Tuesday August 17, 2009

Israel entry 2
Jerusalem

So, obviously we made it to Jerusalem safe and sound. Jeremy, our GPS, was not happy with us driving through the West Bank, and so he gave us the silent treatment the entire time. And then, suddenly, once we arrived in the city, he woke up from his passive-aggressive slumber and decided to start giving us directions again.

Our apartment here has been great. Great location. Great lay out. Great price. Great cockroaches. OK, we’ve only seen two, at the beginning, but they are massive here in Israel, so they are pretty scary. Consequently, we come home from our touring every night and have done “Makak checks” (Cockroach checks). By the way, both roach murders were committed by our hero, Rob. The first, squeezed between two bottles of olive oil. The second squashed with his foot (well....with his sandled foot; he’s not that barbaric).

The first day in Jerusalem we took a comprehensive guided tour of the old city, although not necessarily all that well organized. Our enthusiastic guide, Dorit, explained tons; everything from the coming of the various Messiahs to the current political situation, with a little about local plant life along the way. We went to all four of the Old City’s quarters, met the Armenian Arch Bishop in a little shop, hung out in all of Jesus’ stops along the Via Dolorosa, saw the Western Wall, where the kids placed notes they had written, saw a bunch of Mosques, one synagogue, and went into a gazillion churches. The number of churches we saw per minute kept increasing in our minds as we subsequently relayed our day’s site seeing to others. We also toured the Western Wall tunnel, which was most excellent thanks to a superb tour guide and really cool archeological work, and we ended with a tour of the Arab Shuk, which was totally cool. At one point during the day we went into a Messianic church, and received a little lecture from a New Yorker turned Jews-for-Jesus. The lecture started out factual, but was followed quickly by a healthy dose of full-on attempted conversion. We got outta there quickly. Of course, it goes without saying that we saw many Roman ruins. At one spot, there was a bunch of highly under-supervised kids, one of whom was whacking at a Roman pillar with a mallet; okay, it was a toy mallet, but still...

That evening we ate at an amazing Armenian restaurant in the Armenian Quarter of the old city. On the English menu they offered pieces of chopped lamp (perhaps they meant lamb?). On our way home from dinner we bumped into Rob’s dad’s cousin Michael and his wife, Sarah, who were in town from Tel Aviv to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary. In the same block, we next ran into our friends from Toronto, the Newmans, We don’t typically run into as many people we know in downtown Toronto as we did that night in Jersualem!

The next day we had to buy Rob pants. You see, he somehow thought that he could show up at this Bar Mitzvah we were invited to in shorts and a t-shirt. So Diane had to explain to him that he is no longer 12 years old, and that grown men actually dress like grown men when they go to functions. While we waited for his pants to be altered, we ate lunch at Sam Bagel’s, which in the rest of the world is called Sam’s Bagels; one of many interesting alterations to the English language here. While on the topic of alterations in language, the hardest part about reading Hebrew is reading the English words transliterated into Hebrew. The other day, Diane saw a business and said “Oh look, that place is called ‘Disco-net’, I guess you can dance and go on the computer there!” It turns out it was really a bank called ‘Discount’ (both look the same when written with Hebrew letters). At the end of that day, we visited the museum of Islamic art, which is in the neighborhood we’re staying in. The first exhibit we went to could have been called Islam for dummies; it was very basic. But the exhibit on swords, shields, and armour, from the Persian and Ottoman empires was very cool. That evening we had Shabbat dinner at our friends’ Lee and Shira, who graciously answered about a million questions that we had been saving up for them on Israeli politics, army duty for Orthodox Jews, and so on.

Saturday morning we took a walking tour of the new city of Jerusalem, offered by the city. This time, our tour guide was less than desirable - speaking in a monotonous, quiet and uninspiring manner. He was far more organized, however. It’s amazing that the city of Jerusalem is this ancient ancient place, and yet the modern city only began in 1860. After the tour and a quick brown bag lunch, we went to watch a time elevator movie. Time-elevator is a company that makes video experiences for ancient cities. They take you back in time thousands of years, teach you the history in an animated way. All the actors were dubbed into English, including a 14-year-old boy who had the misfortune of having a woman dub his voice; he sort of sounded like he was on helium. For the afternoon we went to the Newman’s, grazed and hung out with them until the end of Shabbat. It was so fun, and we rolled out of there at the end of the evening.

The Newmans have a nephew named Ilan who has a vast amount of knowledge about the history of Jerusalem. On Sunday, he took us on a wonderful tour of the rooftops of the old city. We learned a lot about the current situations in Israel, as well as a ton of historical information. After having taken three tours of the city of Jerusalem, we feel as though we have barely scratched the surface of this incredible city. We then took a tour of the City of David, just south-east of the old city. This tour goes through underground tunnels that used to be the water system for the city of David, 2700 years ago. During the entire walk through the tunnel, we were submerged in water up to our thighs. The enthusiastic tour guide kept turning around to explain stuff to us. Since the tunnel was very thin, we all had to walk in single file, and so every time he would tell us something, we would have to relay it back to the people behind us who then told the people behind them, and so on. It was like a real life version of broken telephone. We figured that when he told us there were calcium deposits on the wall of the tunnel, by the time the last person heard it, they would think that’s where you can make bank deposits.

That night, we went to the Ellis Bar-Mitzvah. Aaron and Noah’s friend Eitan had his Bar-Mitzvah in Israel, and it was really lovely. It felt like a Heschel school reunion, as there were a number of families here in Israel from the children’s school. We had an amazing time schmoozing with everyone. On a funny note, Aviva was seated directly next to some of Eitan’s cousins, who had a bickery moment. The sister yelled at her brother about how disrespectful he was for not wearing a kipah to a Bar-Mitzvah. They had an elaborate argument in Hebrew, assuming that no one could understand them.

The next day, we all went to Yad Vashem for an emotionally-moving and informative journey through the history of the Holocaust. It’s hard to find words to describe it without sounding trite. We didn’t want to miss anything, so we only got part-way through the museum. We’re hoping to return.

Yesterday, we went to the Soreq caves in Beit Shemesh. The caves are just outside of Jerusalem, and so we took a sheirut to get there and back. A sheirut is a cross between a public bus and a taxi. People get on and request where they want to go, and the price is negotiated accordingly. Our bus driver was driving barefooted. On the way back, he kept yawning and shaking, and we realized he was falling asleep. So Diane asked Rob to start firing questions at him in Hebrew to keep him awake.

As for the Soreq caves themselves, they contained huge stalactites and stalagmites. We were forced to take a tour in Hebrew, with a guide who had a thick Russian accent. Through the five of us understanding various segments, we eventually figured out the full picture. That is, they were the result of millions of years of water dripping through limestone, leaving behind tiny deposits along the way, creating these formations. The caves were gorgeous, true natural wonders. This was the most impressive part of the trip, in Aviva’s opinion. We felt as though we were in a Dr. Seuss novel, because the formations were so surreal feeling.

We had dinner at this funky courtyard near the old city. At our table, there were a bunch of cats begging for food (Jerusalem, apparently, is the stray cat capital of the world). At one point, an off-leash dog chased one up a tree where we were seated. Rob was convinced that the cats, in the tree just above, would poop on his head. He insisted on wearing a napkin, and finally settled for a safari hat for protection. Then, one of the cats started having a coughing and sneezing fit, but eventually, the cat quieted down and fell asleep. We were all certain, at this point, that the cat had died, and Rob became convinced the dead cat would fall on his head. In explaining the situation to the confused waitress, we learned how to say, “We are afraid that a dead cat will plop on his head,” in Hebrew.

Today we are driving to Ein Gedi, an oasis near Massada and the Dead Sea.

Love to all of you,
RANAD