Ah, how the army loves to send me home

So, as I told you last week, we had an exercise on my base this week and were all told that we would be sleeping on base all week. In preparation for this I spent Saturday night packing, making cookies with my friend Dov, and then going out and staying up way too late. I lugged my big bag to base (which was mostly full of bedding) and tried to mentally prepare myself for five solid days with the underwear kids. Well first thing I found out was that Roi (with the red undies) was sick and going to be out all week. This is kind of a bummer because he is one of the funnier guys and kind of relaxes everyone. Almog (who likes to dance in his underwear) had class that night so he also would not be sleeping there, and Lihi (the other english teacher) and I were beginning to worry that it would be just the two of us and Boris. 

Luckily, our commander came in at around 5 and told us that the two of us could go home for the night and would spend the rest of the week on base. 

Well, this luck continued through the rest of the week and I ended up not spending a single night on base. Which just improved an already good week. The good part about being in the middle of an exercise was that, aside from the occasional alarm that sent us into the bomb shelter (which is also my office), nobody really had much to do this week. Lihi was bored out of her mind and couldnt understand how I do this every day. Boris slowly grew creepier as the week went on and kept walking into whatever room I would be sitting in and winking at me. Chezi (one of the older religious officers) spent the week playing Adar pranks on Shimon (another older religious officer), which got Ofer started, and he kept walking into rooms and making his phone play a farting noise. For grown men, they all have the sense of humor of five year old boys.

Aside from all that, we just spent alot of time talking. I learned all about Lupo's stepdaughter, Shimon gave us a long lecture on why kosher meat is healthier, and Shachaf and I had a long debate about belief in God and religion. We discussed homosexuality in Judaism, the crappy food in the cafeteria, and college drinking habits. 

We also finally undertook the video project they have been talking about for months and four of us headed out to the F-16 hangar and filmed a short movie about the importance of technicians following their instructions precisely. Lihi starred as our airheaded technician and I got to play with the videocamera. And I got to touch the airplanes, which just always makes me happy. 

There was also alot of talk about my non-jobness, and by the end of the week the whole office had sort of pulled together to make me a job. Its stuff we have been talking about for awhile, but they are going to train me to be a teacher and then they are going to help me make up a syllabus to help older officers improve their english. I will still be teaching in hebrew, but they are going to start me with small classes and we'll mainly be working on word review.

It is not really what I wanted to be doing, but at this point I know I am not going to be switched anywhere, and as Lupo told me, there are not many places in the army like our office. The environment their is pretty unique and we have a really good group of people that I have become friends with. Plus, I have gotten pretty used to coming home every day, I like my base, and I am branching out and making more friends there. So the army is not what I expected and sometimes it is a challenge to see that this isn't quite what I wanted. But I know it is helping me in so many ways, in my hebrew, in my understanding of Israelis, and in my understanding of myself. I am more confident, more assertive, and I am more ready. I am ready to choose a career, I am ready to find a school, and I am no longer scared of changing, and of putting myself out there, and of taking control of things myself.

Anyway, I have a super long weekend ahead of me, as they gave me off for Purim on Sunday, and then I took off for Shushan Purim on Monday. My roommate has planned a women's megillah reading in our apartment for Monday morning, and then we are having about 20 people over for a big festive meal that afternoon. We have to do a ton of cooking and Im a little worried we wont have enough chairs, but Im really excited to have all my friends over eating and drinking and looking ridiculous. I love Purim! I hope you all have a great one and please send me pictures of your costumes!!

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!!!

My legs are sore from drawing smilies all over the streets of Jlem

Keeping it short and sweet this week. In a burst of unprecedented energy, I called the last of my army contacts, wrote a four page letter (in hebrew!) to the Base Commander, and even managed to get a meeting with the commander right under him. He's an incredibly busy man, but very nice, and took 15 minutes to hear about my "situation" (we had a meeting for a half hour, but he was on the phone for a good portion of it). Anyway he has promised me I will have a job within the next two weeks. Still a little unclear what that job will be, but he seems to really want me to be an english teacher, as they were without one for about 6 months and have alot of catch-up to do.

In order to sort of prep for this, I have been sitting in on the english class, learning all the hebrew and watching how Lihi (the real teacher) teaches. On Wednesday Lihi actually forced me to the front of the class and made me teach for an hour. It was mainly reviewing words and then translating text. The first part was fine, as I had a list, and aside from a few mispronunciations I did okay. Translating the text was harder, as I wasnt entirely sure whether they were getting it right. I can get all the words down but I havent quite gotten the hang of the tenses so I wont notice if they say "hold" instead of "tighten" as it is the same root in hebrew (le'hachzik or lechazek). But it was good to just get up there and do it. I do think now that if they give mea  curriculum, this is something I could do. I might not be great at first, but I think I would get the hang of it. And while it isnt what I originally wanted, it would mean I could stay on my base and in my office which would be really nice. I dont think I want to have to start all over again somewhere else. 

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I am closed (sleeping on) base next week as were having some sort of exercise. Im a little nervous about spending a solid week living with the underwear boys, but it should be fun. Hopefully theyll behave themselves. Ill let you all know how it goes next week!

Oh, and I almost forgot- HAPPY ADAR!!! Some friends and I went out Sunday night to carry on a UMD tradition of chalking the streets in celebration of the new month. We were joined by a buttload of Israelis and had a wonderful night. I attached some pics. מי שנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה!!

This week wreaked havoc on my mood ring

I have a confession. Nothing exciting happened to me this week. I dont even have one good story that I can expand upon for a few paragraphs to fill the page. But, I dont want to disappoint my adoring fans (thats you), so I am bringing back the good old days of random lists. And to make it more fun. I am color coding

Good things that happened to me this week are this color

Bad things that happened to me this week are this color

As-yet-undetermined-whether-good-or-bad things that happened to me this week are this color.

• I got to talk to my parents, my brothers, and a few friends in America because they were all stuck home in the snow and had nothing better to do.
• There was no snow in Jerusalem. In fact, by the end of the week, it was quite hot outside.
• Boris caused an unnecessary amount of teenage drama in my office and pulled me down with it, so I had to spend way too long trying to extricate myself from them mess he made.
• I then yelled at him alot. 
• Which meant I got to practice my Hebrew. 
• The girls in synagogue are multiplying. On Thursday, Lihi, the english teacher I work with, joined Chen and I at Mincha.
• As a result, they actually made an announcement in synagogue about getting the shiur (class) to end early and get out of the women's section on time.
• I had a religious man on base ask me to please stop causing a ruckus in synagogue
• I hung out with a friend from the army out-of-base. Motti, my bus friend, joined me and Avital when we went to see Avatar (which, actually was pretty awesome).
• The adorable soldier that works with the Rabbi (Ariel) very excitedly presented me with a book "for women" that he found in the synagogue.
• This book "for women" was all about modesty- to the extreme. It included things like 

1. Women shouldnt wear red.
2. Men should not look at women, talk to women, walk between two women, or ask them how they are doing.
3. Women should NEVER under ANY circumstance, join the army.

• Ariel and I are going to have a chat next week about the literature he decides to give to women. Especially since the ones that come with me are not religious and could not tell the difference between legitimate halacha and this crap.
• I was told that my job options extend to secretary or canteen worker. The reliability of this information has yet to be determined. Still upset me alot.
• Being upset led me to painting, which I hadnt done in too long.
• I took a mental health day and went to Walla-je with a group where I met a Palestinian farmer and learned alot about the other side of the "conflict", as everyone calls it. I also learned alot about Arab life. Said, one of the farmers I met, continuously said things that reminded me of Sephardi men. He showed the same sort of shocked-awe as all the men in my base's synagogue when I went and prayed. 
• I heard quite a few stories about army-brutality. I have heard these before from leftists and even from former soldiers, but it is something else entirely to hear it from the man who was stripped down to his underwear, tied to a tree, and beaten with a stick.
• Not only did getting to this farm involve hiking through this beautiful country, but Said and Ahmed were really nice, made excellent tea, expressed a love of this land that I can definitely relate to, and most importantly at the time, took my mind off of my personal problems and reminded me of the greater dilemmas our world is facing. And through all that, they still extended a hand of friendship and kindness towards us.

My feelings towards men this week: quite warm. Unlike the weather.

So I still dont have a job, but I have  been getting called back by alot of my friends and friends friends with supposed interest in switching me into their units. Stay tuned for further progress.

In the meantime, I am trying to make the most of my time where I am. I am attacking this problem on three fronts. First, I have been bringing my Hebrew textbooks to work with me and trying to do at least an hour of grammar work. I have also been reading my way through alot of Jewish philosophy/thought books and trying to learn in all the spare time I have. 

Secondly, I have been making an effort to hang out and chat with more people. Chen, a girl I met on one of the other bases has just been switched to mine, so I have been eating lunch with her and meeting alot of the people that she works with as well. I also made friends with Motti who takes the same bus as me every day. Motti is 24 and married with a kid. He lives in Beitar, and is ex-chareidi (ultra-orthodox). His parents are both American so he speaks excellent english which makes it much easier to become friends with him. We talk alot about being older than everyone else and not quite fitting into other people's definition of "religious". Which brings me to number three.

My experiences with being religious in the army have been somewhat varied. The Israeli Army amazingly functions in a way that all observant Jews can be a part of it quite easily. The food is all kosher, they do not require you to do anything that will break Shabbat (unless you are in a fighting unit, in which case it is okay anyway), the uniforms are designed in accordance with the laws of modesty, and they are required by law to give you time to pray. All of these arrangements were made for the religious men that wanted to serve. There are many units of all religious men, even some ultra-orthodox units. Every base has a synagogue and a Rabbi and they hold services three times a day as well as various classes/shiurim throughout the day. This all makes it very easy to be a religious man in the army.

It is a little different for religious women. We can, of course, request a skirt if we want one, and all the synagogues have some sort of women's section for us to pray. But most religious women in Israel elect to do national service (work in schools and hospitals etc) instead of joining the army. Those that do join the army are in varying levels of observance and few, if not none of them pray in the synagogue every day. Because of this, on pretty much every base I have been in, the women's section of the synagogue tends to be small, unkempt, and frequently filled with men.

In Haifa they merely used the women's section to sleep, but on my base here, the visiting Rabbi's use it to hold shiurim (Torah or Talmud classes). The first two times I went to pray there I had to ask men to leave and the third time I went, they told me they were in the middle and I would have to talk to the Rabbi and find somewhere else to pray. Well this kind of pissed me off. I understand the importance of learning Torah, and I even get that there were more of them that needed to use that room then women that wanted to pray. And Im relatively sure I was the first woman to show up in synagogue in years, given the looks I was given when I walked in. But every synagogue should be open to anyone that comes in and wants to pray, regardless of gender.

Well this week, I finally managed to show up in time for Mincha, the afternoon prayer. (My office is on the other side of base, and I had just been praying on my own in one of the empty offices). When I showed up on Sunday, there was a shiur in session and they asked me to wait. They came out after the men had already started the service and I had to hurry to catch up with them. This also meant that I was left standing outside the woman's section (and incidentally in the men's section) while the men were praying. Well this was still going on by Tuesday, and I was getting kind of annoyed as I figured they should have gotten used to me showing up by now. But, in defense of the Orthodox men, apparently I wasnt the only one that thought this situation was less than okay. I had four or five different men tell me that they had spoken to the Rabbi about it and by Wednesday, the men were clearing out on time.

I started the week annoyed with men for not understanding that women also have an obligation to pray. And, to be honest, I was annoyed with everyone for thinking Im not religious just because I wear pants. But by the end of the week, I was really impressed with how so many of the men went out of their way to try to make me comfortable there, and, well congratulated me (for lack of a better word) for showing up to pray. So then I started to get annoyed at religious women for their absence from synagogue and what that says about us. I understand that the synagogue is a very male-oriented place, but that is never going to change unless those of us strong enough to brave the looks show up and make it our place too.

By the end of the week, I not only had the men used to my presence, but my friend Chen was coming to Mincha with me, despite the fact that she is not religious.

All in all, it made me feel quite accomplished this week. While I may not be making a clear and definable difference, I feel like the time I am spending here is having a positive effect, on myself and others.

As a final note. I am cold. No, we dont have the like 3 feet of snow forecasted for all you east-coasters, but I have fully acclimated to living in the Middle East and these almost freezing temperatures are too low for me.

How do you say "dual-action cylinder" in Hebrew?

Shavua Tov and a Happy New Year (of trees that is)!

This Friday was Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish new year for trees. It is a festival of growth and nature and in more recent years- environmentalism. Last year, I celebrated by going to a Tu B'Shvat Seder- a meal of sorts with lots of symbolism- with a lot of hippies. It was a pretty cool experience in which I contemplated a lot of fruit and heard some pretty cool spiritual thoughts about winter (my favorite being that we all have to go through patches of cold and misery because it is during that time that we are preparing for the growth and warmth of spring. It is that time that not only makes us strong, but lets us truly appreciate the happy flowery turnaround.)

This year was a little different. I met up with a friend and we quite accidentally stumbled upon the Jerusalem Municipality celebration. They had my favorite pre-pubescent boys choir singing in little white tuxedos with red cummerbunds, and even better there was a fleet of oddly decorated men on stilts. They were wandering up and down Ben Yehuda street personifying various aspects of nature. There was a man covered in flowing white cloth and cherry blossoms, another who looked like he had been attacked by the fake flower section at Marshall's, and one who was dressed up as a tree with quite impressive foliage. A woman dressed as a giant strawberry was giving a speech from a balcony and showering her spectators with flowers, while the balcony next to her held some sort of wood nymph blowing bubbles. I was pet by a man in a flower pot, but unfortunately the picture was not taken on my camera, so I will have to show that to you at a later time.

The rest of the week was not quite so exciting. After a few days with the english teacher in my office it became quite clear that I am not in fact capable of teaching technical english in hebrew to people who do not speak a word of english (which really makes me doubt the advisability of letting them fix airplanes when they cant read the manuals, but that is another issue). So after a few meetings with my commander, I am slowly trying to get through the bureaucratic process of switching jobs. As I am slowly but surely learning how things work in the army, I also have been calling everyone I know in the army (and everyone they know in the army) and trying to get someone important enough interested in me enough to pull me into their job. I have been talking to a lot of people in the IDF spokespersons unit as well as in the Foreign Relations unit. It is very unclear who might be able to actually help me and how long it might take, and well, pretty much all the details are unclear. But as I spent the week vacuuming bird poop off of chairs, I am getting kind of desperate. 

That being said, it was not a bad week, and while my job or lack thereof is still frustrating, I am not letting it get me down and I am trying to enjoy the time I am spending where I am. It is charming company when they arent stripping, and I actually think they are going to miss me. Boris practically threw a hissy fit when I told him. 

It is hard for me to feel that I am wasting my time when there are many more productive things I can think of doing, but as I learned last year from some smelly hippies in Nachlaot, sometimes we have to work our way through the hard cold patches to get to the good stuff. I have faith that there is a reason I am where I am right now, but also understand that it is up to me to make something out of what and where Hashem puts me. If I want my situation in the army to change, it is up to me and me alone to make sure that it does. So I am going to keep pushing, keep calling, keep bugging, and keep trucking on. I feel very much like the little engine that could or Dory from Finding Nemo.

I think I can and Ill just keep swimming and I wish you all a wonderful week!

Conundrum is an understatement

This week the army was in its prime. My temporary status finally ended and I was sent back to the Yamam, who is in charge of sending soldiers to where they are needed. I was sent there after basic training and they sent me to the helicopter course. I was sent there after they kicked me out of the helicopter course and they tried to send me to Eilat. I argued, and they sent me for a week to the base I have been at for the past month. Luckily I have learned by now to sleep in and take my time getting there, as inevitably you end up sitting outside on a bench for three or four hours waiting to hear something like your name shouted from the incredibly fuzzy loudspeaker. 

So on Monday I packed my book, charged my ipod, woke up late and headed to Tel Aviv to see where they would try to send me now. Keep in mind, that for the past month I have been talking to the commander on my base about being an English teacher there, and had seemed to have put together a plan for me. But alas, man plans and the Yamam laughs. So when I finally got called in to talk to someone, I, well I think its best if I transcribe it for you:

Yamam: We are going to send you to be a secretary.

My Head: WTF???

My voice: Really? I thought I was going to be an english teacher.

Yamam: No, theres no chance you can be an english teacher.

My Head: WTF????

My Voice: Well, I was under the impression that I just spent a month on this base so that I could become an English teacher.

Yamam: Well who told you that?

My Head: You did you *&@#^*$&#*&@#!!!! Right after you wasted a month of my time sending me to a course I couldnt take. A-hole.

My Voice: Um, you did.

Yamam: Go wait outside.

So I went outside and immediatly called my commander and told him they had no idea what I was talking about. So he said he would call and I sat down to wait for another hour. Eventually they called me back in and told me to come back tomorrow and they would see if I could be an English teacher.

My commander called me back and told me that the English teaching office was on the same base and that I should go see them before going to the Yamam. So the next day I went and talked to them first and they told me all about the job- which is teaching english in hebrew (?) and then gave me a hebrew test that consisted of translating a paragraph. I then went to the Yamam, sat their until 2:30 and finally got called into the office. The man looked at me like we had never spoken of this before and said " We are going to send you to Chazor (my base) to be an English teacher, okay?". And I got my little paper and got all excited that I finally had a job.

So I go back to my base, spent all Wednesday meeting with all the various offices I needed to see to finish my clearance and showed up on Thursday ready to work.

On Thursday my commander called me into his office and said I had not passed my test and was not deemed qualified for the job they had already given me. But since he thinks I can do it, he will still let me, this just means I cant go to the course. 

So the army has given me a job they say I am not qualified for and therefore refuse to train me. Oh, the army...

Momma Week

This week was Ima Week. My mother arrived on Sunday and was super excited to see me despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I was late picking her up from the airport. She was thrilled to be out of the freezing snow in Prague (where she had spent the previous week) and into the warm Middle-Eastern January of Jerusalem.

It was a quiet week ( I had off from the army, of course) as my mother was only interested in a) hanging out with me b) shopping and c) eating out. This was perfectly fine with me because not only did I get to see my mom, but I got lots of pretty new jewelry and ate like a kosher-abiding pig. Our days mainly consisted of: Sleep in, eat out, walk, shop, walk, eat, shop, walk, eat, shop, walk, eat, shop, eat, walk, sleep. It was pretty awesome. 

We did venture up to Tel Aviv on Tuesday where I took my mother to a dance show at the Suzanne Dellal Center for the Arts. The Center is located in one of the older neighborhoods of Tel Aviv that borders with Yaffo. It is beautiful and historical and after reading Exodus, I am much more appreciative of the fact that Tel Aviv was the first all-Jewish city built in Israel. It was also nice to get out of Jerusalem and join into the beautiful, exciting art scene up in Tel Aviv. I began to wonder why I don't spend more time in Tel Aviv. Then, after trying four different restaurants and failing to find any kosher ones, we finally sat down and had ice cream for dinner and I remembered why I don't like Tel Aviv. The dancing however, was quite spectacular. But then again, it was the Jerusalem School for the Arts...

Other than that, it was mostly shopping and eating. I got to have burgers, sushi, mac and cheese, salmon stir fry, ice cream, hot cocoa, donuts, poached fish on a bed of something fancy, squash soup and all sorts of delicious salads. I ate like a queen this week :)

I also got to hear from my mother all about what Jerusalem was like in the 70's when she was first here and how much it has grown since then. 

Anyway, my mother took off last night and all I am left with is a bunch of dirty sheets and some awesome new necklaces. (Not to mention the suitcase of supplies she brought me from America- Thanks Ima!!). It was kind of a whirlwind of a week. It felt so natural to have her here that I havent quite processed the fact that she is gone again. Or that it is almost Shabbat. Really didnt think about that at all this week, so now I have to go get ready.