One year in Israel

2006-02-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

The phone rings.

"Hi, it's Leslie."

"Hi Leslie," I say. "How are you? How was your opperation?"

"The mysectomy went very well," Leslie sais. "I was only in the hospital for one day, now I just have another few weeks of Chemo and after that one more month of radiation and then I go in for reconstructive surgery."

"Wow, I'm really glad everything is working out for you -- how is Isaac?" I say. "He hasn't been to school in almost a month, is he alright?"

"Yes, Isaac is doing much better," Leslie sais. "He's still at the hospital but they should discharge him back to me in a few weeks."

"At the hospital?"

"Oh yeah, you didn't hear?"

"No, I haven't heard anything."

"Well, right after my opperation he lost it at school and started throwing chairs and destroying property right in the classroom," Leslie says. "Then he came home one day and threatened to jump out of the window and punched me and ran out onto the balcony and said he was going to kill himself."

I lean back on my couch and sigh a heavy sigh.

"so I called his psychiatrist and had him admitted to the mental health ward that same day."

"You must miss him," I say.

"Oh, like crazy!" Leslie answers. "But he has come home for the last two Shabats, he should be back home for good in another three weeks if all keeps going at this rate, and they changed his medication -- they also make him study everyday so he doesn't miss school -- and he is just a doll now, so much better I just can't believe the difference."

"That's great," I say.

"Yes, its really wonderfull -- AND I'm seeing somebody now too."

"Wow, you met someone?" I say.

"Yeah, he's great, he's an Israeli and a friend set us up and it worked out really well," Leslie says. "He is really interested in everything that is happening with Isaak too and he comes to the psychiatrist meetings with me."

"He sounds awsome -- congradulations."

"Yes, he really is great," Leslie says. "I never thought that I would meet someone at this point in my life, the cancer and misectomy and aliah and all...."

2006-02-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

Hadar is so thin that from a side profile she looks like a page from a book. You look at her and look at her and wonder where her internal organs reside. Hadar is Ahskenazi, she eats bland food, has a lactose intollerance...

Lior is dark. He is a Sephardi Jew. He remembers kids picked on him in school. Tention between the ashkenazim and sephardim.

Lior and Hadar are getting married.

Hadar picked out a wedding dress last week. The dress is white and long sith a lace bodice and spagetti shoulder straps.

Hadar works in the linguistics field. She teaches deaf children to pronounce words properly and fixes hearing aids.

Lior makes music.

The family calls them "The clowns." They laugh when they walk into the room. They make fun of eachother. They make fun of the family. They make fun of their friends and the folks on t.v. and people they see in the streets. They laugh when they settle at the table for supper and laugh throughout supper and laugh as they wash up the plates. They laugh in the family room, on the couch, surounded by sisters and cousins. They laugh with their coffee. They laugh as the sun sets and night lowers the shades and they laugh when they walk out the door.

Lior laughs when he reads about Hamas winning next door. He laughs when he sees thousands of muslims waving Hamas flags across his morning paper. Hadar laughs when she reads about How close the Hesbulah is.

"Soon the Hesbulah is going to just be sitting right on top of us," Zohar, the youngest sister says as she reads the paper and glances at the picture of a green and yellow map of Israel and a man on one knee with a giant gun beside the map of Israel, pointing the gun towards Eilat.

Lior and Hadar laugh.

I wish I could laught like they laugh.

2006-02-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

A young Jewish man was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Paris. He was tied to a tree and cut and cut and cut. The kidnappers tortured him for weeks. They asked the family for randsome. Later they simply killed him instead. The family says the murderers quoted the koran and insisted that the family had money because they were Jews. Poor young man -- could have been me.

Do I think the kidnappers were muslems? No. Ofcourse this is all just conjecture, but it seems too simple. I think the kidnappers wanted people to believe they were muslems so as to get the dogs off their tracks. I think they quoted koran verses for the same reasons that they used stolen cell phones to contact the family rather then their own cellphones. Poor young man --- could have been me!

2006-02-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

Michael

I teach Michael English every week. One third of our lesson centers on reading and comprehension. The rest of the time we concentrate on conversational English.

Michael wants to learn English because his 21 year old daughter speaks English well and makes fun of his lack of the language. English is michael's third language, Hebrew is his second, and Russian is his first.

When Michael speaks English his hands sweat. He wipes and wipes his wet, red, giant hands on his pants. Sweat pours from his forehead. He stutters. His voice grow high and insecure. His left eyebrow twitches.

Michael is a doctor. He works from early morning into late evening visitin elderly patients in their homes.

"I work so many hours, I visit 36 patients a month, each patient gets three visits a week," Michael says.

We sit at my kitchen table and practice conversational English.

"You work very hard," I say.

"Yes, I work too many hours, and I am looking for a new job, because my boss only pays me for eight hours a day and I work much much many more hours than this." Michael wipes his hands on his pants, dabs his moist forehead with a cleanex, grabs his small teacup off the table, gulps a giant gulp of black tea -- no sugar -- sets the cup down as if he'd just finished a beer and smiles. "I like politics."

"I like to listen to the news," Michael says. "I listen to fox news and try to understand in English." He laughs. "I don't not to know what I lestening too, but I like."

"so what's happening in the news lately?" I say.

Michael laughs and looks down at his teacup. "Well... - we can see by the news that there are still problemz betveen Israel and Palestinians, sometimes ve have scuiside bombers and sometimes they do wrong and sometimes we..."

"It's hard to live in Israel, allways so unstable," I say.

"Politics is a hobby of my favourite," Michael replies.

"Do you like living here?" I ask.

"Here? Yes, I like to live here," Michael says. "The politics here is allways interesting."

"Have you thought of livving in other places in teh world, you say you have family in Canada and the United states?"

"Vell..." Michael smiles and runs his finger across the rim of his teacup, "In Israel people vork very hard, long hours, little money...I remember ven ve first vere to make decission on vere ve go vrom Russian, and ve thought ov America too but then," Michael raises his hands to his shoulders, shrugs his shoulders, and smiles a huge smile, "I thought vy exchange vone goy vor another? Allvays it is better to be with own people."

2006-02-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

Shushana Damari died this morning. 83 years old. Shushana was a Yemenite Jew. She wanted to be an actress but made a carreer of her voice instead. She married a man ten years her senior. he was a dirrector when she began her carreer, around the age of 13. He waited untill she was of marrying age, then they married.

Shushana sang for the new commers in the refugee camps, when Israel first became a refuge for Jews. She sang about going home: Ha baitah, Ha baitah. They had finally arived home. Ha baitah, Ha baitah -- and now she has gone home as well.

2006-02-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Tu be Shvat

On monday Israel celbrated the anual tree planting festival. We drove to a Moshav (a rural community) outside of Jerusalem to plant our saplings. Tradition and religion dictates that each member of each family must plant atleast one tree on this day. I planted a Pine. Tzara planted a Ficus.

Thousands of women, children, men, teanagers, babies, and old people came.

"Is this the only planting space around?" I ask Hila.

"No," Hila says. "There are tons of moshavs all over the Copuntry oppening their gates for tree planters today."

Millions of people planted trees on monday.

2006-02-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

Ariel Sharon is still dying.

At the Tel Aviv harbor yesterday afternoon, children played in giant sandboxes while their enormous families unpacked picknics along the boardwalk. South Tel-Aviv: the poor part of town. The children laughed and tosses blue blow-up balls into the air, rode bicicles with training wheels, licked ice cream, sucked on Coka Cola bottles. They played as if Iran didn't exist. They palyed as if Hamas declared peace. They played as if the graffitti on the wall beside them didn't say: "All Jews into the sea!" with a spray painted tombstone bearing a Jewish star on it, sinking into blue waves, underneath the inscription. For those of us that can't read.

We walk into an Ice cream parlour. This place was a famous hangout in the seventies. A giant space with dirtly floors, metal tables, plastic chairs, video game machines... People gather around an old fridge, eyes stuck to a small t.V. on top.

Ariel sharon is dying. They had to opperate on his stomach. He is in grave condition.

A small girl beside the fridge points a giant gun at a vidio game screen.

2006-02-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

The cartoon Wars continue.

What unbelievable fucking non-sense. No really. I mean I can understand that people might be offended by a cartoon about Mohaman, but come on! Last night: riots in East Jerusalem. I live in North-east Jerusalem. So close. So close, yet the street near my building is quiet, only the kids in the play grownd play, only the grandparents sit on the benches and watch the children in silence.

So now Iran is hosting a cartoon contest about the Holocaust. Well, well, surprize: Jews aren't rioting inthe streets, burning Iranian flags, attacking Iranian consulates, or threatening Iranian lives over the holocaust cartoons. We're not even doing that over Iran's Holocaust denial claims. Nope, not even the ultra orthodox.

So what does that say? Do I think all Muslims are evil -- nonsense. Some of the coolest people that I've met in my life are Muslims.

So what do I think should be done? Shit. I don't know. I don't know what should be done, but I know something must be done. The violence, the senceless, useless stupidity of the people involved in these riots must not be tollerated. No.

Yesterday on the news: footage of rioters dragged apart by Israeli soldiers. Violent incidents. The rioters, well damn, they were just stupid kids. Boys. The soldiers: children with guns. I keep thinking, damn, why aren't their mothers down there with broom sticks! Ofcourse I think that violence against children is dispicable, but these kids are just out of their minds.

If they are so upset about how Mohamad was portrayed well, shit, perhaps Mohamad is portrayed that way in pictures because they portray him that way with their actions! You repressent your G-d in the world. If you want to go around blowing yourselves up, kidnapping, torturing, and killing civilians, burning flags, rioting, storming embassy buildings, sending death threats -- guess what? -- you are repressenting your religion, your people, and yes, your prophet. Congradulations.

2006-02-08T11:50:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem is overrun with rats. Big rats. the papers say that cats are afraid of these rats. One rat can bite a baby's finger off.

This morning I saw a raven in the street. Cars stopped because the raven wasn't flying out of the way. He pecked and pecked a small rat in the head. When the rat ran to the sidewalk, the raven ran to the sidewalk. He caught the rat beside a tree, and pecked, and pecked, and pecked at the rat's gray body and head untill the rat grew confussed and beffudled, disshevvelled and depressed, then the raven clipped its beak arount the rat's ribs -- hop hop -- and flew away.

Last week a Palestinian man snuck across the border and boarded a Jerusalem bus. He didn't wear a bomb. Why bother? he braught a knife and stabed to death a Jewish woman beside him.

Riots all over the world about a bunch of cartoons in the European paper. Muslims don't want folks to laugh at Mohamad. So they burn down consulates, stage giant, agressive riots, burn flags. Here's one of the cartoons in question:

It wasn't a Jewish newspaper that made these cartoons or aired them. It wasn't an Israeli publication. In Fact, most Israeli's never even saw these catoons untill they splattered all over our NEWS framed by angry Muslim faces, terrorizing consulates, burning flags, and threatening revenge. Is it really Mohamad they want to protect? Or is it the truth they can't face? Perhaps there really are no more virgins left.

Even though it was the Europeans who allegedly defaced the beloved Mohamad, the Muslims' revenge and retorts are as follows:

Cartoons of Hitler in bed with Anne Frank "Put this one in your diary."; a contest of the best Holocaust cartoon -- I think I'm going to enter.

No matter what it is, or who is responsibe, it's the Jews' fault.

2006-01-31T01:28:00.000-08:00

I woke this morning and stared at the blind that covers my window. Israel is so small. Israel is as small as the head of a pin. On a world Globe, you can't see it but for the name typed in black on a piece of Mediteranean Sea.

I thought about Canada, and the days that I spent drivng across Canadian expanse. Oh Canada, I thought about your prairies today, about the giant sun, the huge sky, the yellow wheat against blue lakes and rivers. I saw the Rocky mountains in the distance, and thought about the white hair on the old men's heads.

The trees in Israel aren't green like the evergreens that I'm used to. The trees are the colour of olives. Just enough water to survive, not thrive. Nothing thrives here. Israel is all about survival. We are the colour of olives, not Jade.

The folks that search found oil in Alberta. They're extracting unparrallelled volumes of oil from Alberta's forested sands. Big, black craters where my forests used to stand. Forests as big as Israel.

The oil is going to make Canda a superpower. Alberta will be richer than the rich. Saudie Arabia will suffer politically. The States won't need the Middle East anymore. Where will Israel stand? 50/50. We're still a good strategic place to hold for war's sake. We're still the middle of the world.

I went to the market three days ago. One small alley lead to the Dome of the Rock.

That rock is not exactly a rock. That rock is the peack of a mountain. A small mountain. Jerusalem was built, on stilts, all around that mountain peak. According to Jewish beliefs, that rock is the spot from where the world began. That rock is the first place of earth. The exact middle of of the world for the Jews.

According to the Muslims, Mohamad accended to heaven from that rock.

According to the Jews, Abraham bound Isaak to that rock to sacrifice hiw only son to G-d, than G-d said "Stop" and Abraham sacrificed an animal instead.

David built a giant synagogue to house that rock once, long ago -- you can read about it in the Hebrew bible, the Christians call that bible "The Old Testament" -- What is left of that synagogue now is the one small piece of "Western wall" That wall extends another mile or so below the ground past a spot that dirrectly faces the dome of the rock. There is a small synagogue there, just follow the underground tunel and you'll step right through the synagogue doors. It looks like a tiny cave, with one small bench facing the wall. Jews pray at the Western Wall not because the wall is sacred, but because it is as close as they can get to the rock, the middle of the world, where G-d began. That is the true purpose of prayers at the wall.

A police woman stood at the end of the Alley. Jews aren't alloud to pray at the dome of the rock. The dome of the rock is Muslem property now. They have specific visiting hours twice a week for tourists.

2006-01-29T11:41:00.000-08:00

Rav. Kadury died at ten O'clock last night. The last of his secret Kabalist sect. He never shared or wrote about his teachings. Thus his knowlege died with him. They estimate his age between 104-107. He lived something right.

The Lebavetcher Rebbe predicted that Rav. Kaduri would live in the time of the Moshiach. the savior of the world. I wonder if the moshiach is here now. Legend says the world will end when the moshiach comes.

Two days ago Hamas won the Palestinian democractic elections. well well, democracy really works after all. Some fools think that if you let the majority decide the majority will inevitably vote for peace and safety and security. Ha. The middle east doesn't want to play nice and make friends. Friends.

I met a Palestinian man, about my age, three days ago. Musah. He had jail house tattoos on his hand. That's how I knew we'd get along and get along we did. He spoke Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian. We mostly conversed in Russian, as we both spoke it better than Hebrew.

I braught him Arabic sweats -- arabic sweats are sooo sweat -- and we had tea with sage leaves in his store. All sorts of things sat for sale in his store: laveshly framed paintings hung crooked from the walls, tacky angel statues holding pots of water by their groins, rugs, writwatches, mismatched dinnersets, old books, new books, bracelets, rings, t.v. sets.

Musah went to jail at 13. He had a Russian girlfriend and lots of Russian friends and he learned to speak Russian with them. He likes the food Russians eat, especially borcht. Musah wants to cook borcht for me soon.

He didn't eat the sweets I braught. But he was sure surprized. He opened the package so carefully. A slight sense of fear. It could have been a bomb feeling. He said his doctor didn't let him eat sweets because his teeth are bad and will fall out in a year or two. He smiled a shy smile at me. Teeth crooked and brown, peppered with black polkadots; gums so receeded you could see the roots of his teeth, so red they were purple.

"You see," he points his index finger at his mouth. "No sweets aloud."

"A year or two the teeth will fall out," I laugh. "But the sweets are here now, may as well enjoy them while you still got teeth."

He slaps his knee and explodes with laughter. He has a fine, full laugh, like a boy. "My grandma used to say that exact same thing to me."

We sit and drink tea. We inspect one another's tattoos. He has a long pinky finger nail. In Canada that means he deals coke. I wonder if that sign is universal.

It feels good to sit there and drink tea. It is so rare that I feel in the company of friends.

2006-01-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

On my to the grocery store, some boy, about 6 years old, flips his middle finger at me from the back of the Arab bus. Arabs have their own busses here. Its not segregation, they want their own bus system or something. So I hear. if I was them, I would want my own bus system too.

So The little boy flips his middle finger at me again, smiles a mischevious smile and sinkd down in his seat. His friends point at me and laugh. I stick my tongue out at his friends. The little boy popps back up and, before he has a chance to flip me the bird again, I pull out my cheaks and stick out my tongoue and do the stupid dance. They laugh. I make a funny face. They make funny faces too. We face and dance at one another untill the bus rolls out of sight. They frown to end the game so soon. So do I.

At the grocery store, Mr. Zol -- Zol means Cheap -- I stand at the Olive counter. The lady who usually serves me, stands motionless, ears to a small transistor radio, eyes glazed.

"Mah Kara?" Hila says. What happened?

"Pigua b Tel Aviv." A bomb went of in Tel Aviv.

"When?"

"A few minutes ago."

As the little boy flipped the bird at me, as we danced the rubbery but dance at each other, someone pulled a cord, or pressed a button, or lit some sort of wick somewhere on his body and BAM. And fucked the old bus station there in Tel Aviv.

She searves me my olives. I ask her to put a little juice in the container.

"What size container?" She asks and holds up two similiar plastic tubs.

"Small, please."

She fills a small tub with olives, weighs and identical container it on the scale, notes the weight, sets my container on the scale, prints out a fee label, hands it to me.

"Thank you," I say.

"Come again."

2006-01-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

I walk into this tiny dilapitated house. i am there to visit someone, but I cannot find him. Alexander is with me. alexander is a guy I remember from the street. He had a chizzled model's face and blond hair and blue eyes. He was made for the G.Q. pages. he often got small modelling jobs, but allways ended up back in the gutter. Alexander landed a waiter gig in the end, made bux the hard old fashion way. served food. Cleared tables. smiled his handsome smile at lonely old ladies. He got a place to live. He left.

We were looking for John. John was this older man that took street kids in all the time. Nothing weird os perverted -- for once! -- just a nice older man with a little house in the beaches. He was a little young at mind, never quite had friends his own age. But he wasn't slow in the traditional sense. He was kind. He was misunderstood. He liked to laugh.

Beside the house was a giant electric antena. It freaked me out to be so close to one.

"Those things are dangerous," I said to Alexander.

"Don't worry about it,' alexander said.

"A man can get a cocronary livving beside on of those for too long," I said.

I look out the dirty little window with the translucent brown curtain.

"My Gad, there's tons of them -- it's a farm!" I exclaim.

"John will be fine, he's too old to get a coronary."

"A coronary," I look down at my shoes; i'm wearing the old brown boots I wore on the street. "My grandfather died of a coronary."

And there's John, stretched off the couch, his long legs limp, feet resting on their heels inside blue running shoes. John looks great. I look at him and i know right away that he is fine. That he is too old to be bothered by the electricity waves.

Suddenly I am outside the little house again. I walk towards the croocked from door. The front door is made of missmatched planks. Glance down: A set of railroad ties. Old. rusted. They seem to small to sustain today's trains. But the vibration, a suttle vibration -- the train will come at some point. The railroad tracks cross the door.

The next night I dream again.

I put on my glasses but everything looks weird through them. I can't figgure it out. I take the specs off and inspect them. The nose piece is cracked in two. The handles aren't even. The right hand cuts straight through the glass. Broken. shattered. No fixing these puppies.

So I rush to my closet, the closet I have now and i look for my spare pair of glasses. I know I have a few spare pairs somewhere. I can't find it, but i know it's there. I know it's htere and I am not nervouse at all.

I wake up this morning. Cold. Jerusalem apartments have shitty heating. My kneck hurts and my back aches from the cold, cold night. Perhaps it's these cold nights that take me back to the streets. It was cold sleeping there on that pavement.

Rav. Kaduri is back in the hospital. He is sick again. He is 107. The last of the Kabbalists is taking his leave of the world.

Does anybody even read this anymore?

2006-01-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

Sylvester day came and stiched history together.

I went to a dyke bar in Tel Aviv for the sylvester party. All the Dykes in Israel are gorgeous. After the traditional midnight Sylvester smooch, an Elvis impersonator (middle aged, hairy, man with drunken red cheeks) slithered onto the stage, wrapped his meaty fingers around the mike, and whinied out Elvis tunes. He got the tunes right, but he made up all the words. Thick Israeli accent spewing gibberish to elvis guitare riffs. I laughed and laughed. I liked him.

Ariel Sharon is dying. Around the clock news broadcasts from the hospital. Now he had a stroke. Now they found a birth deffect, hole in his heart. Now he has blood on the left side of his brain. Now he has blood on the right side of his brain. Israel stands day and night by the hospital gates. Haddassa hospital.

A woman tried to bring him sandwitches. A man tried to pass special aromatic hearbs. No one gets through to sharon now, not even the common people. Security.

"He's going to die," I say.

"How can you be so cold?" They say. "when you are in a foreign land and you see that everyone is upset and wants hime to live -- it isn't like in Canada where no one knows or cares about anyone else...He went through all our wars and faught in our wars and got badly injured in the war of independance."

I don't know what this means to the state. sharon started his own party. Now the party is nothing without Sharon. Oh, but I shouldn't say "now" after all, sharon is still alive. The radio says he is still asleep, breathing with artificial assistance. Today they say he will sleep one more day. I don't know what will be Tomorrow.

A short while before the assasination of Rabin, Kabbalist rabis flocked together between cemetary stones and performed the Pulsa denura. Pulsa denura is a Kabbalistic curse, asking for death of the one being cursed. It was a political statement/action. later Rabin was shot, by a jew, at close range. The body guards didn't see him. The police tried to make some arrests, stating that the Pulsa denura seremony gave licence to kill, if not political than spiritual, but, in the end, the bussiness was left alone. You either believe in the force of Kabbala or you do not. You cannot do both.

A week ago I heard that Rabbi's raomed the cemetary floor once more, performing the Pulsa Denura on Sharon for his disengagement from Gazza. Two weeks ago Sharon went to the hospital with a stroke. He emeerged. Now a second stroke...

Does Sharon's death foreshadow a third antifada? A rise inn Palestinian/Israeli violence? When Israel is soft, hit hard sort of thing?

Yesterday Rav. Kaduri roled into a hspital too. Rav Kaduri is the last living member of a three hundred year secret Kabbalah sect. I have tried to figgure out how to meet him. No luck yet. Less luck now.

Rav. Kaduri is 107 years old. His wife is forty years younger. Politicians come to kiss his ring and ask for handwritten blessings. He is a hard Rav. to get to. I hope he makes it through -- I need to meet him. I need to try. We drove by his hospital today. No security. Rav. Kaduri has the flu.

We drove by Rav. Kaduri and the hospital that holds him. We drove by on our way to the shook. Market. Cold gray rain today.

I open my bag for the security, but he just waves me through. Today was a good day to blow up the shook. No one cares. Is it apathy? Is the nation in shock?

Some Kabbalists believe that the second Antifada started because durring the destruction of the temple angels got stuck in the place around the rock. Now the Golden dome is built around the rock. two religions. Two beliefs. One giant rock. Holy, but not holy enough to share.

So they say that Ariel is an Angle's name. Ariel Sharon. They say Sharon's visit to the Golden dome provided the Angels that were stuck there with a sign. A sign that the end of days is near.

So the second Antifada began.

The next thing that should rightly happen according to the prophesy: The angels will find freedome, rise from their spot around the rock, and decent into heaven. The people will see this decent. The muslims will say that the Angels are muslim signs from Alah. The Jews will say the Angels are Jewish signs from Hashem. A sign: the end of times.

Melaphophenim, mlaphophenim! Cucumbers. Someone yells.

A man carries a crate of bagels on his head. Rain drips from the edge of the crate, drops on his potatoe nose, and drizzles to his shirt.

Pirates parade by with baby buggies and wives, plastic caps over their black hats, tefelin swing fromhips and bounce of thier thighs.

I look around. Dilapitated buildings. Store fronts lean beneath fragile signs.

Usha's store sits snug between two shiny pots and pans stores, across the street from a store with a hand stencilled sign along the edge of it's roof: G-d's land, the sun and everything between water and sky, household tools and neccesities.

'Shalom Usha," I say.

Usha smiles a wide smile at me. "How are you? You came a few months ago," Usha says. "You're the painter right?"

"She's the painter," I point at Hila. "I'm the writer."

I pluck a Russian matrioshka of the shelf, where she stood betwen a pile of copper menorahs and a randomly stacked hill of tin Elijah cups. Behind the matrioshka silver forks, spoons and knives, prick pointy ends out the top of a chipped Florida Beer mug. Usha stumbles umong metal platters, cup holders, wicker baskets, samovars, rooster figurines, and black wires.

"Come sit and have some tea," Usha says as he aranges and rearanges crystal goblets at the edge of his overstuffed shelves. "Do you drink tea of coffee?"

"Tea, please," I say and unscrew the martioshka doll. No dolls inside. A barren matrioshka. I think of Rachel -- she was old before she hadIsaak -- push the matrioshka together again and replace her beside the mountain of tin Elijah cups.

"Good good," Usha says and plugs an electric kettle into a socket behind an african style wooden carving of a man with bent knees lookind down. He lifts a giant copper bowl off a tree round and replaces the bowl with the kettle. "Do you like your tea very strong?"

"Yes, please."

"Good, good, you sit here and soon we will talk and I will read a bit for you," Usha says as he takes a red mettle cup off the table, empties its cold tea contents on the floor behind the treeround and sets the cup in front of me. "Do you like sugar?" He gently lays a teabag in my cup.

"No thank you," I say.

Usha pours tea like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. He smiles, eyes on my eyes, as he pours.

Usha speaks russian to the Russian customers, English to Americans, and Hebrew to everyone else.

I flip through the sixth volume (the only volume on the shelf of missmatched books) of the Zohar. With englsih translation and commentary.

An old lady, wearing three dresses beneath a tattered coat hobbles into Usha's store. She waves a dirty plastic dishrack in Usha's face.

"You want to buy this?" The lady says in Russian.

"No, thank you, I don't need this," Usha says.

"It is new," She says. "I just baught it now - -"

Usha shakes his head. "I don't need it."

She stuffs the wet, brown plastic dishrack into Usha's large, square hands. "I just don't want to carry it anymore. Take it for only five shekkels."

"I don't need it, I can't sell it," Usha lets go of the dishrack. "Try to sell it to the guy across the street with the houshold tools." Usha smiles and turns away. "I'm sure he may want it."

2005-12-31T09:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Sylvester day.

Sylvester party is the Israeli vertion of the Christian world's New Year's Eve celebration. Everyone goes out and has a giant "Sylvester" party.

Apparently Sylvester is the name of a saint for this day. I don't get it.

I suppose the difference is that we don't call it New year's here because the Jewish New Year starts at a different time. But Sylvester is a Christian saint -- no?

Went to a Druse town today. They are not Jews. They are not Muslims. They believe in re-encarnation. The tradtional Druse cover their heads in white fabrick (women) and wear long blue and black and white outfits. They are dark. I saw a few men in white hats.

It was the smell of the town that struck me. A wounderfull smell of earth, coals, and fire. Everything smelled as if it had been washed in sand, and dried above a bar b q fire. They neither smile nor scowl. Kind eyes. Soft spoken. Patient wrinckles. deap set mouths. I never saw teeth.

The food is just like Israeli food accept the pita's are thin and round and giant. The shape and thinness reminds me of ethiopian flatbread, but the texture is that of a crepe.

Every store is related. Every street is small. Every hand is open; hangs against thie; patts bread; smooths cloth.

I don't miss Toronto today. I never liked Canadian new years. Always the need for a party. Allways stuck alone in the house. Thus have I spent the bulk of my last ten Sylvester days.

I have this superstission: Whatever I'm doing on New years, I will do for the rest of the year.

What should I do today? I have a fancy to just and sit and do some homework. Forget this year ever came, stayed, or went. Sylvester blues.

2005-12-26T11:04:00.000-08:00

Musah Smashed into Hila's car while the car was parked in a lot beside the post office. I sat in the car, watched his white van back towards me, speed up, and smash into the front bumper. The car jolts.

I step out of the car. Musah jumps from his van, inspects the vroken headlight. Musah speaks quickly, in a thick Arabic accent. His i's are gutteral.

I look at Musah. Musah is a tall man, regular build. He talks animated, uses controlled gestures. I don't understand te gestures either. I pull a small paper from my pocket, flip a pen out of my purse, and scrath his licence plate number into the page. Musah mummbles something at me.

The Post office security guy, a young, dark Jewish man ambles towards us, smiles amicably. He tells Musah I don't understand Hebrew. I understand that much. I size up the security guy: a tall, dark man of medium build.

They discuss umongst themselves for a minute, how best to explain the situation to me. Two dark men, short and curly black hai. Iy seems only a slight accent differentiates the two.

The security guy tells me, in broken english that the dammage is minimal and Musah will fix it himself. I explain that it is not my car. The security guy fetches Hila from the post office.

Hila and Musah discuss the broken headlight. He smiles. she smiles. He jots his telephone number for her. They part way.

"He's says he'll meet me here tomorrow morning at 12," Hila tells me. "He'll have the new part for the car then, and says he's going to fix it."

Next day. 12. No Musah.

Hila calls Musah. Musah says he'll be there in an hour. 1 1/2 hours later: no Musah.

Hila calls Musah. Musah says he's stuck in traffic; he'll be there in half and hour. 2 hours later: no Musah.

Hila calls Musah. Musah says lets do it tomorrow.

"He says he will come here to the building at nine in the morning tomorrow with the part and fix it," Hila tells me.

Next day. 9. No Musah.

"Didn't the post office guy say he works right next door?" I ask Hila.

"Yes, he was on the job in his boss's van when he smashed into the car," Hila answers.

"So if it's his bosses car and his bosses insurance, maybe you should call his boos to get your car fixed.

Hila calls Musah's boss.

"He will call you in half an hour and come with the part," Musah's boss says.

2 hours later: no call.

3 hours later, Musah calls.

"He says he'll be here in an hour," Hila says. I laugh.

"Sure he will."

Next day. Hila calls musah's boss again. she tells him she wants to talk dirrectly to his insurance now and will not wait for Mussah any longer. The boss screams and swears at Hila in Arabic. Hila hangs up the phone.

20 minutes later: Musah calls.

"What are you getting me in trouble for!" Musah screams. "What you have to call everyone in the world. I'm at the shop right now, buying the part."

"What shop are you at?" Hila says.

Musa gives her a name she's never heard of.

"I'll be there to fix it in an hour," Musah says.

One hour later: no Musah.

"I have some mail to send," Hila says. "If you have any mail too I can give you a lift to the post."

"I have a few things."

At the post office the security guy ambles towards us.

"Did Musah fix the car?" He points at the broken light.

"No," I say.

"What do you mean no -- why not?"

"Because he is a piece of shit."

"Wait a second," the security guy says and runs into the store front beside the post office. a woman in a blue Hijab greets him.

"Musah smashed into that woman's car last week and still hasn't fixed it," the security guard tells the woman. "That's not right -- he needs to fix that car, he smashed into it with your van."

The woman smiles and retreats into the back.

"Your dad is an insurance agent, maybe you should call him and ask him what options you have now," I suddgest.

Hila calls her dad.

"As soon as my father heard Musah is an Arab, he just laughed. said I'll never see the part or the money," Hila shakes her head. "He said the best thing to do is to forget about it and not bug them anymore or they will just come to my house and beat me up."

"So you want to just forget about it?" I ask.

"I guesse."

At Shabat supper Musah is the running joke of the table.

"And you actually woke up at 8 in the morning believing he would really come this time!" The sisters laugh. Hilah laughs too. "And then when he said he'd be there in an hour you beleived him again!" The table is in stitches.

"Ok," Hila's dad says. "Lets go outside and see the dammage -- we'll see what we need to fix it." The family streams into the the street.

"It's the right headlight," Hila calls to her dad.

"Right headlight's fine," her dad calls back.

"What, I was sure it was the right..." Hila says. "Maybe it's the left."

"Left headlight's also fine," Hila's dad says.

Hila's family cercles the car.

Her father laughs.

"He must have found it in the lot and fixed it."

2005-12-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

Leslie is 49. She just arrived in Jerusalem.

"how long are you here for?" I ask.

"Forever," Leslie answers glances around, and smiles .

Two months before Leslie moved to Israel for good she found out she has breast cnacer.

"I keapt going to the doctors and telling them I feel a lump and they keapt sending me home and telling me it was fine."

"Are you suing them now?"

"Oh yeah -- they'll probably settle with a large settlement."

I nod, take a sip of my black tea with nana. Nana is mint, israeli's serve it with tea unless you specifically tell them different. The English writing on mint tea boxes in the store spells: NANA.

"By the time I found out it was cancer, it was stage three. innopperable," Leslie says and fixes the loose green bandana on her head. She just lost her hair in the shower today. "The doctor said if I still wanted to move to Israel it had to be now or never. I heard Haddassah hospital will give me the best treatment I could hope for anyway."

I met Leslie when my daughter, Tzara, braught a friend home from school, Isaak. Isaak is a short, thin boy, with a large blue kippa.

Isaak told me that Leslie is his grandmother. Isaak told me that his real mother lives on the streets in the united states somewhere. Isaak says he's never met his real father because his real father was 15 when Isaak was concieved and didn't stick around.

Leslie tells me Isaak has severe ADD. She tells me he had a half brother but lost him when his mother and her second husband split up. She says She's taken care of Isaak on and off since he was about 10 days old.

Isaak was molested, abused, neglected. Leslie says he's spent the past five years in therapy. He's been kicked out of schools for bad behaviour.

Isaak has Assburgers, a highly functioning for of Autism.

"The neighbours called C.A.S. on me once for spanking him," Leslie says. "Sure I spanked him -- he punched me in the stomach."

Isaak has been in special ed schools all his life. Now Leslie feels he is ready and able to attend regualr day school.

Leslie tells me she is bi-polar, and I wonder if this time period in her life is a stage of mania. She is so optimistic about her situation: In Israel, no family, no friends, no language, stage three cancer, a little boy with giant problems. I look at her and wonder if and when the down will come, what it will look like.

I'm no therapist or psychoanalist, but I've been around the mental health block many times -- I bet my bottom dollar she has paranoid tendancies.

What to do? do i continue engagement? Do I pull out?

On Wednesday Leslie calls me. She tells me Isaak and Tzara got in trouble for not listening at school. she says Isaak did it all because of tzara. She says Isaak wants to be just like Tzara.

"But he is older than Tzara -- shouldn't he be responsible for his own actions?" I say. I'm tired. I don't care about Isaac and tzara gets in trouble so rarely that I usually just let small things go.

"Tzara obviousely has problems," Leslie says. Projection. "So I don't think my Isaak and your Tzara should play together at school anymore."

"Sounds good," I say.

"So can we have coffee together tomorrow?" Leslie asks.

"ummm....o.k. I think I can make it..."

At the coffee shop down the street I sip black tea with Nana while Leslie drinks black coffee and chainsmokes.

"So if you don't mind me asking," I say. "What will happen to Isaak if you die?"

"If it looks like i won't pull through, I will send Isaak to a private boys' school here. we've decided that Isaak will stay in Israel. He loves it here and my ex husband loves him but knows he can't take care of him. My ex husband is an alcoholic.

So Isaak will get lots and lots of money, all my money and my ex will still send all the child support to him. He'll be one rich little boy. I'll send him as an outside student to the school first, then, once I'm dead, he'll move in.

2005-12-25T11:12:00.000-08:00

The night of Yom Kipur I have a dream. I dream that a giant flood comes. I run through a concrete maze from the huge blue and gray wave. Other people run too, some in front of me and some behind me. I get to the front and have to make up my mind which way to go and I know all the ways lead to different dead ends.

Isn't this so much like Noah's Ark I think.

"This is just like Noah's ark," I tell someone, but they look at me in confussion.

I immagine what the wave might feel like. Desperation. I must get up high. There are large concrete steps. The steps look like steps from an archeology dig, thousands of years old, large, and imortal. I have to get to the steps. the wave is right behind me. I watch the wave take people away.

I gotta try for it, I think. Ready. Set.

2005-12-25T01:13:00.000-08:00

While flipping through the blogs of other people who liked the book Grapes of Wrath, I stumbled upon a 56 year old cancer survivor. In his picture he wears a leather vest and jeans on a mountain trail somewhwer in a forest. He looks great.

He only has one post from 2004. says he survived cancer and wants to hear from other survivors about their story or about anything else they may want to chat about.

Hi interests are wife and kids, christianity, motorcycle riding...

So I post:

HEY I'M A CANCER SURVIVOR -- WELL, NOT EXACTLY, I SURVIVED MY FATHER'S CANCER, BARELY.
MY FATHER DIED OF SKIN CANCER (WHICH LATER LEAD TO HIS BONES, HIS BRAIN)...

I WAS A MESS. HE TOLD ME THAT HE WOULD BEAT THIS THING AND I BELIEVED HIM. EVEN TWO WEEKS BEFORE HIS DEATH, YELLOW AND IN DIAPERS, I STILL BELIEVED THAT HE WOULD NOT HAVE LIED TO ME THUS.

I WENT CRAZY. I THREATENED HIS LAST WIFE. I TRIED TO KICK DOWN HIS DOOR. POLICE WERE CALLED.

I SPENT MY MEAGER INHERITANCE ON DRUGS. WHEN THE MONEY WAS GONE I FELT BETTER. QUIT EVERYTHING COLD TURKEY. WENT ON...SORT OF. I HAD DREAMS ABOUT HIM. IN MY DREAMS HE CAME TO ME AND WE TALKED AND I SAID

"AREN'T YOU DEAD?"

AND HE SAID

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT -- FORGET ABOUT IT"

LATER HE CAME TO ME IN DREAMS AND TOLD ME ABOUT BUSSINESSES I SHOULD START. HE WAS A BUSSINESS MAN OF SORTS -- MAFFIA. OR SO THE NEWSPAPERS SAID.

IT HAS BEEN YEARS SINCE I SAW MY FATHER IN MY DREAMS. HE DOESN'T COME TO VISIT ANYMORE, ATLEAST NOT LIKE THAT...
MY FATHER DIED WHEN HE WAS 47.

"ARE YOU AFRAID TO DIE?" I ASKED HIM IN A SUDDEN MOMENT OF LUCIDITY ONE AFTERNOON.

"NO," PAPA SAID. "I'M ONLY SAD BECAUSE I AM SO YOUNG."

I WAS 21 THEN. I'M 31 NOW.

Why why why do I do these strange strange things?

2005-12-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas day

I woke up today and took my daughter to school. I came home, looked up the person-tree-house theory of psychoanalysis and art, drank pmegranite juice with 20 drops of iron, packed my purse, dawned my coat, went to work. I tutor a Korean boy every friday and Sunday. Today is Sunday.

Yung-jai and I read from his book for our usual forty-five minutes. He was sleepy and tired. I joked and smiled often. when we finished I went to the kitchen to discuss the lesson with his mom. I smiled and said merry christmass to her and she was happy because she is Christian. funny: no tree in the house.

I came home, dropped my bag, hung my coat, examined myself in the mirror. smiled -- Oh my Gad! My teeth are stained black from the iron drops in my juice.

Christmas.

Today is the first day of Chanukah. The jewish festival of lights. We light the first Chanukah candle today and say the first Chanukah prayers. Every window, well, almost every window, will have a menorah with two of nine candles burning come sunset.

2005-12-24T04:34:00.000-08:00

There is no Christmas here.

I woke up this morning, cooked scrambled eggs and French toast, dressed in my warmest cloths -- the news folks predict snow in Jerusalem -- washed the dishes, vacuumed the floor, thought about my homework. It was over breakfast, as Tzara and I discussed her school and math and English homework than I suddenly realized it.

"Hey Tzara, do you know what day it is today?" I said.

"it's Saturday," Tzara giggled.

I smiled. "Today is Christmas day."

"No way!"

"Yeah," I said. 'Weird, isn't it."

"Yeah."

No Santa clause, no Christmas lights, no jingles on TV. No cut down trees. No crawling. No giant Christmas Sales signs.

"Does it make you a little sad?" I ask Tzara. Tzara examines our green table cloth.

"A little," she says.

"But you know Christmas is not our holiday to have."

"I know, but I like the presents."

"Let's make a deal to never celebrate Christmas again." I say, and stick out my hand for the shake.

"O.k.!" she laughs, and shakes my hand. "But can I still go out for halloween?"

"Sure."

2005-10-17T09:30:00.001-07:00

First rain of the season.

Yesterday fell the first real rain of the season.

"Smell that, it's so wonderfull."

"It's poetry."

"Rain, rain, can you believe it!"

"It's like nature is taking a shower."

"Can you hear the rain -- doesn't it sound wonderful?"

"It's raining, it's raining, it's raining -- it's finally raining!"

Four month on the sand and finally the rain came.

Jews pray for rain in sinagogues durring the month of Elul. We are in the month of Tishray. The month of Tishray is the month of the rain. Our prayers are answered; the rain came. You can feel the green smile.

Rain, Rain stay.

I went to Maya Shearim, One Hundred Gates, last week. Maya Shearim is an authentic shtettle. A play where only the ultra religious Jews reside.

Signs on the walls, giant signs on the walls:

Women are not alloud inside this area unless they are modestly dressed.

The signs go on with intricate description of what signifies a modest dress:

Long skirt, down to the ancles, not tightly fitted to the body, shirts with long sleeves, not tightly fitted to teh body.

Don't be fooled, when going to Maya Shearim you need to think a little further as to the dress code:

Cover your head with a hat; make sure all of your hair is covvered. Traditionally, only married women need to hide all of their hair -- don't take a chance. Hide all of your hair.

Cover your ancles. Cover your tattoos. Wear black, navy blue or off white clothing.

Maya Shearim is known for its violent unfriendlyness to outsiders.

People are warned not to take pictures -- especially pictures of the people=no pictures in this blog of Maya Shearim. If you want to see the place, and it is definately worth seeing, go there.

Mostly, Maya Shearim is filled with Pirates. Black hats.

Now meet the "Zebras"

Zebras are an extremely religious sect of Jew. zebras wear black and white striped outfits. You can't miss them. Zebras wear knitted white kippot on their heads that look like tiny white winter hats with a pom-pom on top.

Zebras believe that all of Israel is Palestinian property, they are fiercelly anti-zionists. Zebras speak Yiddish. They refuse to speak Hebrew because Hebrew is the holy language only used in prayer.

Maya Shearim is a small neighbourhood comprised of hundreds of tiny neighbourhoods. Pirate neighbourhoods and Zebra neighbourhoods.

I walk into a Zebra neighbourhood:

Black spraypaint scrawls across the entrance wall:

Zionists: Stay out! This is Palestinian property!

Welcome to the Zebras.

I cast around the neighbourhood. Lines upon lawndry lines dress the three and four story walk-up dilapitted buildings. Maya Shearim prepares for Succot. Succot is the Jewish harvest festival. On Succot, Jewish people build structures called "succahs." A succah is a wooden home-like structure built outside, with a square hole for a window, wooden walls and a roof made of Palm branches. The family hangs fruits from the roof and eats all its meals in the succah for seven days. Jewish men recite special prayers with a young, unoppened Palm branch and a Lulav, a citrus fruit of the lemonish variety.

On succot, a lulav must be absolutely perfect.

I pass by store windows. Inside the windows Men in black hats and long beards inspect large yellow lulvs -- they look so much like missshappen lemons! -- with diamond loops. The more perfect the lulav the more expensive the lulav. These strange lemon shapped fruits can range in price into the hundreds -- and more.

There is no room on these tiny, caged in, cobblestone streets to build a succah outside. yet every family must build a succah outside. Every balcony holds the succah's wooden structure. Some succahs stand made of solid wood, sanded, fit to perfection. Some succahs stand made of rotted doors, uneven planks, waterdamaged.

Oh the poverty, the poverty asstounds me. Dirty children run in the streets. Skinny men inspect unoppened Palm branches off the backs of broken pick-up trucks. The smell of laundry soap, the sort that comes in a light yellow bar. The laundry soap you use to wash cloths in a bucket by hand. And so many children. and so much lawndry. Lawndry hangs everywhere. Everyone's lawndry matches. Only the bedcovers retain their individuality, with faded flowers, pink stripes, purple grapes on green vines. The laundry soap bar smell mingles with the smell of boiled vegetables, worn shoes, car exhaust, and dirty bathwater.

But today is not officially succot. Succot is still two weeks away. Today is the day before Yom Kipur.

Yom Kipur is the day of atonement. This is the day all Jews light remembrance candles for the dead, pray for attonement, wear old cloths, sit quietly in the house, walk the empty treets, beg G-d for forgiveness, and fast. The Jewish Yom Kipur fast is a 'dry fast.' No food for 25 hours. No water. No toothpaste in the mouth come morning. Empty mouth. Dry tongue.

On Yom Kipur g-d opens his big book and takes a look at what you've done all year. He weighs your Mitzvahs, good deeds, against your sins. If you have more mitzvahs than sins G-d grants you a good new year. No one has more Mitzvahs than sins, so we pray for forgiveness.

The day before Yom kippur Jews get ready.

Inside the parking lot, behind a parked gray car, a man, black hat, gray beard, swings a live chicken above his head. Between each swings, he murmers a sentance, in Hebrew. With His free hand, he pins a shred of paper to the car's hood. The paper bends in the wind. he reads his prayer off the paper. The chicken squacks hopelessly. When blackbeard finishes his prayer the chicken will take on all of his missdeads for the year. Such a small chicken. White fluffy feathers. Yellow beak. Yellow feet. Blackbeard will kill the chicken, sacrifice her to G-d in exchange for forgiveness. I wonder if he really sinned at all this year, enough sin worth the death of the chicken? I bet he lived a good life all year. I bet he did all the right things, said all the right words, treated his wife and children with religious respect, did everything religiousely possible for them. Perhaps the chicken dies for naught, absolving blackbeard only of its own slaughter?

The streets smell like chicken droppings now, feathers, three pronged feet, fear. Chickens squack and meakely protest as the seller passes them to buyers by the feet. Squack, squack, the chickens squack. The chickens squack, and the men pray, and the women, heads covered, not a hair showing, push stained strollers across uneven streets, up and down rocky hills, between vegetable stores, anti-Zionists signs, wind ravaged posters of Rabbis, and lawndry swings in the wind.

2005-10-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

2005-09-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

The caves

on the outskirts of Jerusalem

I went to a cave yesterday.
I walked in and immediately felt at home. I want to hide in a cave for a while. I want to lay downn on the ground, between the stalagmites and stalagtites, and dream, dream of a quieter place with less despair and simple solitude, and darkness.

Today an email came from Canada. The second portion of an academic award meant to help me with my educational needs in Israel will now officially be one month late in the comming.

Two days ago I recieved an email from another University representative. she is "carefully" reviewing my budget and would like to know if my monthly debt payments (55 dollars) are to credit card sompanies or bank loans before she can tell me if I qualify for any additional funding.. Why does this even matter? If I do not qualify for additional funding, I will be livving on aproximately one hundred dollars per month after rent for the remainder of this year.

They are trying to kill me.

What really matters, or what should matter to these people, is that I have no money. Atleast that is what really matters to me. And when I say I have no money I mean right now. These sorts of things can't really wait a month or two for some forgotten cheque to arrive. I guesse such things are easy to ignore when you have everything you need, and so much work to do.

Bitterness.

But I need to remember that I should be greatfull, greatfull and extatic about my luck. How many other people, single mothers, get to attend the University of Toronto for free for their entire undergraduate existance? Not many. hardly any. Lucky, lucky me.

Actually, I am greatfull, and I do feel quite lucky, but the reality of the matter is that nieghther my greatfullness to U of T, nor my admission of the many wonderfull blessings I have recieved in my lifetime, will get me any closer to paying the rent next month. The only thing that will help me pay rent, is if the money that has been promiced to me under one award or another, actually gets both granted and sent. Prefferably, on time, and hopefully, to me.

This is how I feel. Angry. Helpless. Thankfull.

Taking pictures keeps me going. I took so many many pictures in the cave! I wish to one day get them blown up to three feet high and hang them in my next bedroom. This is assuming, ofcourse, that I aquire a next bedrrom. I have no housing to come home to and no money waiting for me. Nothing accept some vague promices of possible funding from my scholarship.

Are my grades suffering? Well, yes. Stress makes one deliberate less on circumstances.My Hebrew Ulpan (language classes) are at a standstill. Two days untill the final exam and I find myself behind academically. I spend my classtime worrying about my rent, food, bills, situation.

Fortunately for me, my scholarship insists that I get high grades, even though outstanding grades last year didn't help me at all with my financial situation this year. It seams my grades are ignored -- unless they plummet. If my grades plummet, I will make conciderably less from my scholarship award. Atleast I have a scholarhsip award. I am aware of the magnitude of this. I am.

I finally found a family doctor. He speaks English and this was the only quality I desired in a family practitioner here. He is from England. His accent is so typically English. Everytime he speaks I restrain laughter. My only real interaction with any English accents up untill now have mainly devoted themselves to Monty Python movies. I immidiately assume everything my family doctor says is a joke. My family doctor is a serious man.

In Gazza, the Palestinian people, at least some of them, shoot rockets into neighbouring Israeli villiages. How quaint. Peace at its finest.

Some people say that there is no need for the Palestinian people to be "thankfull" in any way since for the "return" of gazza. Israel is merely givving back a small portion of what is Palestinian property to begin with, after years of colonial rule. I should think that peacefull and thankfull are actually two very different modes of being that need not be confused, one for the other.

We give them land. They continue to attack us -- why not, it's worked so far. Why fix something that is so obviousely not broken?

Thankfull, no? O.k. No. But do they have a right to continually atack us untill we are dead, or, the same, have no land left to give them?

Should we stop giving (back) land? HOw should I know! The difficulty is that we are not Canada. Israel is so unbearably small that every single morsel of land that gets cut off the body is a mortal threat to Israel's existance. So yes, Gazza now threatens Israel's existance. was that worth it? I don't know. I don't know.

Far be it from me to say anyone does not deserve land. Far be it from me to say that Israel should get any darn smaller. A single speck on the world map. Smaller than Vancouver Island. How much smaller can we afford to get before we simply disapear?

The other day I counted over twelve blue and white magan david flags on one building. Flags hang everywhere here. White sheet, blue stripes, flap on the wind, like laundry. It looks like the entire country hung its identical bedsheets out to dry at the same time and forgot to ever take the sheets off the line. So many flags.

This many flags reak of fear. I cannot help but wonder if Israel will still be Israel in the next twenty years? In the next fifty years? Next year? This year.

How sad it is, this idea that our land may not be our land much longer. How short our time with our land seems to constanstantly threaten. Good people live here. I immagine all these people gone. Genocide. Genocide threatens constantly. Genocide is allways on my mind.

I think back to Toronto, to taking my daughter to school and feeling out of place at all the parent teacher meetings, where everyone sized me up, decided where I stood on the class ladder, the social ladder, the academic ladder, the poer ladder; how much they can get away with with me, how little they needed to care about my feelings, how should they judge me just to make their lives, pathetic, troubleless lives, a little more interesting. Who cares who flips the bill. This is my experience of the majority of Canadian people I've come into contact with.

This doesn't mean i haven't found diamonds. But everywhere one finds a few good grapes. A few good grapes, enough to make wine with. Just enough wine to forget about the rest of the world for a while. those are my friends back home. Back in Canada, the land of quiet deciet.

I wish I could take all the people in Canada and exchange them for Israeli people. The Jews, the Arabs, the Christians, the monks -- whoever they are. I love that country, Canada, so much. I dream of her Oceans and wheat feilds, the Great lakes, the billions of little rivers, like veins inside the soft croock of an arm. Why does it haveto house people who care so little and pretend to care so much? Is this what safety does to generations? Are they all just bored, bored and hungry for pain -- some one elses.

2005-09-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

Has it been this long since last I wrote?
Yes.

I am a text book case. The book says that the traveler will get depressed about four months into a stay at a foreign land. I have been here almost four month. I feel the depression creeping.

My marks slip steadily in Hebrew language classes. I care for nothing now. I see no future. No past. No present.

I write long emails to my tired friends, friends tired of listening to my boring life. I write. I write but the writing grows weaker. My mind confuses Hebrew words for English and vise versa. My grammar suffers here.

I almost got a job as a gardener for my building. The job was pulled at the last. Ten minutes before I headed to the garden. I am still aloud to garden. I plan to take over the outer garden of my building. This is my plan for the next few months. This is how I will get through the inevitable misery. The nothingness feeling. The white cloud feeling. The half yellow moon feeling. The less than, the Niente, the why do I do stupid things all the time feeling.

The money situation grows more formidable each day. I slip.

Back in Toronto, close to home, but not too close, hurricane Katrina hit the USA. All of New Orleans gone. Under water. Flooded. Thousands dead. Dead bodies float in the water as I sit and write this blog. The ripples touch my small part of the world as well. In their own watery way. The university of Toronto student exchange office is scrambling to re-establish exchange students that were forced to come home from the states due to Katrina. This means they do not have the time to help me with my piddly money issues. Ofcourse this is more than reasonable.

How absolutely boring of me to write the tid-bits of my life and dreams!

The truth is that I have nothing exciting to say. No blockbuster opinions. No thoughts on "the middle east situation" somwhere beside Jerusalem Jews and Palestinians hurl rocks at eachother. I heard it on the news this morning. I heard it on the news and didn't care.

The only striking thing about the violence in and around Israel is how close it is at all times. I find it intriguing -- why that person and not me? Life seems based on luck here. Life seems based on luck everywhere...

Sometimes I feel so ut of control. So crazy. Nothing is up to me. Everything is up in the air, up to some one else, someone else who knows little of me, some one else whose life is clearly not impacted by my life. Weather it be the person out there, across the Atlantic ocean, that gets to decide how much money I need to live on this year, or the person down the street that gets to decide weather to stab a small Jewish woman today it all ends up out of my hands.

There is enlightenment in this. There is peace here.

2005-09-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

Words in the water.

Livving inside an unknown language is like livving inside an ocean. People speak to me, and the sound of their words is like the sound music makes from inside a fishtank. I know these are words, but all I hear is salty waves as they crash against the shore, or comb the beach, or shake the empty seashells.

I stand extra long, try to make sense of the words. But all my movements are slow. Slow, like trying to run in the water. slow, like navigating undersea landscapes. Slow.

I open my mouth to answer. The words are like rocks on my tongue. The words float from my mouth in bubbles, they drift to the top of the water and break against its cerface. My speach escapes my lips foriegn, ridiculous, wrong. People snigger.

I have a volunteer position tutoring survivors of terror. Finally, I will give a little bit back to the land in a way that hurts no one, I hope. I hope to find peace in service. as I have always found peace in service.

My English slips. I question my grammar. I wounder if my writing slips as well, and I assume it had and will continue. I wrote a short story, 500 words. It sucks. The story is about a man named Arnie. What he said to me before he died of lung cancer. He didnèt really say anything special. But there was this big hand drum in his room and when he got close to death he moved into the drumès place and got rid of the drum. It was a giant drum, too big for the little blue room. Somehow, the room seemed smaller with the drum gone. The end result of my abilities of late.

I lose my words as days pass. My words break, like glass, against my throat. They come out jagged and sharp.

The women next door blast arabic music every evening. Their music spreads throught the air , like a fish net, and entangles in its web everything that it touches. Behind the music I can hear the Muslim prayers. The Muslim prayers sound like tibbetan prayer bowls. They sound like sound trapped inside a copper container; the sound vibrates between smooth, round container wallesas the thick, stick revolves around the edges, thus trapping the sound and forcing it to sing. Immagine your ear on the edge of a metal bell just as it humms the last humm of the ring. Electric. Metalic.

2005-09-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

The greasy golden arches.

Yes, Ronald McDonald lives in Israel too. We have McDonald's here, just like everywhere else in the world, accept we don't have any Bacon Double Cheeseburgers on the menu! Instead, Ronald offers us McShwarmas and McFalafels.

Wherever Ronald Goes, Coca Cola follows -- or is it the other way around? You never know who wears the pants in that relationship.

The sky here is blue without clowds. By supper time the sky turns white. By the time Six Feet Under plays on t.v., with Hebrew subtittles stretched across the bottom of the screen, the sky is black.

The cockroaches grow to the size of my palm, from tip of middle finger to root of wrist in length. The cockroaches fly. Wouldn't want to find one of those in my McDonald's Hamburger!

A few days ago a young student was stabbed to death in downtown Jerusalem. Someone wanted to kill a Jew. I guesse this is the place to come if you want to kill Jews. There so many of us here for the picking. The threat of innihilation, burned into Jewish children, like a brand passed through generations.

When I was six years old my mother and I defected -- left Russia without informing the proper officials. My mother and I took a plane from Moscow, Russia to Viena, Austria. We wanted to move to Canada, become Canadian citizens. Austria doesn't like Jews. So, for our own protection and the comfort of the state, Austria set all its Jewish passers through up in a warm and cozy jail. One room for all of us to share. My cousin Anna wa nine then, three years older than I. There were five children in all. Four families shared the cell.

Anna remembers it this way:

"Everyday helicopters came and men and women were dragged, fighting and screaming into the helicopters and taken away to Israel."

Everybody wanted to go to Canada or the United States. We were afraid to go to Israel. Anna is still afraid to go to Israel. she has relatives here, but never visits.

We moved from anti-Semetic Austria to anti-Semetic Italy. Rome. Rome is a beuatiful place. Anna, her mother, Mila, father Anatoli, my mother Svetlana, and I all moved into a two room apartment. Three rooms if you count the kitchen.

That year a Synagogue blew up in Rome. I still remember the sound that the bomb made. the sound reverberated through the air and bent the sky. I thought it was thunder. I opened my mouth at the clowds to catch the first drops of rain onto my tongue. Then I heard another sound, highpitched and gross, like bugs. A giant wave of screaming people stampeded towards me. I scampered up a tree, sat on a branch, and watched the wave roll by bellow me. terrorized faces, like bubbles, bounced through the air. I thought how strange the Italians were -- afraid of a little rain.

2005-08-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

Comming up for air.

I went for a walk in the neighbourhood. I walk out my door, turn left, walk straight for a block, turn right, walk eight steps. Now I am in an Arabic area. Arabic signs on buildings. Arabic graffitti on walls. I love how Arabic writing looks. I walk. I wonder what is here.

I hear a car and a continuous honk. I turn. Heès honking at me. He mouths something. I donèt know what. I only see his face is stern and angry. I know instinctively. He is telling me to leave. Just one dude, I think and walk on untill someone else honks. Than someone else, and some one else. .. O.K. I leave. The safety zone is thin here.

I walk back up the hill, turn left, meander for a block, pass my apartment building and keep heading straight. I walk past the grocery store, the laundrette, the little coffee shop, up the hill, over a block. Two blocks past my home I see a gass station. beside the gass station a man watches his heard of goats and freshly sheered sheep graze. i stop and lean against the fence. I watch the goats. The goats watch me. we eye one another for signs of ill wishes, than relax in eachothers company, the goats and I.

After the goats leave, I walk another half a block. Ièm in another Arabic area now. How do I know -- they honk at me again, make funny faces. Not all of them of course. Only a handfull. But that handfull is so much more memorable and vivid than the others. So I walk home.

It is funny. How home, my home, is right between two imaginary red lines. I go one block to the east: I cross the line; warning signals sound. Threats ensue. I go three block to the west: I cross the line.; warning signals sound. Threats ensue.

I contemplate embracing the hijab, so I can take a peacful walk in a beuatiful neighbourhood. I long to explore the Arabic neighbourhoods, sit on a rock, watch the world turn, smile without being noticed.

2005-08-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Eternity awaits
if I let go

Oh

if I slip my ears between rope-ends
peer through the noose's oval void
and pirouette above the fallen chair

or

Frenchkiss the cold barrel's leaden tongue

or

stuff a hundred little circles in my mouth
and wash them down with diet Coka Cola

or

let the razor ice scate 'cross my wrists

or

open wide my arms, like wings, and jump

or

fill my pockets with gray rocks and walk into the lake

or

drive my car into a canyon hole

or simply bang my head against the wall 'till I can't bang no more

no more

no more

If I let go
Eternity awaits.

2005-08-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Paper crane production at a standstill.

403 paper cranes. No paper left. I tried to use regular paper. Regular paper sucks. Israel's supply of origami paper leaves much to be desired. There is no origami paper for sale in Israel, as far as I can tell.

Just as many stray cats live in this city as squirels in Toronto. Skinny kittens, bones and scragly tails, eyes glued shut with puss, ears torn, paws limp, tails drooping, scuttle along the streets.

This week a gray kitten lay dead in the parking lot of our building. The birds pecked at his guts. The next day, just a headless, tailess pancake of gray fur and orange guts lay in the street, and even even the birds ignored it.

For months Israel debated the Gazza "withdrawl" with orange and blue ribbons. Orange ribbons tied to cars whose owners are against the separation. Blue ribbons for withdrawl. i saw more orange ribbons than blue ribbons. trees, poles, fences, bushes and shrubs wore orange ribbons. Some cars wore blue ribbons. Some cars wore both orange and blue ribbons, which left their political stances open to interpretation.

All the people that lived in Gazza live elsewhere now. Some idiot BBC broadcaster says: "Many Palestinians wish for homes like these." What he's really saying: "Those Jews have some gal to complain."

After years of putting their lives and the lives of their children on the line, everyday, surrounded by terrorism, on the frontlines because the government told them to go, told them they were doing a service for their land, for their people, their people come and rip them from their homes, the government they trusted relocates them against their will, tells them all the blood their children shed was for nothing -- "pack your shit and go somewhere else." Now these same people are the bad guys, the stupid guys that don't know when to quit. The jerks that should be glad they have another home to go to.

Yes, sure, lets "Give Gazza back." I'm not saying we should or we shouldn't. only time will tell how far along the peace road this political move will take us, or if it ever leads to peace at all. Most seem to doubt that peace will come from the Gazza pull out, atleast those I've talked to. But Yosif, of the Charuv juice recipe, says he's sure all will work out and I believe him still. And his word is the only word that I believe.

A bomb went off in Ber Sheva yesterday. Bomb two since my arrival here.

Bomb two in two months and I still have no emergency money to leave with, if I have to.

Today is a hard day. Today I wonder how long before the Palestinians lay a siege on Jerusalem. Jerusalem only has two roads out. We're in the mountains here -- this ain't no fucking Kanzas anymore.

Do I have anything against the Palestinians. No. Not at all. I want them to have land, live happy meaningfull lives. Build houses, nicer than the ones my people were evacuated to by my people. I wish work and booming economy for them, independance, pride -- all that. Why not? Just cuz some guy blasted himself to smitherines in Ber Sheva? That's one asshole. One asshole out of way too many assholes, but an exception -- not the rule -- all the same.

The reality is that, sooner or later, Israel will shave its own land back to pre 1967. I just hope that it is not all the way back to pre 1947. Do I care? Well, less is more if less spells peace.

Peace, what a dirty word that is right now. They attack us, we struggle to preserve ourselves, we fight back, we win, we take land to preserve our own safety, we looe our children in the process. they lose thier children and their land. They didn't want peace before we fought, they wanted to throw us into the sea. They wanted Jews off the land. Now they want back all the land that they lost and, in return, they say they'll give us peace. But we do not get back the children that we lost. And they do not get back the children that they lost. But they get back the land they lost and we get nothing "Back". And that is peace baught cheaply, sold dearly.

Ofcourse not all our history is wrapped up in the bundle upstairs. Sometimes we attack. I am told it is over water, or threats, or just too many babies blown to bits on busses. Who'se right, who'se wrong, and do I care, and will my caring change a thing? No. No.

My Blogger friend still comments on each blog. He is From Syria. He tells me that Israel basically sucks. He puts it in nice words, prettends like everything he says is fact and everything I say is stupid. I think everything we both say is stupid.

His latest: Israel is barely old enough to stand, Syria had every right to take our water because a neighbour can fiddle around with his personal water and electricity as much as he wants -- what a joke! If my neighbour messed with his waterpipes to the point where he purposely cut off my water, I would have every right to do whatever was necessary to get my water back. Furthermore, if my neighbour broke into my house on Yom Kipu (the holiest day of my year) and attempted to kill me and my entire family -- well lets face it, all bets are off by that point. Lets not even mention shooting from the top of the hill at the Kibutznicks at the bottom of the hill, neighbour. Perhaps I should believe that Syria is an innocent victim to big bad bully Israel? No, I can't go that far.

After reminding me of the Laws surrounding water ownership, my blogger friend ends his usual assault with an excalmation pointed sentence: Israel is occupying land that is owned by Syria! But if we speak of laws here, the Golan is owned by Israel now. Israel owned land.

Well, he and I could go on and on like this forever, couldn't we? But what a tottal crock of shit it all is. What a crock he and I are! Just brainless zombies fead by the poison our respective media shoves down our throats. Ahhh hatred is so easy, so so easy.

What interests me most about my blogger friend? How we play out so many things on the micro level. How he feels the need to not only read my site on a regular basis, but inject his negative views and opinions about Israel and me into my personal space. He could just start his own blog -- he has his own blog -- and spew all his opinions and facts, both based in reality and/or based in propaganda on his own personal terittory. He doesn't. He insists on intruding into my space, kicking me as much as he can, however possible and posting his opinions and views here. Never fully making his real views clear. Never stating if he thinks Israel has a right to exist or if all us "Guys" should just fuck off and die.

Our death spells peace to so many people.

Boy, my blogger friend sure is a damn fine photographer though. Those pictures he takes of his land, they're good pictures.

Do I think Golan should go to Syria? I think it is a shame that no one lives there now, where ruins stand. "Should" "Should not" why bother? I think the Golan will go back to Syria. I only hope we get to visit it sometime. Oh thank G-D for the beuatiful places. How lucky I am to get to see them at all.

2005-08-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

A trip to the Golan Heights.

How do the trees feel today?

A few years ago I read a quote in the Toronto Star: "The trees despise you, the sands despise you, the air despizes you" I believe this quote belong to Yassar Arrafat. This quote was aimed at the Jewish people in Israel.

It was this quote that rung through my ears durring my first days in Israel. I looked at the trees, smelled the air, felt the sand beneath my feet, examined the rocks, and wondered if they despized me.

The trees were distant towards me at first, but after a while, the trees inched closer, sniffed my open palms, looked me up and down, shrugged their shoulders, sighed accepting sighs, smiled, spread their arms, and embraced me. The sand hitched rides in my pockets. The air was indiferant. Air knows its own sweetness and accepts love from everyone equally. Air knows no borders.

I signed up on a hike to the Golan Heights.

What I thought the Hike would be like:

A nice walk in a lovely place, a trot down the hill, a rest beside the river.

What the Hike was like:
1500 meters up steep cliff walls. I scaled the side of the cliff above jagged rocks and waterfalls, swam across a river(in all of my cloths) with a twelve pound backpack on my back, then scrambled back up the mountain, clutching rocks with sweaty palms and wet, slippery sandals. The trip lasted about five to six hours. The blistering Israeli sun shone scathingly upon me. I forgot my sunscreen.

At the Golan Heights we stopped beneath a tree, amid desolate building remains. This portion of land was owned by Seria before 1967. Our guide told us that our only source of drinking water is fuled and replenished by the five rivers that feed the Golan River, which flows into the Kinerit. Our guide said that the serian people planned to divert the rivers so as to deplete our drinking water. Israel went to war so as not to loose out water -- our sustenance. This is why we took Golan heights. The people who lived there were evacuated. Many still long to return.

If we give Golan Heights back, who'se to say that they won't try to take our water again and, this time, succeed? This is a giant problem. This is a giant problem with givving any lands "back" If the people that waged war on us, or the people that attempted to kill us by diverting our water supplies know that if they lose, they lose nothing because we will simply give their lands back, why should they not just fight us untill they win? After all, they would have nothing to fear losing.

I looked around at the buildings: remenants of a store, scraps of some sign wth faded red letters dangled off a crippled doorless doorway, black windows, desolate grounds. The land misses its people. There is longing and saddness and bitterness there. The trees crie for their people back. Come back people, come back people, why have you left us alone. An empty villiage. What to do?

2005-08-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

People Pray.

People pray. People pray here. People pray on their way to the store. people pray on the seats at the bus stop. People pray on the bus. I hear muslim prayers slip through my window, and land on my bed, every morning. I watch people pray, on the streets, at the supermarket, in line, in front of the hospital, at the kotel, in the Church of the Holy Sepultcher, beside Jesus' grave, on benches at the park, in shopping malls, on staiways.

A young girl sat -- she seemed sad -- on the stairway of my building today. Her Cacki green top and pants suited her cacki green eyes and brown hair. Even the bandana in her hair was cacki green. Her M16 -- a giant black gun, as long as a shotgun -- rested serenly on her tired lap.

I see soldiers everywhere. Teenagers with giant guns slung carelessly over their shoulders. Soldiers smoke cigarettes on street corners. Soldiers pray at the wailing wall. Soldiers hang out at the arts and crafts markets, sip coffee at the coffee houses, wonder aimlessly about the city streets. Teenagers with guns.

On my way into the supermarket, I open my bag for the man with the gun at the door. He feels the bottom of my purse, peeks inside, unzips any zippers I leave zipped, moves his head from one side to the other, waves me in. They only check your bags when you go inside. They don't care what is in your bag when you leave.

On my way into the university, I show my student card to the two men and one women with guns at the entrance. I show my student card again to another two men and two more women when I walk through the university doors. After my student card is properly examined by the same woman I say Boker tov to every morning, I open my backpack and hand it to a man behind a large desk. The man looks at my backpack's contents as I emply my pockets onto the desk. I walk through the metal detector. On the other side of the metal detector another man stands with a hand held metal detector. The hand held metal detector looks like a giant paddle for S&M practitioners. Somedays he swipes me, other days he doesn't.

Inside the university a security gaurd stands outside of the cafeteria door. He checks and rechecks my bag before I enter.

I went to the Jerusalem arts and crafts market yesterday. Four soldiers stood in line before me, M16's slung over their still developing shoulders. The security guard checked the soldiers' bags, waved them through. The soldiers waltzed into the crowded market. Their bags held nothing of risk to security. Their guns slung gayly behind them.

A Charuv is Carob.

I went to a 24 hour walk-in clinic today. I asked the doctor to examine my swolen wrist. I have had a swolen wrist for two months. The doctor told me, in broken Russian, Englsih and Hebrew, that there is a pocket of water inside an inflamation. The doctor squeezed my wrst. I felt the bones inside my wrist move. He said he can manually pop the water pocket. The doctor Squeezed and squeezed. He pushed his weight onto my wrist untill his feet left the ground. I stomped my foot into the floor with pain. The doctor squeezed again. Agony. The water bubble didn't break. My hand has limitted movement. The doctor says I need an operation.

I showed the doctor my foot. My big toe hurts continually. He says I have arthritis.

"Arthritis?" I say. "I'm thirty years old." The doctor shrugs.

2005-08-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

I have a pet prank caller.

He calls himself Mohamad and I believe this is actually his real name. He tells me he is from Nablus. He calls sometimes and tells me in Hebrew that he has a giant penus and would like to fuck me with it. Well, that was his first attempt at conversation, two weeks ago. I spoke in english. He told me he is Arabic, in Hebrew. I asked him if he can speak English. He told me he speaks no Englsih.

Today my prank friend called again. I recognized his voice. He told me again his name and where he is from. I spoke in English again. He told me again he does not understand English. I explained in englsih that he is calling the wrong number. He told me again he does not undertand English. We didn't bother with the giant penus part.

I have a pet blog friend. He comments everyday. I like to read his comments. His comments are political and probably well researched. I sense frustration in them. Each one gets more personal, closer to the bone. I can't take everything he says as fact. some of what he says may vey well be fact. Some of what he says may very well be fiction. Some statements, like all of modern day Israel being the original land of Cannaanite people, sound a little too convenient to be true -- but what do I know? And, in the end, what does he know? He is just a person with a computer and an internet connection, as am I. He takes me personally, as is his right if he wants to. But I am not in the politics and only care to write my thoughts and opinions on whatever catches me in the moments. Our diference of opinion on Jews, palestinians, Israel matters little to me. These differences can and probably will be argued by smarter and faster folks than the two of us long after our bones are dust.

I skipped my ulpan class today. I was late due to running from one municipality to the next, trying to dot all my i's and cross all my T s and make sure my papers are all up to date.

I walked through the botanical gardens, sat on a bench, looked out over the Jewdain desert, wrote in my diary for hours. I met a man named Yosif.

Yosif offered me a Charuv. Charuvim (the plural of charuv) grow on trees. They look like dried, brown, bannanas. Yosif offered me one as he passed by. I took it. I thought is was a dried fig, or beef jerky. My first bite landed me a thic, round, seed, about the size of a pomegranite seed.

Charuvim have a thick, wrinkly, brown outer skin. The outer skin forms a bland paste in your mouth, dries your toungue and inner cheeks upon contact, and leaves you gasping for water. The sensation leaves once you swallow.

Charuvim have a thin, deep brown, soft, chewy, inner skin. The inner skin hints at sweetness.

Yosif told me how to make Charuvim juice.

Take a bunch of Charuvim, he showed me the tree he picked the Charvim from, chop them up, boiil them, drain the juice, throw out the boiled Charuvim, add sugar to taste and refrigerate.

Yosif lives in Shoewafat, an Arabic villiage down the way. He says all will turn out o.k. in Israel. I believe him. He is a lovely man. He reminds me of my father. Big and strong and serious.

Yosif's girlfriend left four years ago. She went to Canada and didn't come back. I told him that it is probably better she left, if she stayed he would have been misserable, because she would want to be gone. He agreed. We munched on Charuvim and mulled over the weather, numbers, tattoos, plants, flowers, our lives, then parted.

Later in the day, before I went home, I walked back to the Charuv tree and picked two hadfulls. I made the juice. The juice tastes great. Thank-you Yosif.

2005-08-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

Guts, Gore, and glory.

All news centers around Gazza.

There is a young man in my ulpan, his name is Jihad. Jihad always has a smile for me, and everyone he talks to. I don't speak Arabic and Jihad speaks minimal English. we try our best to communicate in Hebrew.

Last week Jihad gave me two pieces of gum. Today I made a paper crane and gave it to Jihad. Jihad unfolded the crane, he thought I wrote a note in it, but I did not. So I ripped another piece off last week's homework and folded it into a paper frog and made the frog hop onto Jihad's desk. Jihad smiled. He unfolded the frog to see what was inside. Nothing. After break Jihad gave me a paper airplane. I saved it.

I check my email. My email is usually empty. Today my email has six new messages. Everyone has something to say about the Middle Eastern situation. Someone writes and tells me that Jews are as bad as Nazzis.

This constant comparison between modern day Israel and the Nazzi regime has become so commonplace it verges on cliche. This is the same sort of statement Thomas King made in his book, "The Truth About stories." It is the statement of a follower, a person who parrots that which he believes is worth repeating, not because it is the truth, but because it sounds good, turns heads, and toes on the correct side of the Polical correctness line.

To say that modern day Israel is the same as the Nazi regime is harmfull not only to Israel, but also to Abu Mazen's people. It is only a matter of time before anyone with half a brain realizes that, givven the choice, most people would preffer to live under Israeli occupation rather than Hitler's regime.

The last time I checked, Israel was not systematically murdering six million Palestinian people, making lampshades from their skin, tossing them into mass graves, gassing them in giant chambers, performing medical experiments without painkillers, -- I can go on, but I am sure the rest is well known history.

When we say that Israel is as bad as the Nazzi's what we are really saying is two things:

1. The Palestinian situation isn't really so bad, therefor we need to pump it up with vissions of the holocuast, to make it sound more worth while.

2. Jewish people are Nazzis -- the most dispized people on the plannet who deserve tottal illimination. Funny, that's how Nazzis saw us too.

To say that Israel is acting towards the Palestinans as Nazzis acted towards Jews is the ultimate in Anti-Semitism. This statement harms both Jews and Palestinians. This statement is against two sets of Semetic people.

The Palestinian situation is bad enough -- we need not pump it up with something that was still markedly worse. When we pump up the Palestinian situation we minimize the gravity of the real Palestinian situation. In other words, this statement helps no one, hurts everyone.

As I recall, there were six different peoples in the land we now call Israel, when the Jews got there. One of these peoples were the Cannanites. Palestinian people claim they are decendants of the Cannaanites. I say claim only because scholarly opinions differ. Many say that the Cannaanites were wiped out completely and no longer exist. Palestinian people's opinions, as far as I know, differ.

I will not say that I fully believe that there are no Cannaanite decendants alive and well today. North Aerica spread many scholarly rumors that all Native peoples had died off long ago. This is a lie. Many Native nations still exist today. Many Native Nations fight for their traditional lands back. They fight through the courts. They usually lose. Sometimes they win. To what degree? Nunavut. Spreading scholarly rumors that a Nation is extinct is a colonial trick. I do not want to fall into any sort of colonial trap, if such a trap in fact exists in Israel. I believe that Cannaanite people's decendants exist. After all, the Mayan people still exist. Why not Cannaanites?

Cannaanite people's territory did not include Jerusalem. Palestinian people insist that Jerusalem belongs to them.

facts that I cannot ignore: The kotel is older than the dome of the rock. The traditional Jewish holy places are older than the traditional Muslim Holy places. Holy Muslim sites were purposely built on top of holy Jewish sites. This simple taking over of another people's religious territory is a colonial trick. So who colonized who, and who is really fighting for their land back?

This political talk bores and depresses me. It is boring to write and more boring to hear.

I saw the Bedwin tents last week, the sheep that graze around the tents. I had this urge to stop and get out of the car and walk towards the tents and stand and stare and hope to be invited to sit closer. What do I think of all this war? How does it feel to show the contents of my bag between every doorway? What do I want?

I want to sit and drink black coffee with my cousins, watch the children skip and jump, and tease eachother. I miss my Semetic cousins, I miss them, and I don't even know them. I miss their laughter. I can see it, hear it, from thousands of years ago. That's what I really care about and what I really want to say.

2005-08-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

Back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

So what, what do I really think? I've been asked this a lot by the Israeli people I meet. As an outsider I should be able to have some sort of enlightened view. I do not. Yes, I think all people need a land. I am left to question this: Are the Palestinian people really a people -- the way Native American peoples are a compilation of different Nations. Or are the Palestinian people actually Arab people who now call themselves Palestinian people as a reaction to the Jewish people's ownership of lands that they want. Is this really a nation, or is it just a political move with language?

That question aside, do I believe that people, all people deserve to be free? Yes. are Abu Mazen's people free? No. Is it The Jewish people's responsibility to help Abu Mazen't people? I must answer yes. I say it is the Jewish people's responsibility to help Abu Mazen's people not because they are in a bad situation due to our ownership of lands they believe belong to them, but because they are people in need of assistance. We must assist, because they need assistance.

If we must assist, how do we assist, without oppening a door through which they, or anyone, can hurt us? I cannot agree to any sort of assistance from the Jewish people to Abu Mazen's people untill Abu Mazen and his people assist themselves by standing up against terrorism. this is difficult. No one wants to put their own life on the line. Yet, wy should Jewish people put their lives on the line just because Abu Mazen's people will not put their own lives on the line? I am not being fair here. Many of Abu Mazen's people are putting their lives on the line. Many of Abu Mazen's people do want the terrorism to stop.

I do not trust abu Mazen, he is educated, and that makes him more dangerous than Yassar.

Abu Mazzen must make a real stand against terrorist organizations. If Abu Mazen makes a stand he is as good as dead. He knows this. He is a leader without a backbone. He hides behind peaceful solutions to try and avoid that which must be done: terrorist organizations must be dismantled. Abu Mazen is a man. Too simple a man for this job. He wants to see his grandchildren grow.

But we, the Jewish people, what are we to do? should we love them until they kill us? Should we kill them until they love us?