you like! tods.

tel aviv art fair

the shuk at yafo- record shop and shop owner.

the shuk at yafo- dancing santa and an iron

amy seeing the mediterranean on the train to akko

the old city of akko- adverts and a tree

tremping in the golan

sukkot in the old city of jerusalem

grafitti in tel aviv

shuk in yafo- chair, table, poster

shuk in yafo- chair lot.

shuk in yafo- the three musketeers

jerusalem, night of yom hazikaron

Al Aqsa

the more panoramic al aqsa

kate and sun

tzfat

cotton candy man

cotton candy man 2

behind the delicatessen's counter

sunglasses on allenby

heartbeats

these are my cousins


and these are my brothers


and this is allison


and this is iris, last summer


and here is the front porch


and i miss them.

to note

Syntax
I subscribe to janglo, a d-list for anglo jerusalemities listing for sales, for rents, events, job opps, etc. today one of the messages was titled as followed:
EVENT: SELLING BABIES, CHILDRENS @ ALL THE FAMILY CLOTHING!!! From: aatariy
do you think they mean it? i would love to have a baby without the trouble of childbirth. i think my roommates would be ok with it if i brought home a really cute one (reasonably priced) and set up a crib in the living room.

Mezuzot
there is a new mezuzah on the door to the laundry room in the kfar. it is big and flashy and silver, slightly rounded with a golden shin. the mezuzah on my door is a simple silver-matte thing, there-if-you-need-it-but-shall-not-force-you-to-notice-or-kiss.

Lunch
tuna melt. the bread got a bit burnt in the oven, and had to cool off before i ate it, so then it wasn't warm anymore. hard to decipher the proper time to bite in. generally i make them using whole-wheat pita, but decided to be adventurous and buy a dark role instead. moral: it is not a good thing to be adventurous in the realm of tuna melts. recipe: tuna (במים), mayonnaise, onion, hard-boiled egg, with dashes of salt and pepper. yesterday kate made breakfast for lunch. it was good considering i don't really like omlets or pancakes.

Homework
yesterday/today is the first time i have done hebrew homework this term before it was actually due. i feel awfully proud of myself. i would call my mother and tell her so that she as well could heap praise upon me, but she would just chastise me for not doing any of it sooner. haval. i don't understand this worksheet on לא/אלא. what am i to do- מיסיסיפי, ירדן, דנובה, אוורסט
oh well. i have not done any jesna responses yet. must do them post-haste.

Shabbat
back to where we started. shira's birthday dinner in the apartment, picnic lunch, seudat shlisit at aviva's. how much do mushrooms cost?

Addictions
diet coke. facebook. sun. avoiding work. chocolate (though avoiding). israel. open windows.

Blogs
mr lapushin does not write in his blog enough. miss bakria writes too cryptically. miss bailey has a funny life. postsecret is racy. i am foolish because sometimes i write not for me but rather for imaginary people with exciting lives who i envision reading my blog but are much too busy to leave comments.

Radio
i used to listen to galgalatz a) in the old apartment, b) in the kitchen before the roommates kept turning it off, and c) in my room before it broke. now i have returned to the sounds of philadelphia with wxpn. yesterday i started getting dressed according to the weather report they gave.

Pens
colors are all the rage. when i was a young warthog, i used the free bic blue and black pens that are received/stolen from businesses and hotels and such. fall term i bought (i think for the first time) the beautiful uniball and associates ballpoint pens. this was a revolution in my writing life. kate started to use the stabilo israeli point 88 ultra fine pens that are designed like a pencil and i got jealous (curious) and bought some from the sale at the academon. 4 for 10 shekel. they are good for notes in hebrew class but don't flow like the beautiful uniball and associates ballpoint pens or even the free bic blue and blacks.

Showers
if you are questioning whether or not you should take a shower, take it. if anything of this nature is a question the answer is always yes and there is no question.

Time
it is may 1. may day. may day.