Sort of Bringing SBB Back

Rothberg was liberated from the strike today, so as the Israeli government and Senior professors continue to ruin lives, they have decided to spare mine. I'll be in Israel until June. Sorry, Mere and E and everyone else in NYC that I miss...

I'm not so much done with my work for my thesis, or with one of my midterms, but I figured it was time to post SOMETHING. Below are pictures of things that happened in Ulpan, before the strike and during Hanukkah. There are also pictures from visiting a funny falafel/schwarma place on Ben Yehuda street (a precursor to my Birthright Season post, coming soon!), and from the shuk, where I often find things interesting, or hilarious.

Countdown to 26: 4 days! Also, Merry Christmas to all of those non-Jews that turn to my blob for Jewish education.


"Do you think I'm on Birthright? Because I'm not." -- Fun at a schwarma place on Ben Yehuda. Highly recommended because of customer service and flavor of the food!

It worked on me, as you can see from the picture above. Also, I've been documenting ridiculous Israel spellings in translations of things here. Translation errors may be my most precious joy in life...

Fellow Ramah Aleph students join the guitar guy on the stage at the front of the classroom during our 8th-day-of-hanukkah shirah session. I felt like I was at camp. It was amazing. And it ended with free donuts. Heaven.

Mr. Ulpan Rockstar.

I walked into my Hebrew class to see my worst nightmare: Math. In Hebrew. And not even calculus!

The past two Friday nights, I have going to services at two different Breslav shuls -- one in Har Nof, which is super-dee-duper religious, and one in Katamon, which is also pretty religious, but not as fun. Their mechitza involves an upstairs, a separate door, and a latticework wall between you and the air above the men. It's pretty extensive, and not as good as the Har Nof shul. Points to Har Nof! (Rafi liked Lecha Dodi better at Katamon, but what can I say...he's cute, not perfect!)

Rabbi Nachum of Breslav was the big deal rebbe for these chasidim, which is why he has his own song. In the Hebrew it is: ...נ נח נחמ נחמן or in English: Na, nach, nachma, nachman... It's pretty sweet, it's just adding another letter each syllable. I find myself humming it when the Breslav mobiles blast it from their Ram Kol (microphones, like on cop cars, but louder) when they're going down the street. The other thing I like about Breslavers is that they wear Shtreimels. I LOVE these beaver (yes, I said beaver) hats. They're super-expensive, super-warm, and super-hilarious.

Signs like these let me know that I'm enjoying super-shmittah carrots.

Hafsakah / Intermission

I am taking a break from my thiny-veiled narcissism, displayed as ramblings on this fine blob, in order to focus on my finals and midterms. Did I mention I have both to do right now? Because I do. It's really fun. Or not.

Anyway, I am taking an intermission, a hafsakah, from my sbb-centered writing. Shabbat will be a nice break from writing (Raf and I are visiting the famous HarNof cousins!), my birthday is coming soon, and Birthright Season began today, so I have plenty to do, many people to see, and no time in which to do it! As much as I love chronicling my Israel experience, it's just another diversion (like rollerblading and shopping) that I will have to place on the back-burner until I turn in all of my papers.

At some point, I'll write about the last day of Hanukkah surprise that we had in ulpan (Aleph-wide Shira, complete with sufganiyot), my visit with an old friend (Tebow Talk!), and the discovery about the value of the Winter Ulpan to a year-long student (Not so useful, apparently).

Until then...have a nice week or so!

PS-I also refuse to give up Scrabulous. I'd need full-on rehab for that.

Chanukah! Now With 100% More Kooky (and Donut)!

Tonight's sunset ushered in the first night of Chanukah / חנוכה and I couldn't be happier! Like I mentioned yesterday, Tuesday is Yom Chofshi / יום חופשי -- no school, no obligations, just time to get whatever done. Since I was not off to Tel Aviv , I knew had plenty to do in good old Jerusalem.

And get it done, I did. I started off at 9:30, meeting Melanie from ulpan so we could go find Yad LaKashish, the Lifeline For the Old. This Jerusalem workshop and giftshop provides daily employment for 250 elderly and disabled people, and the stuff they make is TERRIFIC. Also, learning about what they do there sometimes brings a tear to your eye. Check out the website. It's good stuff, like "Pimp My Ride," which I'll get to later.

I knew that I'd find good stuff there, and in searching for a Chanukiyah / חנוכיה (a Chanukah menorah, with 9 branches), I was not disappointed. I couldn't decide if I wanted one with candle holders shaped as pomagranates, or one with crazy, kooky characters as candle holders. I'm sure you're shocked at my decision, displayed in picture form, below.

Aren't I kooky?

I am the world's kookiest Chanukiyah! Yes I am!

After the visit, we wandered the city and ended up walking all the way to the shuk. This was all sorts of fun, because in the shuk they sell Sufganiyot (fried donuts)! For those of you who don't know, one of the miracles of Hanukah (yes, it can be spelled in many different ways) is that when the Maccabees reclaimed the Temple, they lit the menorah there, and the oil lasted for eight days. Following typical Jewish logic, oil lasting -> oil -> oily food -> fried things -> eat as many donuts and as many latkes as possible, showing your connection to ancestral military domination over the bad guys!

We wandered the shuk, and I showed Melanie the Iraqi section, where the veggies are amazing and cheap AND, as she pointed out, shmittah-friendly (shmittah is pretty complicated. let's just say that Israeli produce purchases this year are a religious statement). I didn't realize I was being so frum (religious) about shmittah, I just like the carrots this one guy sells in the Iraqi shuk. And, as we know, I love Israeli carrots (I have a two-or-three-a-day habit).

Just as we left the shuk, I picked up two fabulous sufganiyot for Rafi and me. Mel and I parted for a few hours, where I picked up some groceries, wrote a half of a paper, watched TV, nearly cried at a particular touching episode of "Pimp My Ride" (really, they redid the guy's car, which he inherited from his late brother, and they had the Governator talk about BioDiesel and saving the environment...I love MTV.) and did a few loads of laundry. I also finally put my Hebrew stickers on my keyboard, which is why you'll see more עברית on my posts, now.

Neon Green Hebrew and English on my keys. I can FINALLY do my homework by blacklight, like I wanted to in 1995!

Night fell and I headed over to Rafi's with my new Chanukiyah, a box of candles, the donuts, a baggie of gelt (chocolate coins) and a 6-pack of Dr. Pepper as a present for Rafi. We lit candles, placing the chanukiyot in the windows for everyone to see, and he regaled me with all 1029321 verses of Maoz Tzur / Rock of Ages, just like how Bubbie and Dad like to sing it in Florida.

Maoz Tzur Yeshuati...(aka the verse I know)

...yemai minah, yemai shmonah...(aka the verses I don't know)
also
(Rafi does his best Berman impression, succeeds.)

The evening closed with a trip to a Kosher Ethiopian Meat Restaurant in the center of town with my pal Flags and Melanie. I also got some books, as I've joined a book club, and I got a new hairbrush. The brush reminds me of summer 2006, and my Nivo girls, because it is SO life.

Nivo '06 -- It's so life!

Castro, an Israeli store that is similar to Express, displays a lit Chanukiyah in the window of their Ben Yehuda shoes-and-bags outpost.

Happy Hanukkkkah, Y'all!

SBB's Dose of the Israel Reality

Brace yourselves, it's going to be a wild ride!

Thanksgiving weekend was glorious, and all four pies were successes at their respective meals...Shabbat was restful, the Gators beat FSU, and I was pretty prepared for a "standard" week at school (ain't no such thing).

This morning, I woke up, did some Hebrew homework and got myself off to school. I only had Hebrew class today, and it was pretty fun. I have two ulpan teachers, and the one I have on Sunday and Monday is hilarious. Today, we learned all about advertisments. We even wrote our own slogans on a worksheet. Here is my personal favorite (translated from 100% Hebrew!):

Worksheet prompt: Beer for "Young People"
My slogan: The Beer the Underaged Drinkers Drink!

After Hebrew, my friend Melanie* and I got talked into attending a social action lunch and learn at Hillel. Sadly, the food didn't arrive until MUCH later...but we did learn about the kidnapped soldiers and about the Geneva convention laws about kidnapped soldiers and other prisoners.

* It's not a real Hebrew class unless I have a friend named Melanie...Shout out to JTS Squirrel Mail Melanie!

As I mentioned before, the food didn't arrive for the 2:30 start time of the lunch and learn. At first, it was presented to us as the Rabbi bringing the food was stuck in traffic. Over the course of the good hour and a half I spent with the group, waiting for the food, I learned a little bit about what a terror warning means.

The rabbi was stuck in traffic, because checkpoints had been set up around Jerusalem. Checkpoints were meant to thwart an Annapolis-thwarting-related (says Rafi) terrorist plot to attack Mahane Yehuda (the shuk, or open-air marketplace), Ben Yehuda (the downtown shopping strip), or somewhere else in Jerusalem. They also brought traffic to a near standstill. The rabbi eventually arrived, and we thoroughly enjoyed the lox and bagels. His thirty-minute drive to Hebrew U took over 2 hours, and we were hungry, but better we wait for lox than a bad guy gets through.

I left the group disquieted -- was the threat over? Or did the rabbi just finally make it through a checkpoint because they're not complete traffic blocks? I made my way to the bus station at school, thinking it was quieter.

Then I realized I wasn't fighting tooth and nail to get on the bus. No, maybe 20 people boarded the 4Aleph with me, instead of the usual crush of 100. Some other interesting characters boarded the bus, too. Three security guards, one for each door of the super-long bus (think crosstown). They checked people getting on and off at each stop. I was a little nervous, and put my book away. I was going to pay extra attention on this bus ride.

I noticed many little things. A girl in a Gators warm-up jacket walked out of the student village. Other buses didn't have security guards at every door. The Jerusalem sky shines with a radiant pink at sundown. The guy next to me needed to take a shower.

Rafi called me and scolded me for being on the bus. I told him to back off, there were a lot of security guards. Just as I said good-bye to him, there was a BOOM, and for a moment, I was terrified. Somebody had closed one of the little windows above my head. Such a terrible sound, something so mundane that would've never bugged me in Gainesville, sent my heart racing for a good 15 minutes. I didn't settle down until two of the three security guards left the bus in the center of town, and we made our way to Emek Refaim. I walked to Talpiyot and bought a (bright yellow) skating helmet at a sporting goods store by the mall, and went on with life as usual.


Safety first.

For now, I'm happy I took a taxi home from the helmet purchasing experience. The driver said Rafi sounded like Abba Eban. Rafi's happy about the compliment. But both of us are wary and curious about what transportation holds in the next couple of days.

This isn't like a New York terrorist threat, where you avoid the subway for a few days, and then get used to basking in the warm glow of the Amber Alert. I have a feeling that skating the miles to Hebrew U in this weather is not the best way to get back in the in-line skating saddle after 6 months. I may have to temporarily switch my method of travel to taxi.

HeDegelim (The Flags)

I've been out of commission for a while...here's a post I started writing in a word document last Monday:

Today was my second day of school (Yes, I finally started Hebrew U and neglected to write about it.).

So far, my Hebrew class has been all sorts of easy (that’s what she said). Many of my classmates in Ramah Aleph (read: complete and utter unfamiliarity with the letters, sounds and language of Hebrew) are newbies that don’t even speak English, let alone Hebrew. My discomfort in getting around Jerusalem is lessened when I think of my classmates. Thanks, Schadenfreude!

My extremely limited vocabulary is proving useful, and by useful, I mean I’m bored to tears. Not really bored. More like insulted and angry, because I know that while this class is too easy, Ramah Bet (Level 2) would prove to challenging for me, because I don’t know how to talk. At all. (THANKS JTS / Hebrew High / Anybody else who wants their chip resting on my shoulder)

Today, one of the exercises we did fulfilled the following big ideas (thanks UBD):
1. Students will become familiar with their fellow classmates.
2. Students will be able to use these words in a sentence: דגל (degel/flag), של (shel/of).
3. Students will represent themselves in a unique way (though drawing/coloring).

In case you hadn’t caught on yet, here is the sequence of instruction for this segment of class today:
1. Introduction / Grabber – meet the new kids in class! (5 minutes)
2. Review of yesterday’s vocabulary (15 minutes)
a. Yayyin = wine, Matana = Gift, Degel = flag, etc....
b. Read dialogues on page 21 in groups of two or three.
c. Complete flag-identifying exercise on page 26.
3. Introduce new word (5 minutes)
a. Shel = of
b. Have students use the word in a sentence. (Zeh hadegel shel America / Ireland / etc. = this is the flag of America / Ireland / etc.)
4. Activity (10 minutes)
a. Distribute half-sheets of plain, white paper.
b. Distribute pastel crayons
c. Instruct students to draw their home country’s flag on the sheet of paper.
d. After 5 minutes of drawing time, collect flags and stand students in a circle. Have students identify the flags as they are held up by the instructor.
e. And so on and so forth.

I took a little license with my flag-drawing, because the red pastel crayon was very popular (There are some Chinese students in my class, and their entire flag, save the yellow stars, is red! Austria, Poland, France...lots of red in the flags, so I got creative.). My American flag had grey stars on a blue background and orange stripes. (If only I was not in Ramah Aleph, I could have said, “The University of Florida is in Gainesville, but the Gator Nation is Everywhere.” I could have even supplemented it with an orange flag with a blue Star of David in the middle, with a horizontal blue stripe on both the top and the bottom.)

We identified the flags – Korea, China, Austria (OK, I didn’t identify Austria. I suck at flag identification.). Then there was a flag that I for sure couldn’t place. And I wasn’t alone. Not a single classmate could identify the flag. The girl who drew it piped up, “Zeh ha-degel shel Palesteen.” (This is the flag of Palestine.) My heart caught in my throat, and I thought, disdainfully: “Why is there a Palestinian in my Hebrew class?”

I hated myself for thinking that. My father always jokes that I am an empty-headed Liberal, and I agree, at least, that I am liberal. I mull the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, and I imagine a two-state solution. But even with all of my education, with the liberal mind that comes from a TON of reading, I was still scared. And confused. And like an empty-headed conservative, I thought to myself: “There is NO Palestine.”

Please allow me to quote my boyfriend's pontifications on the subject: "Hebrew U is one of the few places where there is a real model for coexistance, with Israelis and Palestinians learning in the same classrooms and preparing their minds for the complexities of our very troubled world, and hopefully, learning techniques through which the very deep wounds can be healed." (Yes, this was transcribed word for word. Thanks, Raf, for speaking slowly.)

And the next day, I made a point. I made a point to talk with the girl from Palestine. Because, after all, I believe in coexistance and I believe in peace. And that peace is going to start with me, shoving the conservative biases out of my head, and connecting over what I know best: a really cute pair of shoes.

Miss me?

I know it's ridiculous to think that my sbbblog is a place where people can keep up with what I'm doing in Israel. I wonder how many people read it, I wonder if they're wondering about me, I wonder why they don't comment more.

So now, just in case there's anybody out there, I want to let you know that just because I haven't been writing, doesn't mean I am not ok. I am. Everybody else, also, is ok.

I have been building up stuff to write about, trust me. But time escapes me as, we all know, you can't write a blog if you don't have a life to blog about. Therefore, I am living that life. Well, I guess you could, but that would be entirely boring and stupid and that sort of blog gets deleted off of my google reader lickity split.

I have also been collecting a large vocabulary of Hebrew words most people don't learn until Ulpan level Vav (6).

SB Plans and God Laughs

To quote the good old mothertongue, Yiddush:

א מענטש טראכט און גאט לאכט / A mentsh trakht un got lakht / People (men) plan and God laughs.*

*Translation courtesy of a Newton Center Rav.

So I worked out all of the kinks, and got to Israel, excited to start ulpan and go to Hebrew U and find a grammar tutor (ok, I wasn't so excited about that.). I couldn't wait to do all of the other fun things that a year in the Holy Land could bring me.

Then I had to petition my part-time status at Hebrew U. During the process I realized a few things:

1. Hebrew U (and by Hebrew U, I mean a variety of offices and officers, but most specifically, the NY recruiter who handled my case) never realized / communicated / completed the process necessary to make me part-time.
2. Hebrew U DOES have ulpan-style classes through the school year. (NY recruiter told me to go to an outside ulpan.)
3. Hebrew U MAY be able to tutor me in "Academic Hebrew Grammar and Rabbinical Text Analysis." (That was the best working title we could come up with after looking at my handouts from JTS. The best I could come up with on my own was "Ick.")
4. Israelis, including the finest academics in the country of Israel, home of the native Hebrew speaker and the Hebrew academics, thinks that JTS's Hebrew program is (wait for it...it's a shocker...) a little ridiculous, difficult and not useful at all. (There's a song called Vindicated. That is what I am.)

So, long story short: I was vindicated by a professional who deals in actual Hebrew language instruction, signed up for Ramah Aleph graduate Hebrew classes, and changed my enrollment to Full-Time. That's right, SBB is a full-time student at Hebrew U! I'm going to drop my ulpan enrollment and spend more time at Hebrew U up on yofi-tofi (pretty-mitty) Mount Scopus. Yes, I'm pissed that I was pretty much misguided up the wazoo about my time at Hebrew U, but it's ok, because I'm a Rothberg girl now!

Also, today, I ran into Jordana, one of my closest friends from USY on Wheels Bus D 1997. We may have lost touch after Wheels, but running into her not once, not twice, but three times today in Jerusalem, the city she now permanently calls home, was awesome! I also saw "Roach," one of Rafi's campers from Darom, Baylene, and old friend of mine from USY and Pilgrimage Group 7 '99, and hung out with my friend / Rafi's roommate-to-be Robbie.

Things are slowly and falling into place, although it's not how I thought it would be. Rafi will get here soon. This is good because now that I have a cell phone, I have been spending harbeh dolarim (many dollars) calling his NY number. We're also almost set with planning a trip to Egypt and Jordan, and I am researching where else I will wander from my starting post in the Middle East.

Yom Kippur is rapidly approaching...tomorrow I hope I get to the shuk to see kapara (a different way of getting rid of your sins.) and the girls and I are hoping we get to the Biblical Zoo, too. Jerusalem is FUN!