I am the Joe DiMaggio of TV-Watching

You want a record that will never be broken?

I JUST WATCHED ANOTHER SEASON OF “24” IN 36 HOURS.

Some people are put on this earth for a reason. Theodore Herzl? To found modern political Zionism. MLK? To lead the American civil rights movement. Me? To watch “24” and eat chumus. If you’re thinking about plowing through a season of this, “Lost”, or one of the other soap opera-type hit shows, here’s a tip: get sick. No better time to stay in bed and stare at the screen. Wow. 2 seasons in under a week. I haven’t felt this accomplished in years; do they give awards for this type of achievement? One more thing-do any other guys ever think about the “dream matchup” of the indestructible action heroes? Like what if they put Jack Bauer vs. Indiana Jones vs. Jon McClane, etc. Who would win? I have to say Jack. Indy is a legend but how effective is a whip against all of CTU’s nifty intelligence tools? These are the things I think about.

“The following takes place between 3 PM and...EHHHHHH...”

And how amazing is the internet? While on the bus to work this week, I listened to a podcast of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption”. Sports fans, how happy am I? Very surreal...Hebrew around me, Wilbon and Kornheiser arguing about the NFC East in my ears. Good stuff.

My friend Assaf told me that he accidentally came across the show “Daria” on TV and has been downloading episodes. Wow, that’s strange. An Israeli coming across a short-lived spinoff to “Beavis and Butthead” 10+ years later. Thomas Friedman was right-the world is flat.

They don’t make shows like this anymore. Huh huh.

A Third-World Country with Camels?

That’s the stereotype of the stereotype that the world has of Israel. I don’t know if that’s really what people think but those in the world of Jewish education always stress the need to show American Jewish teens that there’s more than just camels. (So why do we take them on camel rides on every tour?) If anyone needs to disprove this notion, let them talk to me after this past week. What did this author spend his last few days doing? Shepherding his flock of sheep? Shaking sand out of my colorful Bedouin pants? If you said “watching Season 3 of 24” on my laptop, give yourself a pat on the camel hump.

I don’t have the stats on hand (I’m writing this without internet access, so no fun graphics this time) but I’m guessing that Israelis are one of the most downloadingest people in the world. While the record companies in America are supposedly coming after users of Napster and the like, I don’t think they’re messing with anyone over here. So I’m always hearing talk of people using E-mule (just another Kazaa, Limewire, etc I presume) and downloading the latest episode of “Lost” or “24”. That doesn’t necessarily mean people download more here than in the States but in the U.S., you don’t have to wait as long to see it all (not sure how long the delay is for these shows to air here but it’s not 6 months or NEVER like it used to be. Most popular shows are on here as evidenced by “Seinfeld” being on every time I find myself in front of a TV which is rarely, although why you’re just as likely to find something ridiculous like “Welcome Back, Kotter” in Israel in the year 2006 escapes me.)

Thanks to Ziv who was so kind to download Seasons 3 and 4 of “24” for me, I figured I should get around to filling my void this week. As anyone who’s talked to me about it knows, the first season, as watched live, was the best show of TV I’ve ever seen. However, anything which relies so heavily on suspense and surprise has a tough time staying innovative and fresh forever. By the beginning of Season 3, I thought, “Ok, SERIOUSLY...how many times can this happen? Let’s see how many times Jack almost dies this year. Oh, look-the cleaning lady is a traitor. How about that?” I skipped Seasons 3 and 4 before jumping back in for 5 which ended several months ago. Because I’m a loyal enough fan, I figured I’d get around to watching the missing seasons eventually and this week seemed a good enough time (especially because I spent all of today sick in bed). Let’s talk about that for a minute...

Long story short, I woke up yesterday very hot and a few minutes later very cold. In between, I was washing my hands one minute, then sitting in the bathtub with my feet hanging out the next. Unless I was in fact abducted by martians (or city-dwelling camels), I guess I fainted for the first time in my life. (Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, that’s as bad as the story gets. Somehow I also didn’t bump my head.) About an hour later, I was at the doctor, an English-speaking female who told me that she spent the last 3 years living in Houston. She then started sobbing and turned into a complete wreck screaming “NO, NO, NO!!! HOUSTON!!! WHY????” (The previous sentence is a lie but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had happened. Sorry, Steve and Renee.) She told me that I had a virus and needed to take it easy for a few days and did I have someone who could take care of me? I called my often-mentioned friend Michal Bruck who is taking a break from work these days while she studies for some financial certification tests. When she said she was busy (I didn’t tell her I was so sick), the doctor said “give me the phone”. When I said “no, that’s ok”, she said “GIVE ME THE PHONE.” Ok, I have a confession: Israeli women scare me. I handed over the phone and without my noticing any type of physical transformation, this doctor somehow turned into a Polish mother in front of my eyes. “Hu mamash mamash mamash mamash mamash choleh (I might be forgetting a “mamash” or two)”, translated to “he is very very very very very sick and good luck getting out of the Jewish guilt which I’ve just thrown on your head.” Michal said “Why didn’t you tell me you fainted???” and an hour later, I was sleeping at her apartment for 6 hours, eating toast, and watching “Memento”. Thank you, Dr. Jewish Mother. Medical care and Jewish maternal love. “Take two of these and call me in the morning...or I’m gonna be up all night worrying about you and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

As for today, I just finished my tenth episode of “24” since this morning, bringing the season to a conclusion. If you’ve never done this before, you’re probably shocked right now. If you have, you’re nodding your head in understanding. To the latter of you who have put your lives on hold to watch a season of this on DVD, can anyone really say this is enjoyable? At some point, your goal turns from “to derive enjoyment from an incredible show” to “to finish this thing already so I can break this addiction and have my life back.” Trust me, it IS addictive. I call it “going through the ‘24’ motions”, just watching to be done already. And although I don’t feel like writing it all out here, anyone who claims that watching one after another is better than watching it live weekly is just wrong. I will argue with them if they’d like.

A few other notes:

• The summer seems to have finally ended here. It rained camels and dogs. I look forward to breaking out my wardrobe of winter clothes from NY.
• After hearing about the “tough” customer service policies here, I dragged Michal to Ace Hardware with me to help return a non-working lamp. Even though more than 14 days had passed (the time during which they accept returns), they gave me a replacement, no questions asked, not even bothering to look at the receipt. Go figure.
• I was going to write a whole entry on last Monday but forgot or didn’t get around to it. I didn’t go into the office that day, spending the afternoon with my friend Assaf drinking coffee on his mirpeset (porch), eating at the shuk, and playing shesh-besh (Backgammon, the unofficial sport of Israel) for hours. (How many “unofficial” things of Israel are there and what percentage of them were decided by Americans? Do Israelis really call falafel the official snack of Israel? What if Germans are calling David Hasselhoff the “official singer of America”? Doesn’t anyone have a problem with this???)
  

Ok, that’s it for now: I should rest up so I’m better by the end of the weekend. Besides, Season 4 awaits.

Shabbat in Jerusalem

At the current point of Jewish history, people talk about the Jewish world being elliptical with two foci, or main points, Israel and America. Israel too has two geographical foci which arguably hold greater significance than others, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Most American Jews seem to have a stronger affinity for the former than the latter. Some because of their religious connection and some because they just don’t know Tel Aviv. Come on any tour, 10 day or 9 month, and you’ll spend a disproportionate amount of time in the Holy City, with good reason: that’s where the history is. The Kotel, the Old City, the Knesset, Yad Vashem, anywhere you turn, you’ll find either something that happened a long time ago or a museum devoted to illustrating something that happened a long time ago. Plus, it’s a beautiful city and home to the holiest Jewish place on earth so it’s no surprise that most tour buses drive straight there from the airport.

So why do people know so little about Tel Aviv? Because the city only turns 100 in 2009 and there isn’t much of historical or religious significance there (unless you consider “home of the first person to have the chutzpah to barbeque on Yom Kippur” significant.) Tel Aviv though is definitely the Israeli ying to Jerusalem’s yang (there’s the next big alternative band; look out for Jerusalem’s Yang at the 2009 Lollapalooza.) Tel Aviv is the cultural, population, and financial center of Israel. If you want to pray, Jerusalem is the place to do it. If you want to shop, work in high-tech, or find a great late-night coffeehouse, Tel Aviv is your place. Yes, that’s an oversimplification but the point is, most American Jews don’t know Tel Aviv at all and it’s a shame because it has just as much if not more to offer to at least some people (presumably, less observant Jews.) When I was here for 9 months, I was based in Jerusalem for 3 months and spent many other weekends there. Tel Aviv? All in all, I probably spent a handful of days there. Only when visiting Ziv in 2003 did I really discover the late-night bars, the beach, amazing restaurants, and more in this cosmopolitan city. From that point, I became much more attached to Tel Aviv and preferred to spend most of my free time there during my visits. With a limited amount of time here, Tel Aviv always “won” and even turned me a little off from Jerusalem and my memories of guided tours.

So what’s the moral of this long digression? Americans, visit Tel Aviv! Oh yes, and I decided to spend this Shabbat in Jerusalem. My friend Yehoshua had a baby boy last week and the bris was yesterday morning in Jerusalem. I was looking for a reason to leave town for a weekend anyway so this seemed like a good excuse to get out of Dodge (that’s how you say Tel Aviv in Hebrew.) Coming from T.A., the moment the bus pulls into Jerusalem, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore. After the bris, I dropped my stuff off at my friend Ofra’s apartment nearby and headed for the shuk.

This is when I realized that choosing to spend time in a place is very different from being dragged along on a tour. Machaneh Yehuda in the final pre-Shabbat hours is an amazing sight. The busy-ness, the energy...everyone’s on a mission. I’m not sure how to explain it. Because Ofra is out of town and her fridge is, well, as empty as mine, I went to the shuk to shop for my weekend food. Check some of these pictures out...

This is Beth who I’ve met a couple of times, most recently 2 hours earlier at the bris. When she’s not studying at a yeshiva here, she can be found once a week working at the shuk. In some ways, that’s the coolest job in the world. Do you know anyone who’s done that? I bought stuffed cabbage, kubeh, rice, and grape leaves for my Saturday lunch.



I just ate this for breakfast: cashews, dried apricots, raisins, and some other nut whose name I can’t remember.







Ok, is this some kind of sick joke? This CANNOT be a real food. (Somewhere, a seven-fingered fat man is missing a hand.)






This is Marzipan, the bakery who reportedly has the best rugalach on the planet. Surprise! It’s my friend Amir’s sister, working there while also studying at yeshiva for the year! (Wait a second...suddenly, I’m seeing an unlimited supply of falafel in my future. If you see me with payes next time, you’ll know why.)


After dropping off my food, I walked down the street to Gan Sacher, a park where I solidified my reputation as an unathletic Jew, dropping many easy catches during our Year Course football games in the early ‘90s.


This brings back many memories, some of them traumatic. If any of my friends still have video of me dropping that touchdown catch while wide-open (you know which one), please don’t post it on YouTube.

Ok, time to wrap this up. B’kitzur (in short): I definitely need to spend somemore time in Jerusalem. It was an amazing place to spend the weekend. You really feel the Shabbat in a different way from Tel Aviv. The weather was also much cooler, dare I say, fall-like. And like New York, sometimes you have to get out of the big city (T.A.) for something a little more relaxing (funny, people say the same thing about Jerusalem.) Americans, when you visit, stay for at least 2 Shabbatot. There’s too much of Israel to see in one weekend.

ANOTHER Jewish holiday???

Hello, my loyal readers: I’M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!! I told you I had lots to write about. The first person to comment below explaining the meaning of Hoshanna Raba, Chol Ha’moed, and Shemini Atzeret gets a falafel ball dedicated in their honor (three seconds before I eat it). You’d think you might be able to ask someone in this country and get an answer quicker than in the States...no such luck. Nor does anyone know when one begins and one ends. Something about Simchat Torah falling on Shabbat so there’s an exception or something. In the States, the holidays go from sundown to sundown. So why do I think Simchat Torah went from yesterday morning to last night here? I don’t know. Is there a rabbi in the house?

There’s a holiday...that you can’t pronounce...
who ya gonna call?

After not hardly seeing a single sukkah in Tel Aviv, I decided I definitely wanted to do something for Simchat Torah. My friend Assaf plays piano at a nearby Reform synagogue called Beit Tefillah so that seemed like a good choice. Let me interrupt myself by saying that as someone who was raised attending a Conservative shul, I was aghast the first time I entered a Reform shul and saw instruments, microphones, and laser light shows. When you’re young and haven’t yet been exposed to diversity (in any context), it takes some time to learn tolerance. When I lived in NY, I once attended a well-known synagogue called Bnai Jeshurun (or “BJ”) on a Friday night. It was quite an experience with the community sitting in a circle, singing along to a bona-fide orchestra, a handful of musicians playing keyboard, guitar, and I don’t remember what else (harp? lute? Something Biblical-sounding?) However I felt about it religiously, I couldn’t argue that the music was simply amazing. And by that stage of my life, I was already much more tolerant of musical instruments (at least in certain informal contexts like summer camp...not sure what I’d think if they were brought into my synagogue). And here’s why: there are far fewer ways to practice Judaism here than in the States with virtually all synagogues being some level of Orthodoxy. A huge percentage of Israel’s population is completely turned off by organized religion and prayer (not to be confused with tradition or cultural observance) and the perceived all-or-nothing approach here. I hear that “slowly, slowly” (to translate from Hebrew), the Reform and Conservative movements are growing which can only be a good thing (unless you don’t approve of them). It would be nice if so many people learned that there’s another way to be Jewish than the one they don’t like. It’s very easy for an American to move here and never step foot in a synagogue again and I don’t want to do that; however, I also might shove a fork in my eye if I have to be subjected to some of the prayer services I’ve sat through here in the past. Which brings me back to the Reform service I attended Friday night...

I had never seen a service like this before in Israel. It was upstairs in some kind of building of learning (called “Alma” maybe?), definitely not a sanctuary. There were probably 30-40 people in attendance, sitting in a circle with Assaf and a cellist accompanying the service leader. I was immediately reminded of BJ which is interesting because apparently they fund this place’s budget (or so said a woman I met who moved to Israel about 15 years ago from the States). Though I didn’t talk to so many people, it seemed like a regular and warm community and a place I’d be interested to visit again. What’s more important to me? Finding a place I like or not going to synagogue at all? Clearly, the latter. (Just kidding-did you miss my entire point?)

I definitely believe in live music in shul.
That said, why can’t they get these guys to lead Shacharit?

As I said, I’m not sure when Simchat Torah actually began here but this place did the hakafot Friday night (the marching around with the Torah. I asked my roommate Hila what “hakafa” means and she said there’s no other meaning, just the Torah processional. Oh, yes, except for that it also means “home run”. Don’t ask me how she knows that.) Before the first of seven hakafot, the leader called up everyone who was attending for the first time. I got up and danced around with the Torah for a few minutes. Good times.

The intellectual highlight of the night occurred when they read the final parsha of the year. I should mention that I haven’t attended too many Simchat Torah celebrations in my life (there’s simply no digging my way out of this one, I’ll stop trying now.) They raised the chupah over the Torah and after the guy finished, everyone broke into a rousing song of “siman tov u’mazal tov”, this after which I heard the word “chatan (Torah)” (groom). Also after I saw a couple up at the bimah (I’m still trying, you’ll see why in a minute). In the States, this song is reserved for weddings and Bar-Mitzvahs. Seeing the couple, the chupah, and hearing “chatan”, I thought, “Hey, maybe they’re getting married as well?” At this point, I turned around to the lady behind me and asked (brace yourselves), “Slicha, mah ha’simcha? (Excuse me, what is the happy occasion?)” Her answer: “Simcha??? SIMCHAT TORAH!!!” This loosely translates to “You are dumber than an acre of bat manure.” It also assures that I will return to this place only in disguise.


This is how you can expect to see me at shul next time.

Even more to come later...

“Cafe, B’vakasha? Coffee, please?”

Let’s review some famous questions in history:
1) Why did the chicken cross the road?
2) Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
3) Shalom, Benji....ehhhhhhhh, do you want to go to an El Al party with lots of flight attendants?

I was asked one of these three Thursday night (here’s a clue: it didn’t involve winged animals.) My first thought was “is this a radio station prank? No no, this sounds too much like my friend Noga who is in fact a flight attendant. This must be real.” (Editor’s note: “ehhhhhh” added for dramatic effect)

What was the last thing I wrote? About the need to always have my camera for blogging purposes? As it were, I was able to scribble down a few random thoughts on paper.

The price of admission was 70 shekels (I’m not doing the math for you anymore) and it was held on some kibbutz north of Tel Aviv. That’s how parties are done here. In the States, you get married at Congregation Beth Jew. Here? Down the road from chickens. Ok, so it’s not exactly like that, with scruffy field workers walking down the aisle or anything. These kibbutzim often have large halls for this exact business reason, I suppose; you wouldn’t even know you were down the road from chickens (calm down, my Israeli friends). There were a ton of people walking around the area with a DJ playing music in the hall. Aside from the occasional English song (Kanye West, Shakira, etc.), it was all the stuff that I can’t stand: techno, electronic, trance…I’m not sure which it was. Just that they could have played the same song on repeat and I wouldn’t have noticed. I did get a kick out of them playing the extended theme song to “Beverly Hills 90210” as I looked around to see if I was the only incredulous one. Turn right, look around, turn left, try to make eye contact with someone…nope, apparently no one finds this surreal but me.

Is this everybody’s favorite cheesy high school cast?
Nope, it’s just the soundtrack to Israel’s latest dance party.

Other random thoughts…

Throughout the night, I resisted the strong urge to ask a complete stranger for a cup of coffee, suspecting the humor might be lost on them.

At one point, some kind of El Al promotional video played on a large screen. I asked my friend Rani if I needed headphones to watch the movie. He laughed.

Breaking news: Israelis, um…look different from American Jews. And Americans are always complaining about Israel’s poor PR. Why doesn’t the Ministry of Foreign Affairs just videotape one of these parties, duplicate it in mass amounts, and ship it off to the heads of the BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera? Tourism would skyrocket. Of course, everyone around the world would be clamoring for their right of return. Or at least the right to return to the Tel Aviv beach on a Saturday afternoon.

If Bar Rafaeli was our Foreign Minister,
would the Arabs still hate us?

By the way, they also use the term “meat market” in Hebrew. They call it “shuk basar”. That’s funny.

No raging party would be complete without the Druze woman making pita next to the Bedouin-style tent. I told you I should have had my camera.

Shopping Time

My job is part-time. Well, it’s supposed to be part-time although it’s been a real effort to limit my hours. This week, I made a special effort to either go into the office late or leave early. So what is one supposed to do with all this free time? He can start by going to Dizengoff Center for some good shopping. Not “hey, I’m bored, I think I’ll pop into Old Navy and buy three ringer T’s!” shopping...more like “if I don’t buy a few things for the apartment, my aggressive roommate is going to kill me in my sleep” shopping. A few days earlier, there was a little episode because she thought I hadn’t contributed anything to the apartment nor had I bought any of the three things she wanted me to buy...despite her not telling me any of the three things she wanted me to buy. It was what I like to call, “a mis-com-mun-i-ca-tion”. We seem to have worked it out, but if I stop responding to emails, please contact the police.

I like shopping for things I don’t know how to say in Hebrew because it allows me to showcase my unrivaled skills in charades and Taboo with the customer service people. When painting my room, I used the handle/long stick-thing which attaches to my roommate’s magav/squeegie and got it covered in paint. In order to avoid waking up to a horse’s head, I decided to buy her a new one.



Don’t mess with the Godfather.
Or my roommate.

So how would you say that in Hebrew? “Two words...three syllables...sounds like...” Through a combination of broken Hebrew and sublime acting (no previous training), I was able to elicit the answer on only the second guess (first, she thought I meant “shoe rack”.) Less than 10 shekels, not bad. (By the way, I discovered a new game this past week. It’s replaced the “let’s divide everything by 4.5 to figure out how much I’m paying for this in dollars”. It’s the much more relevant and useful game “let’s divide this by my monthly salary to see how broke I’m going to be in a few weeks.” I think I figured out that if I buy 10 ice coffees a month, it’s roughly 7% of my salary....I don’t even know what to say first about that. How about “IT’S TIME TO STOP DRINKING ICE COFFEE”? Quick, someone distract me, I don’t even want to know what percent of my income is going towards falafel. Can you imagine seeing a pie chart like this? 45% rent, 10% utilities/phone/internet, 20% groceries/entertainment, 25% falafel. “I guess I’d better find a cheaper apartment...”)

Israeli economists have confirmed that as previously suspected, 90% of Benji Lovitt’s September salary was devoted to the purchase of the chickpea.

Ok, I just realized a way to replace the energy jolt from coffee: go shopping for toiletries in Israel. I had to re-calibrate my mental calculator in Super-Pharm when shopping for contact lens solution. Fifty-five shekels!? That’s really expensive. So much for a balanced pie chart. At least they include a contact lens case (as if that suddenly makes it a steal.) I already have a lens case; that’s why I’m among the people who buy solution. I certainly don’t need a new one every two months. Ok, Mom and Dad, I know what I want for Hannukah. (Not a lens case.)

I have got to start carrying my camera everywhere. I saw a great t-shirt in English which I’ll have to write about later. Israelis and their English t-shirts. That’s definitely its own entry. Lots more to write about...stay tuned.

It’s Time for Our Weekly Holiday Report!

Well, my loyal readers, I have to be honest with you: my creative juices haven’t been flowing the last few days. I haven’t gotten into a normal routine yet in terms of my schedule which sometimes keeps me from writing regularly although I expect that to change (not having a routine) when I finally begin my Ulpan in nineteen days (and counting.)

Even when there’s nothing to write about, there’s always a Jewish holiday. This week is no different. Friday night I was invited for Sukkot (and Shabbat) dinner at the house of my friend Assaf’s family. They had built a huge sukkah and had about 25 family members over for dinner. Wow-I don’t think I have 25 family members total who I know (not counting my religious aunt’s 11 kids. Counting them as 11 of 25 is like saying Roger Clemens had an ERA of 1.87 all of last year, even though it was around 1.50 until September until he had one bad month while injured which completely threw off his numbers. And I don’t care if 95% of the people reading this have no idea what I’m talking about or if it’s a poor example, I’m sure statisticians have a name for a number which holds a disproportionate weight in an average. Ok, that point was horrendously made. And Clemens definitely should have won the Cy Young last year but voters are dumb.) In three years in New York, I don’t recall being in a sukkah even once, and I’m choosing not to count the one at my office because there’s a difference in hanging out in a friend’s sukkah and one not built by choice but because someone from above ordered that it be built by people that weren’t even Jewish, and I’m not counting it in the same way that it’s nice to attend a Hanukkah party unless it’s the company Hanukkah party in which case it doesn’t count the same, and I realize I’m not counting a lot of things in this entry which will not be winning any Pulitzer Prizes.)

Assaf’s family went all out; four or five women were in the kitchen before dinner cooking up a storm. Have you had homemade sushi on Sukkot before? I have.

Pass the Wasabi, Rabbi.

Assaf’s grandfather said a few prayers at the beginning and then we ate a huge feast. I was completely stuffed before the main courses were even served.

Assaf and I in his family’s sukkah. Can’t we come up with a better translation than “booth”?

I must say, I haven’t really felt this holiday as much as I would have liked. There are virtually no sukkot in Tel Aviv, possibly because there are virtually no houses in Tel Aviv. (This may explain why there were so few sukkot in New York as well. There were however a lot of homeless people and women who carry their dogs in purses.) I remember from Year Course seeing them in Jerusalem in public places like restaurants. Oh well.

Because their normal volunteering placements were closed for the holiday, some of my Year Course kids planned a small carnival-type event at a community center where they live. Apparently this is a common thing in Israel during holidays when kids are out of school. It’s called a “heh-peh-neeng” (what you and I might call “happening”). The Year Coursers had a bunch of booths like “throw the ring onto the cone”, “throw the basketball through the hoop”, and other various games which involve throwing. Sukkot ends this weekend just as Simchat Torah is beginning. Expect an update!

Yom Kippur in Israel

The holiday season. In America, we have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Christian, Jewish, or whatever, things slow down in the office and in general. The phone rings less at work, people are off, school’s out so there’s less traffic. Here, it’s the chagim. They come quickly-Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and soon after Sukkot, then Simchat Torah. So people tell me, nothing much happens during the chagim in this country so if you need something done, best to get it done beforehand or you’ll have to wait a month. I was really hoping to start my Ulpan beforehand but, alas, “achrei hachagim”, they told me (after the holidays). I have just over three more weeks until I really begin learning Hebrew and it can’t come soon enough.

One of the big reasons I wanted to come to Israel was to experience the holidays here. As they approached, I kept thinking of the best way to spend them, to really feel them. To go to Jerusalem, the holy city? To stay in Tel Aviv where the fast pace of the city actually slows down for once? It turns out you can’t really go wrong; whatever you do, you’re among Jews. For Yom Kippur, I went to the family of one of my co-workers, Roni, who live on a moshav about 20 minutes from Tel Aviv, next to the city of Petach Tikva. One thing I found interesting is that everyone here seemed to know exactly when the chag (and fast) was to begin and end. In America, those around me have sort of started fasting at some general time in the early evening before going to services (whenever those began) and would end roughly 24 or 25 hours later. When I asked Roni what time dinner was, she said “there is no dinner”. When I asked what the heck she was talking about, she said that the fast began at 5 so we’d have to eat around 3; “dinner” would be too late. For the Kol Nidre service, we went to a synagogue her father’s parents helped found, along with other Romanian immigrants. It was the type of place I’ve only seen in Israel and New York City. Unlike your big suburban one-stop shop synagogue complete with social hall, kindergarten, and administrative wing, this was one room with benches facing various ways and the bimah in the middle (with the women’s seating upstairs of course. This is Israel, not too many Reform and Conservative shuls). I’m fairly used to it by now but I still remember how shocking it was on Year Course when I first saw an Israeli siddur, with Hebrew on the right page...and Hebrew on the left page. No flowery language or hard-to-read transliterations. One interesting moment came halfway through the service when the lights inexplicably went out. Well, interesting to me anyway.

Congregations’ thoughts: “Oy oy oy!”
My thoughts: “It’s going in the BLOG!”

The rabbi didn’t miss a beat. He proceeded to the closest window where the light came in and continued chanting until the lights came on a few minutes later. Well handled.

The most unique part of Yom Kippur in Israel? No cars on the roads. I’m not sure how this tradition originated but at least in Tel Aviv and surely in many other places, nobody drives. The roads are taken over by kids on their bicycles as far as the eye can see. It’s an amazing thing to behold; I would have loved to have gotten a picture except that I didn’t have my camera, and if I did, I wouldn’t have used it in public with so many observant people around.

With such a large percentage of the population here being secular, there are a lot of traditions which really have nothing to do with the true purpose of the chag. Religiously motivated or not, they definitely make you feel the holiday.