First Shabbat in Israel: Arak and Spelunking

Today's topics:

Around the Moshav
Dinner and Cannons
Spelunking!
A Very Friendly Dog

I had a great first Shabbat in Israel!

Around The Moshav

Rivka invited me to visit her on her Moshav, which is basically a little neighborhood with farmland attached.  Some homeowners also owners also own parcels of the farmland, but Rivka and Geva (her awesome boyfriend) are renting so they just get to enjoy the neighborhood without worrying about crops.

I took a bus to meet them. The Israeli bus system is great because it goes everywhere and it's pretty fast and pretty inexpensive, but it's really bizarre at first.  There are bus stops on the side of highways. Like... little poorly labeled sheds on the side of the freeway, literally. AND in major cities, of course.  And while some busses are new and have announcements about the stops, most don't, so they just silently stop in the middle of nowhere and just drive away...

Last time I was in Israel I found this really stressful and frantically asked everyone around me if they knew where I was going until I found someone who did and could tell me it was coming up.  But this time I have a smart phone! Smart phones are the best things ever. I just watch on google maps as the bus gets closer to the destination.  Amazing.

This time I got off at a highway stop in Latrun. Latrun was once the site of several battles and lots of bloodshed. When Rivka told me that was my stop, it's kind of like if someone tells you to randomly get off at "Gettysburg."

But like Gettysburg, it's mostly farmland, now.

Rivka and Geva are the best! They are some of the sweetest people I know, and they're so caring and fun. We went to their Moshav near Kiryat Gat, which is about a half hour drive to the Gaza border.

In the car ride, I caught them up on my week, including the Cohen quandry.

Rivka: You know, Geva is also a Cohen.
Ariane: Really? I thought his last name is Katz!
Rivka: It is, but it's a kind of... acronymn. Ka is for Cohen, Tz is for Tzedek, or justice.  Priest-Justice. But he doesn't really care about any of it, and actually, his Grandfather married a divorced woman.
Ariane: How did he manage that?
Geva: Well, he told the rabbi that his last name was not *really* Cohen... it was Kohen with a K and not a C so it didn't count.  And the rabbi said okay and married them.

Even though Geva and Rivka have been together for many years, and live their lives as if they're married, they refuse to get married because they find the laws so absurd.  Both in solidarity with their friends who can't marry, and also because of divorce laws. Rivka is appauled by the ancient ritual that to get a divorce, your husband needs to ceremonially throw a shoe at you.  What??? Oh Israel, what??? Can we please enter the modern era in marriage laws like we have with technology, environmentalism, and art??

I got lots of cuddle time in with Tuna!

Rivka and I went for a long walk around the Moshav.  It's so beautiful!

Well, mostly.  The first thing we did was check out the bomb shelter. In Jerusalem, you have about 90 seconds to take cover when you hear an alarm. But where Rivka lives, you have only about 20 seconds, since it's so close to the border, so it's important to know where the shelter is in case you need to book it in the dark.

It says "miklat" which means "shelter"... yay Hebrew skills!

I think it was actually pretty nice for a shelter. It had chairs inside and somebody left a bottle of Coke from the last attack :P.

There is a vineyard on the moshav!

Beautiful Rivka with the grapes!

Israel has the greatest sunsets

There were tons of animals! Horses, bunnies, chickens, guinea pigs, a donkey, a pony, and goats! This goat was my favorite, because of his awesome horns, but it was hard to take a picture because he kept trying to scratch and itch.

Gorgeous vineyard

I get silly when I pick giant fruit.  Look at this huge pomegranate I found!!! We also picked passion fruit!

Dinner and Cannons

Their friends Ayelet and Tal joined us for dinner. It was fun and delicious! But a little bizarre for me, because now and then you could hear this rumbling sound.

Ariane: ...was that thunder?
Tal: Haha in Israel? No way.
Rivka: Don't worry, Ariane. It's just cannons.

They could tell by the nature of the rumble if it was a missile from Hamas, the Iron Dome shooting down a Hamas missile, or the IDF firing on Gaza. Ayelet had just returned from a month in the reserves, where he job was to help civilians find shelters, distribute gas masks, basically deal with home front issues. Geva has been in the reserves too, but he couldn't tell me what he did. I remarked how strange it is for me to be in a place that is so adjusted to war time. I said how when just one bombing happened in Boston the entire city shut down.  "That's how it should be," Rivka said. "We shouldn't be used to being bombed, but we are."

I only had one glass of arak (anise liqueur) mixed with grapefruit juice, but I was drunk just like the other girls (Geva and Tal seemed to hold it together). It was a great night.

I don't know, it's hard to describe. A four year old was killed in his house by a mortar Saturday night, and the Israeli south is heavily protesting the government for not taking more decisive action against Hamas as rockets rain down on southern homes, and there's protesting in Tel Aviv against the government for taking basically any action at all in Gaza, and meanwhile there's 20-somethings being 20-somethings, like anywhere else. It all exists, one layer on top of another.

In any case, I felt really welcome and they all spoke in English so I could understand the conversation, and the food and booze was great, and I had a really nice Shabbat dinner.

Spelunking!
Nearby to the moshav is a world heritage site called Beit Guvrin, or house of heroes (it doesn't seem like people know why it's called that, alas).  Rivka is a professional tour guide, so she and Geva showed me around!

Spelunking is probably not really the right word because they weren't natural caves, but I love the word too much so I'm going to use it anyway.

Basically waaaay back in the day, maybe 300 BC? The first city was built on the site, and under the city was a city of caves! They did all kinds of stuff in these man-made caves. Rivka told me everything but I'm still not super clear on who was there first, but at one point or another the city + caves were inhabited by Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Sidonians, and maybe some other people too. They all kept slaughtering each other and moving in.

I knew we were going to see caves, but it was funny to be walking around, chattering and walking down some steps, and then... WHOA

I said "THIS IS LIKE LEGENDS OF THE HIDDEN TEMPLE!"

The picture just does not convey how HUGE this cave was.  All hand-dug!

Rivka: Ariane, guess what the niches are for.
Ariane: Um... candles?
Rivka: No.
Ariane: Canopic jars?
Rivka: No.
Ariane: Skulls?
Rivka: No.
Ariane: Okay, I give up.
Rivka: PIGEONS!

Indeed, this huge "columbarium" was an underground pigeon coop. The (Greeks?) kept them for food, ritual slaughter, and  fertilizer.

Down down down!

Rivka and Geva chilling in a burial cave

These are reproductions, but the original paintings were effaced when Muslims were ruling because it's taboo to depict faces.

Gryphon! 

Some ugly fish!

Porcupine!

Cerberus!

A bigger view of the cave. Rivka explained to all the other Israelis hanging out, too, because Rivka is awesome.

Rivka and meeeee

Enormous Bell Cave! There were a ton of these, former quarries!

huge!

Bats! (Telafim!) They kept squawking. I liked them.

 It was a really fun afternoon! And hanging out in caves was a great thing to do on a hot day because it's so much cooler underground.

A Very Friendly Dog

That night, we took Tuna on a walk around the moshav. I thought it was so cute because almost every house we passed had a dog, and the dog would run out and sniff at Tuna and play with her until we passed out of range.  It was a parade of dogs.

There was one dog in particular that followed along for a long time. I thought it was extra friendly and cute.

At one point, Geva and Rivka stopped because the spotted a tree that was growing wild, ripe "Ptango" which are... like pumpkin shaped little tomatoes that taste like sweet peppers.  I bit into one and was marveling over the strange taste when I felt something warm trickling down my leg, and I looked down to see the very friendly dog peeing on me!!

I shrieked but mostly found it funny. That was a first for me. "You have a lot of interesting experiences on the Moshav," Rivka said, before I washed my leg and sandals.

Back to Jerusalem

Sunday is the first day of the work week in Israel, so it was a packed bus back into Jerusalem this morning.  All the soldiers were heading back after their weekends off, with their ipods in, nodding off or texting with friends, rifles in their laps. Soldiers are required to keep their weapons on them at all times, although they can only keep them at home over breaks if they have a locked area within a locked area to keep them, otherwise they need to stow them at their local police station and pick them up before heading back to base.


New Hebrew
miklat - מקלט - shelter
cochavim - כוכבים - stars
Ani shikurah - אני שיכורה  - I am drunk
Nemalim - נמלים - ants