"May the Force be with you!"

Shalom!

So I am in Israel. This is surreal. I have been talking about doing this [this being coming to Israel to study Ancient Hebrew] for months now, and BAM! It is finally here. I have actually been here for about 40 hours, and am finally settling in. It is about 11PM here and 4PM in New York. I miss New York.

This blog is meant to catalog my experiences with the people and with the Judaism I encounter here. That means full access to everything I am thinking and feeling because it all factors in to the big questions: What, How, and Why are American Jews different then Israeli Jews? It's a big question. A question I cannot answer now, nor will I be able to at the end of this 5 five week adventure. Hopefully though, each interaction will shed a little bit of light on the topic.

That being said: בראשית, Beresheit, In the beginning...

I entered the Newark International Terminal at around 12PM New York time. I was feeling very alone until it so happened that I found some one I knew from my summer camp, Betsy, a nice Jewish girl who attends NYU. She too is going to Jerusalem for five weeks, but with a different program at a different school. It's too bad, because I would love the company right now. More on that later. While talking to her in the terminal, I had my first interesting encounter studying the groups of people on the flight. There were three distinct groups:

-The college-age travelers going to Israel to study different things in different places. Their dress ranged from conservative to less then covered up. Some of the men had yarmulkes/kippahs/head coverings, some didn't. All were nervous and busily trying to interact with one another. Many of them came from all over the country to fly out, but all were quite friendly.

-The very religious orthodox Jews going to Israel because it is Israel, duh. Their dress was obviously quite conservative. They had with them tons of children. Everyone seemed to have at least 3 children or two older relatives. They mostly kept to themselves. I have two interesting interactions with them; one in the terminal and one during the flight.

While waiting outside the gate, an older Orthodox Jew asked me to come pray with him. He needed men for a minyan (10 Jews are needed to pray, this quorum is called a minyan) to say Kaddish (the prayer of remembrance for the Dead, he must have been mourning). I was taken aback. No one has ever asked me to pray with them before, nonetheless an Orthodox Jew, especially given the circumstance. I was engaging in a light-hearted conversation with two young unmarried women who were dressed immodestly by Orthodox standards. [Side note: Before walking up to me, he was glaring at the girls I was speaking to, and after our brief interaction turned from them with a look.] How strange that a community I am used to staying private and secluded would reach out like that? Why was it happening now? It is not like there is a shortage of Jewish people where I live or where I pray. What made this setting different? I couldn't help him unfortunately because I do not know the full prayer and was boarding the flight at the time he wanted to pray. It made me think: Does Israel give Jews such a stronger sense of community that this a normal practice?

That question only became apparent on the plane. A family with a baby was sitting two rows in front of me (my noise-canceling headphones were quite useful) and the baby was not handling the flight well. The father rocked the baby back and forth, but to no avail. Suddenly, the elderly Orthodox Jewish man sitting down the aisle from me stands up and goes to the father. He whispered something to him, and then the father tried it and the baby got quieter. Other orthodox people from around the plane began to get up and aid the family. It was an instant connection, as if they were family, and yet they all seemed to have just met. Was this happening just to get the baby to stop, or was there an honest connection between them all? Many orthodox people tell me of this sense of community, but I have never seen it so intense like this.

-Finally the third group: teenagers and family members going to perform (not attend, this was a part of the party) a Bat Mitzvah in Israel. They were loud and dressed in short shorts and comfy clothes for the very long plane ride (11 hours with a 7 hour time difference when you land). I couldn't get over the picture this sent of American Judaism: a rather opulent display of wealth for a supposedly sacred ritual with a bunch of teenagers in booty shorts reading Cosmo, and gabbing family members. No doubt the service will be beautiful and solemn, but it still seems weird to me. Perhaps I haven't gotten over the private-ness I associate with ritual. It all just seemed unnecessary to me, but I am not the parents and I do not know the full story of how and why this Bat Mitzvah came to be.

The flight was long. My plan to stay up the night before failed, and I did not sleep at all during the 11 hours. I did a little reading. Took the occasional half hour nap. Noshed (snacked on little bits of food). Listened to music. I sat between a Yale Divinity student, who is converting to Judaism currently, and is studying Modern Hebrew here at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (same school as me, but different program), and an Israeli soldier who was returning to New York for a funeral. He was/is stationed in the West Bank, and has seen action and death. He only has two more months left to serve, so my thoughts and prayers go out to him for his safety. I only spoke to him briefly though, between the sleeping pills he took. I was quite jealous of those sleeping pills.

So after 11 hours of boredom and anxiety (I was freaking out quietly to myself about being 13 hours away from home and everyone I care about, more on that later), I arrived in Israel at 7AM (my body thought it was midnight though, and was running on 3.5 hours of sleep). We waited for bags and then drove from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I didn't get to see much because of the orientation we were getting on the bus from the Madrachim (kinda like Resident Assistants but less hands-on).

I then began to unpack. Once my sheets were on and my bed was clear, I accidentally took a nap when testing out the softness of my pillow, which lasted two hours. I then walked to the University (which is ten minutes away from the dorms, across the mountain it is on, Mt. Scopus) to check-in and pick up my phone. This was followed by a quick trip back via shuttle bus (for the first day only) to campus for a nap and to grab stuff. There was a campus tour at four, orientation at five, and then a trip to the mall at six to pick up stuff you may need. All this made me realize how good Residential Life staff is at Fordham. The Office of Student Services (Res-Life) here is not accessible, nor friendly. Their programs are simple and repetitive (absurd amount of tours upon tours of the university facilities), and the staff has been curt and unhelpful. Having been a summer RA and a regular RA for international students, I can say Fordham has done a much better job. Go Fordham RA's! You really do make the difference between a dorm and residence hall!

This leads me to my biggest problem of the first day: home-sickness. When I got back to the dorm at around 10PM, I was still jet-lagged. I was hungry and tired, but I couldn't fall asleep. I began to get incredibly homesick. That combined with the lack of sleep kept me up for the next five excruciating hours. I tried sleeping, watching TV on my laptop (which is very hard in Israel), talking to people, nothing really worked. I called home, but that just made it worse. Last night, I was regretting coming. I finally fell asleep at 3AM.

I woke up the next day at 2PM. As I got ready to go to the University to register and pick up some things, my suite-mate, an former-Israeli soldier who now went to school and worked security, began to talk to me in broken English. It was fun, despite the barrier. He is very quotable: "You are from New York? Huh? Big city, no? WoW! (makes grandoise gesture, ending in a two fingers pointed at me) Big shot!" I told him how I was amazed at the connection people had in Israel. I said it was from the Judaism, and he told me "No no. Not everyone Jewish. We are Israeli, it is small country. That is why we we are connected. Judaism. It help." It reminded me of the pan-New Yorkism we had after 9/11. I told him this, but he didn't understand so I explained it in terms of movies, like at the end of the first Spiderman, when the New Yorkers throw stuff at the Green Goblin saying: "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!" He understood and agreed. As I left, he didn't say goodbye or Shalom! He said, "May the Force be with You!' Some things stay awesome no matter where you are.

I then walked took the long way to the University. The very long way. I walked down the entirety of Mount Scopus, and then around it, and then back up it to get to the University. The heat was intense, but there was a breeze every now and then which was nice. I registered for the class and then met up with some people who decided to go into Jerusalem (not the old city, but the more modern part with shops) for dinner and some supplies at more affordable prices then the mall had. Interesting encounter I had here, that I have yet to think of a comment on: A group of Orthodox Jewish children dancing in the street to Hip Hop while a much older one collected money from everyone who watched. It was odd and reminiscent of Oliver. After some shopping and delicious falafel, I headed back to my dorm, where I unpacked and relaxed and talked to people. The homesickness has gotten better, but its still there. It will be gone one I get busy.

Tomorrow, I am heading into the Old City, so expect pictures and more interesting stories and thoughts. Please forgive any typos or grammatical mistakes. I am quite tired and out of it from all this.

Feel free to post questions, requests, or ideas for me to do or think on!

Shalom!