Go Niners!

Just because we are in Israel, doesn’t mean we aren’t following the 49ers. Late last night a group of us headed out to Mike's Place, a sports bar off Jaffe Street, to catch the 49er/Falcons game.

The trip included a series of decisions: walk or taxi?  (We walked on this balmy night.)

Where should we sit?  (At the table with the best screen views, duh.)

Which beer should we drink?  (We went with Carlsburg because we got two free hats with the purchase of one pitcher of beer.  For the record, we received 12 hats.)

What should we eat.? (FYI...don't try to order nachos from a kosher meat kitchen. Nachos with no cheese is just tortilla chips.)  This was pretty much the extent of our decision making for the evening.

An Induction into Israeli Politics

Today's itinerary began with a morning discussion with Arieh O'Sullivan, a journalist and newscaster on Israel's channel 1 who is originally from Louisiana but made Aliyah over 30 years ago.  Arieh discussed the upcoming election and touched upon several of the 34 parties running for seats in the Knesset.

To the Wall

After a brief snooze, breakfast and a short lecture, we say goodbye to the Dan Panorama Jerusalem hotel and its spotty wifi, to board our big orange bus, which takes us to the huge concrete fence separating Israel and Palestine. It is a cement wall, about three stories high, with barbed wire on the top which angles into Bethlehem. Without a word from our guide, Sharon, this construction answers my unspoken question: Is it meant to keep Palestinians in Bethlehem, or to keep Israelis out?

It is meant to keep Palestinians in.

Our discussion of the Wall brings up chilling memories for both Sharon and Ariel (Goldstein; our JCCSF tour manager). When she was a grad student at Hebrew University, the cafe where Sharon studied was bombed. Luckily she had to turn in a test that day and didn’t have time to stop for a coffee, which likely saved her life. It gets you thinking how safe we feel at home, not having to worry about walking by a car or getting into an ambulance that could potentially blow up. She told us that since the wall was built suicide bombings in Israel have decreased dramatically.

As we leave the barrier, I tried to imagine how Israeli citizens living in Jerusalem before the wall might have thought:  Should we walk or should we take the bus?  (Well since buses are known targets of suicide bombers, let’s walk.)  What table should we sit at?  (If I sit by the window, and there is a bombing, I may be hit by broken glass, but if I sit by the kitchen, I may be injured by flying kitchen utensils.)  I try to imagine living in a world where your entire day is made up of decisions that should be mundane, but are matters of life or death.

An Oasis of Peace

Although the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts continue, our next stop proved that there is hope for peace. We visited an intentional village, Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salaam-Oasis of Peace,  where Israelis and Palestinians live together. Our guide, Daoud, tells us that  the members of the community believe in a one state nation and they are living out their beliefs.  We visited and toured the beautiful grounds ending up in a dome where you can have "quiet time".

Jhos takes advantage of the acoustics in the dome and chants v’ahavta l’reyacha k’mocha (you shall love your neighbor as yourself.) We are all enchanted with the sound of his beautiful voice, but just after the last note an "aahhchoo!" comes from Diane and we all burst into laughter. Which pretty much sums up our whole trip.

Tel Aviv, At Last

We arrive in Tel Aviv and check into our last hotel, which brings a little bit of sadness that our trip is near the end. Tonight we are going to eat at Dr. Shakshuka, which will finally give Chef Michele answers about the real way to make shakshuka. Stay tuned—with any luck it's going on the menu!

Ed. note: This entry was co-written by MIchele Pfeifer.