A Nation Builds an Army Which Builds a Nation

So part of Dorot, my fellowship, is to plan seminars on topics voted by the group.  Two people are assigned to plan and execute each seminar, and I was assigned with Louisa to create one about the Military in Israel.

This is an extremely broad topic. Extremely extremely.  Military service is mandatory here, at least if you're able-bodied, Jewish, and not extremely religious. And Israeli culture really can't be extracted from that shared experience. So where do you begin to plan a seminar?  Louisa and I met with tons of people trying to decide where to take it... activists, soldiers, refuseniks (people who resist conscription even if they don't fall into one of the above categories), war heroes, female soldiers, psychologists, military advisors, and everything in between. And of course we talked to our friends a lot, just hearing about their experiences and what they would say to a bunch of Americans if they had just one day to say it.  Thanks to anyone reading this who helped me!

At the end of the day, we planned what I think was a really successful day! Our goal in brief was to give a sense of what life in the army is like, how Israelis end up in the jobs they do, and the lasting impact the military has on an Israeli's life thereafter.

The first thing we did was head to an airforce base! My friend Reuel from ROI was a huge help.  He's a blackhawk pilot and an incredible person and invited us to his base for a tour and a discussion.

The Israeli Airforce is, pretty much unarguably, the most prestigious branch of the Israeli military, and it's also one of the strongest (you could argue THE strongest) air forces in the world. Every year, about 50,000 people enter the initial recruitment stage to be a pilot, and only 50 make it through to the end of academy. That's one in 1,000 people! Go Reuel!

Reuel told us a lot of interesting perspectives on life in the airforce. On the one hand, if you're a pilot, you're set for life. It's the ultimate social cache. It's like having a degree from an Ivy League school x60. (I actually did the math on this one... Harvard currently accepts 6% of applicants, vs the airforce which accepts .1% of applicants...). So yeah, the upside is that everybody goes "a pilot! Wow!"  Later on, we met with an army psychologist, who said "You met with a pilot earlier? Well I can't top that. Pilots are the Israeli equivalent of a demigod."

Anyway, so having the IAF (Israeli Air Force) on your resume is very advantageous. But on the other hand, Reuel told us about how pilots are basically removed from society at 18, they serve 8-12 years mandatory service, and then they get out around 30 with no other experience than being a pilot. And because they don't want to have to start from the beginning with the 20 and 21 year olds who get out of the other units after 2-3 years service, they accept the shortcuts society offers them to good jobs. But those jobs are all in the military, or weapons industries, or high-tech, or things like that, usually with other former air force members. So what happens if you enter the air force at 18, and at 18 you think someday you'd like to be a teacher, or a writer, or aaaaanything other than the above mentioned type jobs? Reuel actually started an organization to help airforce personnel who want to do something "different" after their service is over.

We had to check our phones for most of the base visit, but here are a few pictures I was allowed to take out in the airfield!

Helicopter Take Off!

A lot of buttons. Mati said, "Do you know what they all do?" and Reuel said, "I know what each and every one does, of course... no, don't touch that one, that's not a good idea.."

Cockpit!

Woot!

Louisa and Me in a helicopter!

I took some good pictures of Reuel, but our security escort asked me to delete them afterward, because apparently you're not allowed to take pictures of pilots on base. Reuel said it was because our enemies might see them and know who the pilots are in order to kidnap them or do something especially bad to them if they fall behind enemy lines.  But he said he thinks it's a pretty dated rule, since via the internet these days you can find pictures of anybody, and he said "If a man falls from the sky behind enemy lines, it's pretty reasonable to guess he's a pilot."  Still, it's a rule, so no pics of him!

After our visit to the squadron, we went back to Tel Aviv where we met with a psychologist who helps formulate the draft. As you can imagine, the draft is extremely complicated. Every year an entire graduating high school class of the nation joins the military, basically. The army has to figure out how to make the best use of them.  They have to balance the needs of the IDF, the interests of the soldier, and the capabilities of the solider... and those things often don't match up very well. Michael, the psychologist, went over the different tests they issue, what the scores mean, the types of people who end up different places, how the different branches fight over candidates, what takes priority, what some of the biggest flaws in the system are, and what its biggest successes are.

The things I found most interesting were the anecdotes he shared. When they're considering candidates for combat units, which is where most Israelis want to serve because of the social capital it earns them, one of the major factors is the soldier's assessed "adaptive ability," that is, the likelihood they'll remain stable under intense stress.  For example, in selection for submarine units, the stress test is putting the candidates in a very low room in which they need to crouch and then pumping water into the room and making them answer word problems like "If water enters a room at a rate of x kilos per minute, how many minutes would it take for a room of y volume to completely flood?" Yikes.

Or regarding the airforce, Michael said "Most pilots really like themselves." And when we all laughed, he said, "No, it's important. They need to, in order to do what they do. They need to make very quick decisions and they need to be extremely sure of those decisions. To drop a bomb here? To land and deploy soldiers there? They need to be sure. That's something we test for the air force."  And on that note, Reuel frequently talked about how the people chosen for the air force are the "fittest" not the "best" like others might say. He talked about how pilots need to be like machines. They're operating a device that is extremely devastating. Even without weaponry, a jet or a helicopter, the amount of speed and force involved, is pretty extreme.  Add in a combat or rescue scenario, and you have a need for the kind of person who can detach themselves from the situation enough to operate under that kind of stress. So are the 50 people each year fittest for that kind of work really the "best?"  It's an important question when it comes to Israeli values.

We finished the day hearing from Yaron, who was a combat soldier in the second Lebanon war, and now runs an organization dedicated to helping combat soldiers and their loved ones to talk about their experiences. I thought it was a pretty intense (and valuable) session.

First, Yaron showed us a short movie about his unit in the war:

Then he told us the story from his perspective, and he was really raw and honest and open about it.

If you want, you can see him speak about a different operation in this video... it's intense, but worth it (there are english subtitles).

And then he talked about how little support their is for soldiers and their families who have gone through things like this... which is a great swathe of this country. He said in the average unit, there is 1 psychologist for every 1500 soldiers! And that he was never approached once by a psychologist to see how he was doing.

He talked about how after the war he couldn't sleep through the night, not at all, and how angry and tense and agitated he was. And he talked about how in some ways, it's even worse for people in the reserves, who show up, face combat, and then are immediately expected to reenter their jobs and civilian life, with no transition, no help adjusting to what they'd just been through and what they were expected to return to.

I have to say, I've met a lot of people who seem, on the surface or underneath, to share this kind of pain here.  Back in August I dated a bunch of dudes with various combat experiences and it was pretty disturbing, the kinds of conversations we had.  

Sometimes they were kind of wry and sardonic about it...

Ariane: What did you do in the army?
Dude: I was a commander in Golani... do you know Golani?
Ariane: Of course.
Dude: Yeah, because we die a lot.
(Golani suffered intense causalities this past summer in Gaza).

Sometimes their need to talk about it would come up in the oddest ways.  Like once I was playing "never have I ever", the drinking game, with a guy who'd been in combat. And in his version of the game, you can say something you HAVE done, but then you drink.  I was doing all the usual stupid shit...

Ariane: Never have I ever... been skinny dipping!
Dude: Really? *drinks*
Ariane: Really! Okay, now your turn.
Dude: Never have I ever... killed anyone. *drinks*
Ariane: O_O
Dude:...
Ariane: Do you... uh... want to talk about that?

And I thought for sure he'd say no, but he DID. In a big way. Well it all come out, all the details, and after I said...

Ariane: Wow, that's intense. That's really heavy.
Dude: No, it's not. I did what I had to do.
Ariane: I know you did, but that must be hard to carry with you.
Dude: It's not. I didn't do anything wrong.
Ariane: I'm not saying that you did, but either way, that's a really heavy thing.
Dude: NO IT'S NOT.
Ariane: Okaaaaaay, let's put the vodka away now...

I mean dude, if you mention killing someone in a drinking game then you've got some thinking to do about what you're carrying.

Or this other guy I dated briefly, he was commander in some intense combat unit. Anyway, this Guy was a very impressive guy. The upside is that I would say "demigod" is an accurate way to describe him. The downside was that he couldn't sleep through a night, he'd wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares.  One night I found him in the kitchen kinda staring off into space and eating dates.

And he said he couldn't sleep.  And since he usually dodged questions about his experiences, I tried to lighten the mood by talking about jet lag, and how it was hard for me to sleep too, and how I'd been sick a lot when I first moved here, and all out of sorts. And he said, "Ariane, of course you aren't adjusting easily, you're on the other side of the world. Your body is not supposed to be picked up and put on the other side of the world. In the army, they used to wake us up to march every few hours, we didn't ever sleep a full night in the desert. Do you see these?" and he gestured to the ever-present bags under his eyes. "I didn't have these before the army. And they've never gone away, though I've been out for a year. They'll never go away." And I tried to comfort him, and he got all rigid and withdrawn, and he said, "Don't be sad for me. I'm not sad about it. I'm not sad. So don't be sad. It's not sad. It's not sad."

It was sad.

Maybe this seems like a lot of criticism about the IDF. But that's not really what I mean for this to be. I found this quote in my notebook but I can't remember who said it to me:

Dude: In the world media... it looks like Israelis love fighting. But we hate it. We hate it. We all wish we could go to college when we are eighteen, too. But we can't. We don't live in a place that will ever know peace, there will never be a time when we won't have to defend ourselves.

So it's not that I mean to criticize the military here. The IDF does a lot of amazing things. It defends and preserves and makes possible the only Jewish state in the entire world, the only place where Jews have full agency of their destiny.

The Spirit of the IDF, the code of ethics, states the main objectives of the IDF as follows...

"Main Doctrine

Basic Points
- Israel cannot afford to lose a single war
- Defensive on the strategic level, no territorial ambitions
- Desire to avoid war by political means and a credible deterrent posture
- Preventing escalation
- Determine the outcome of war quickly and decisively
- Combating terrorism
- Very low casualty ratio

Prepare for Defense

- A small standing army with an early warning capability, regular air force and navy
- An efficient reserve mobilization and transportation system

Move to Counter-Attack

- Multi-arm coordination
- Transferring the battle to enemy’s territory quickly
- Quick attainment of war objectives"

So think about this... you have this tiny country, the only one of its kind, protecting the largest Jewish population in the world and founded just on the tail end of a time when Jews were killed by the millions. And if this country loses one war, it would likely be destroyed. And so you have to have every single person do their part to protect it, and keep the battle off of its tiny territory (the size of New Jersey), and try to lose as few people as possible because there just aren't that many people. And this all falls on the shoulders of 18-21 year olds.

I have a lot of respect for the IDF. I sometimes regret that I didn't become interested in Israel sooner so that I could have served, too. And as I've written about, especially in times of crisis here, I'm so grateful for the intense sacrifice that Israelis make to preserve this country.

But it's like "Yaron said: What the IDF is is defending our home. And for that, there is a price. It's not political, it's just objective fact. When you lose an arm, you just paid a price. There's no political statement there, it's just true. And everything we do in the army: there is a price."

In our debrief, Mati marveled about something I think about a lot. Wow! How Jews left the ghettos! Left our victimhood behind and took up arms and learned to defend ourselves. I've written before about my fascination with the transformation of Jews who took our noses out of books and started to stand up for ourselves.

But when I met with Reuel a few weeks ago, he was emphatic about his desire for this not to be true. To remember our older traditions as a people. "Jews are not warriors!" he said. "We're scholars!!"

And here's something I think about.  The title of this entry, "A Nation Builds and Army Which Builds a Nation" is a saying that was quoted a few times today, about the foundations of Israel.  But when I went to google this saying, I kept find it the opposite way: "An Army Builds a Nation Which Builds an Army."  And I think there's a big difference, and I wonder which is true.  Which is the real saying? And either way, what's the truth?  Is the nation the beginning and the end, or is the army?

Ariane Photographs Israel Day 1

I'm going to post a picture every day!  And snippets of conversation.

Yahli gave me his extra beret!  That makes three 8200 Officers in the apartment :)

Befittingly, tomorrow is the seminar on the military I've been planning with Louisa for months! I'm excited!

The weather has been FOUL these past few days. I know everyone back home in New England is covered in snow, but we're drowning in rain. Drowniiiiiinig.

The lessons in "be yourself" persist...

Ariane: I just tried to drink beer and essentially failed.

Amir: Are you still in the "I should like beer" mindset?

Ariane: I was, but not anymore.

Amir: Until next time?

Ariane: I nursed it for two hours and got nowhere.

Amir: Just accept who you are and what you like. I'm Amir, I like beer and cookies.  You're Ariane, you like Arak and cheese on your macaroni. 

Sage advice. I miss macaroni and cheese...

Tourniquet

Topics:
1) Ariane and The Giant
2) Desensitization
3) Recent Happenings
4) Photo Project

1) ARIANE AND THE GIANT

I think I'm in a strange mood because it's been so rainy lately, so I thought about waiting to write until I'm in a more upbeat mood, but on the other hand, nobody is in a fantastic mood 100% of the time, so why not represent a fuller picture of my experience overseas?

Everything I've written about Israel and the land and my friends here and how much I love it is still true, but simultaneously, I've been thinking a lot about what human beings (okay, what *I*...) do to find fulfillment in life.

I spent the past few years in the states dreaming and scheming about how to make the move to Israel. And I would say 4/7 days of the week I wake up really excited to be here and have a moment of "OMG living the dream!!" And the other 3 days are just fine, normal, good life days. But it's interesting to me how often I meet Israelis who are dreaming and scheming to go somewhere else entirely.  The States, often, or Europe, or Australia/New Zealand, or India. Lots of people here pining for India.

And sometimes my response is "OMG, Go! Go live your dream! Yes it is difficult at times but it's wonderful and there's nothing more satisfying than realizing you can pack up and go and make a new life for yourself in a foreign place and muscle through it all." Actually, that's always my response, because I believe encouragement is almost always the only thing worth offering someone.

But sometimes I think that there's no such thing as a geographical cure for the human condition (confusion, aimlessness, loneliness, ennui, emptiness...) and the fact that I dream of Israel while Israelis dream of America kind of indicates a human being's general tendency to pile our hopes pnto some "other" which supposedly will solve our problems. It doesn't really matter where Shangri-la is as long as it's not where we happen to be standing at the moment.  It reminds me of this quote from Emerson that I found while reading with Mitch this past spring...

“Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

I guess I land somewhere in the middle. I'm totally intoxicated here. But my giant is here beside me as well, he refused to be left behind in Boston. My giant and I are totally intoxicated. Which is actually maybe a little dangerous, Ariane and her giant, drunk.

2) DESENSITIZATION

Yesterday I had a long phone conversation with Caroline back home, which was really amazing. I love my friends here in Israel but being with new friends really highlights how old friends are missing from my every day life.  No amount of enthusiasm can compensate for history with someone, the context someone has through long friendship.  I love you, Caroline!

Anyway, she opened by saying how worried she'd been about me, and she really did sound worried.  She was worried because of the murder of several innocent people in a Jerusalem synagogue last week.  I definitely appreciated her worry (and all the rest of your worries, thank you for reaching out and thinking of me!), but at the same time it caught me off guard because it wasn't something I'd really been thinking about.

Don't get me wrong, there are of course tons of people here who were personally impacted by this horrible event. I know people who sat shiva last week because of some connection to the victims. And of course it's on the news here. And of course I'm disturbed on a certain level. Mostly I'm disturbed by the fact that there were axes and meat cleavers involved, which is particularly barbaric. And because despite the inaccurate reporting of foreign news sources, I assure you that the site of the murders was not a controversial location at all.  It was in a synagogue in a very jewish neighborhood in Western Jerusalem, not contested territory at all. I've only been to Har Nof once but it's basically this enclave of religious students and families and not much else. So what's troubling is sometimes you think here that you can be "smart" or "safe" by avoiding obviously tense areas. But when something like this happens the idea that any action of your own can prevent you from being exposed to terror is wiped away.  You just kind of have to hope you're not around when random acts of violence sprout up.

But despite all of that, I have to say that my personal life really wasn't impacted, nor was the life of most of the Israelis around me. Life really just goes on. I've noticed they check my bags now at the Central Bus station, but that's it.

It's bizarre to me. After the Marathon Bombing of course all of Boston shut down (although in that case, there was a man hunt, and in this case the terrorists have already been apprehended/killed), and the city went into shock and mourning for months. And I personally had all kinds of weird reactions. But here it's practically routine. People are used to it. People are used to it!

I'm not sure what else to say about that.

3) RECENT HAPPENINGS

A lot has happened since my last post, so again I will sum up via photos.

We got a fridge for the apartment! And a lot of booze for the party!

Yahli, Me, and Ido at our apartment party!

A lot of beautiful Doroters came, too: Leonora, Kiyomi, Sam, and Louisa

And Geva and Rivka and Tuna!

It was really fun! I got to meet a lot of Yahli and Ido's friends, and there was a lot of imbibing.

Best roomies ever.

The aftermath

Another thing that happened was Dorot had a seminar on Israeli civics. We went to the Supreme Court and heard about the legal system, we had a chat with Amit Segal and heard about the current political atmosphere, and we had simulation of how the coalition system of government works...

In which I, typically, got far too emotionally involved. I was Meretz, the far left party here, and I'm pretty sure this was my reaction when the supposedly moderate-left party, Yesh Atid, joined forces with the Israeli version of the GOP, Likkud. Mofos!!! How could you???

We also had a seminar on the Nakba ("the disaster"), or the Palestinian view of Israel gaining independence in 1948. Obviously I could write an entire book about this but I think I'd mostly be repeating what I iterated last year when I went on the West Bank Trip, so if you want to read about that, it's here.  

For this seminar we went to Lod, or Lydda, a mixed Arab/Jewish city that was once primarily Arab. Lod is notorious for being the city where the Palmach (Pre independence Israeli military force) supposedly killed many Palestinians. I'm not saying "supposedly" to express any personal doubts about this, just because the evidence is so controversial and contested that I really have no idea what I think happened. 

The Mosque where "supposedly" many were rounded up and killed by a grenade. 

The square outside the mosque now called Palmach Square, which the locals view adds major insult to major injury.

A map of the area which has been interestingly defaced.

A church in Lod dedicated to Saint George (as in Saint George and the dragon) who "supposedly" hailed from the city.

But I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, if you're interested in learning more please do significant reading that is not wikipedia from a variety of sources and don't trust me for a second.

Back in Tel Aviv, I saw this snail:

I really like how you can see it's trail. Speed Demon.

And after the murder in the synagogue, I saw this rally of girls in Jerusalem singing "The Nation of Israel lives! The Nation of Israel lives!" and waving flags.

Singing and Dancing

 We also went to a kibbutz for a community day in which we selected new seminar topics and had a wine tasting.

It was gorgeous

I saw this on Sheinkin, the cross-street I live near, and it made me laugh. Somebody has a serious issue with the wealth disparity in TLV.

Also in Tel Aviv, I found where the cats like to hang out on Shabbat.

They don't use electricity or do any work on Shabbat, they're very dedicated.

4) PHOTO PROJECT
I realize my posting has become rather infrequent, and I think it's because I've adjusted a bit to life here and I lose sight of what might be interesting to someone reading my blog. But even though people don't comment much here (pointed look), apparently a lot of you are reading it because people keep nagging me to update.

So I think what I'm going to do is a make it a point to take a photo of something interesting and post it with some explanation every. single. day.  That way you all can have your minimum daily value of Ariane and it will also keep me observant and thoughtful about my surroundings.

Today I bring you:

Mahzeh 9

This is interesting because it's an open workspace here in Tel Aviv. One thing I've noticed about Israel is it severely lacks public libraries, which is super bizarre to me considering how much we Jews love our books. There are a TON of bookstores... chains, little indie ones, used ones, rare ones, hidden ones... but very very few libraries.

Most of my work here is independent... writing, reading, studying... and I don't like doing it in my apartment because it feels weird, so I need to go out to work, but working in cafes gets expensive really fast, so I was bemoaning the absence of libraries last night when my new friends Sammy and Paul told me about these workspaces that have popped up around TLV for free-lancer types like me.  Lots of programers and start-up people especially. This one has free wifi, clean space and bathrooms, and sometimes free coffee.  I pack up coffee and food and type away to my heart's content. Next great American-Israeli teenage romance novel is being written here, my friends.  Get ready.

A Very Narrow Bridge

So I started out living in Jerusalem, a city which is basically the great love of my life. Things I love about Jerusalem:
-The history
-The light, especially in the late afternoon
-How quiet and peaceful it is on Shabbat
-The architecture, the stone
-The intensity, the "heaviness" everyone talks about, which is unavoidable being that several religions believe it is the very center of the universe
-Access to religious thinkers and events
-The mountains
-A few really good, close friends
-The fact that everyone who lives there does so by deliberate choice, and the kind of human being that generally denotes. Nobody just "happens" to live in Jerusalem.

I mean, I love it. I really do. I would stay there, but I decided I wanted something different about my living situation specifically. My roomie really wanted to maintain a peaceful home, and I figured out that I want something more social and lively. So I decided to move out.

I had a few weeks to find a place, and the clock was ticking. There was one moment when I really panicked because it wasn't looking good, and I called my dad in tears to panic, and while I was raving to my dad, I got a call from a guy with a great apartment who asked me to move in with him! It's always at the lowest point that things turn up, right?

Well, almost...

The new place was on Rashi street in Tel Aviv. I had really mixed feelings about leaving Jerusalem, but I really couldn't find the kind of social living situation I wanted in Jerusalem. All the apartments I looked at just didn't have that atmosphere, which brings me to some of Jerusalem's trickier points...

-Everything is closed on Shabbat, basically. The city is dead. Or "peaceful." It depends on my mood and how lonely I was feeling that determined how I saw it.
-Most of my friends in the city are religious, and so they turned their phones off on Shabbat, so unless I made plans in advance with them, there was no way to fill that loneliness with friends because they were inaccessible.
-Sexual harassment city! Whoa! I think because it's a more conservative place in general, I was always getting honked at or hit on or accosted or spit at and one time I cab driver even suggested he by my sugar daddy and licked me. Licked me. Uncomfortable.
-It's been kinda dangerous lately in terms of civil unrest and terrorist activity and I think it's going to get exponentially worse.

But you guys know me, I tend to identify a difficult scenario and just plop myself down right in the middle of it because I am adventurous/have lost my mind.

But in any case, I decided to make the move, and I hauled all myself to the new place on Rashi in Tel Aviv, and got all moved in and happy. And then we met with the landlord...

In Israel you generally pay for an apartment by writing 12 checks, all dated the first of the next months until you move out. And then the landlord cashes them each month, so they don't have to collect rent from you. It's a pretty easy system. Except as an American, I don't have an Israeli bank account, and American checks don't work in Israel, so I can't operate in this system. It's kind of tricky to get an Israeli bank account as a non-Israeli, and Israeli banks are kind of ridiculous... they charge you for everything and you lose money in conversion and it's just not worth it to open one.

Well, the landlord had said on the phone that I could move in if I paid 6 months rent up front in cash and got a co-signer, which I had in Dorot's lawyer. But when we met with him, he decided that cosigner is not enough and I could either pay 13 months in cash (12 months plus deposit) or I could find a personal co-signer (like an israeli friend), or I could get lost.

Well, my Israeli advisor tried to reason with him and explain that I'm backed by a multi-million dollar foundation, but he wasn't having it. I could have scraped together the 13 months, but that would have involved eating ramen for a while until my next stipend check arrived. And I know I have friends here that would have co-signed, but I think it would have been totally heinous to ask my friends, other 20-somethings on student budgets, to sign a contract with me. And anyway the landlord was really intimidating me with his rigidity and I didn't want to deal with his severity so I decided to leave.

Which is all well and good except I didn't have another apartment...

Now all this time since I decided to leave my Jerusalem apartment I was really stressed and scared about the idea that I would be homeless. What would I do if I couldn't find a place in time? And a lot of people gave me pep talks. "Well worse comes to worst, you stay with your friends! You have so many friends in Israel! You just sleep at each one's place for 2 days and that's a few months right there!"

And my dad gave me a fabulous pep talk, which I quote from his e-mail, edited for length:

"Home--- " Home is the place that when you have to go there they have to let you in" Robert Frost whom I despise said that but you dont have to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Therefor you might not have a bedroom of your own or even a place out of rain but as long as I am alive or your mother or your brother you will always have a home.

Second by definition a traveler is not at home but they are not homeless

just not at home.

Third I seem think there are people in connecticut and NY and Paris who would also think you are at home when you are with them.

Fourth you can only take up so much space at one time. If you are comfortable inside your skin you are home. Anyplace your ass occupies is your home. Anyplace you stand. Is your home if you are at home with yourself.

For me the key is aclear conscience. If I feel guilty i am not at home even if in a house I owned for thirty years. With a clear conscience

I am at home under the kotel, In jail in china or hong kong or chicago. Or in a luxury HOtel supplied by Hilton for ITT sheraton. I am at home under a canoe on the shores of Moose head lake or at Cajun Johns Voodoo animal sacrifice collection Bayou. Or anyplace your mother is.

Missing people at another home should not mean you are not at home where you are. You have more sincere friends than any other person

I know and they would all say mi casa su casa; In fact you piss them off by not staying with them more often and longer.

Homeless hahahahah// the reality is there are more homes that miss you than homes that you miss.

God bless you and your home where ever you make it and all whom you welcome to it or share it. The world is yours , avoid the vermin

and enjoy the rest. "

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 I miss you, Dad.

And my good friend Sam here let me stay at his place in the center of Tel Aviv. Not only let me stay but really made me feel at home and supported me and I am so lucky to have him.

So my motto in Israel, and kind of in life, comes from Rabbi Nachman (I think):

כָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלוּ גֶשֶׁר צַר מְּאֹד וְהָעִיקָר לאֹ לְפַחֵד כְּלַל
Kol Ha'Olam Kulo gesher tzar maod v'haikar lo l'fached klal
The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the important​​ thing is to have no fear at all

I'm really conscious, especially here, of why I'm making my decisions and if I'm making them out of fear. When I look back on my life, nothing I ever did out of fear ended well for me. On the other hand, things I did in SPITE of fear almost always were really successful or at least gave me some kind of satisfaction.

There was this weird euphoria that came with worse ACTUALLY COMING to worst. I realized in my life worse never really truly comes to worst. But there's something freeing when it does. What is there left to be afraid of? The shit isn't going to hit the fan, it hit the fan. What a disgusting mess. But what are you going to do? Life keeps going after.

Anyway, the motto really helped me through this apartment scenario especially. I just kept thinking that I can't choose a place I don't love because I'm afraid I'll be uncomfortable longer or homeless. I need to hang in there with that discomfort and even fear and find the right fit. There were a few places I almost took out of fear, but my friends and family helped me muscle through and say no even though it meant staying with the uncertainty.

And in the end, one of the girls I almost moved in with on Rashi knew someone on Rothschild (basically the best street in Tel Aviv) looking for a new roomie, and I went over there and it was a great fit! It's a great place with a balcony right on Rothschild, but the best part is the roomies are great! They're Ido and Yahli, and they're both my age, officers in the army, and hilarious and fun and smart and really kind, warm people.

The passage above is set to music, like this: (The best part is about half way through)

As probably wouldn't surprise you, I really like to sing it. Depending on who I'm with, this has various different results. Most of my American friends smile and nod or sometimes join in. Most of my Israeli friends quickly shush me and say something like "that is a really nerdy religious song that we don't sing in public, Ariane!" Except my Hebrew tutor, who likes when I sing it because it demonstrates some vocabulary we learned.

BUT, when I moved into the new apartment, Ido and Yahli and I sat out on the balcony and drank and smoked hookah for hours just getting to know each other, and I shared that this was my motto, and I said, "But I won't put you through singing it..."

And they said, "What? No! Sing it! Let's sing it!" and we all three of us did. And probably all of Rothschild Boulevard heard how unafraid we are. :D :D :D

And I knew hanging with the fear was worth it because now I have a great home. <3


Apartment #5!


My two roomies! Yahli and Ido.


Me and Ido!


Me and Yahli!


All 3 of us at 3 in the morning


It's hard to take a selfie when you can't stop laughing


Ilona visited and we went out in Tel Aviv! She's a great friend.

In front of my new city!

Here's another version of that song I like:

<3 love from Tel Aviv!

Tense and Tenser

I've had a lot of adventures in the few weeks since the holidays! Here is a summary in photos...

Topics!

-Around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
-Hebron

Around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv:

Jerusalem is a tense place these days.  Most Fridays these people gather in Paris square to protest.  You may also have heard that a Palestinian drove his car through a light-rail station, injuring several people and killing a new immigrant and a tiny baby girl :(. And you may also have heard that a right-wing activist was recently shot outside the Menachem Begin center, which is really alarming because that center is in a normally very peaceful area, and it's a place I've been several times myself.

Ilona, my friend from Harvard, just moved to Israel to do a fellowship of her own! On her first night in Jerusalem I took her to my favorite sushi place. It's my favorite because there's a waitress there, Naama, that I love and always teaches me Hebrew. And it was a chilly night so Naama came and wrapped us in blankets <3

Graffiti on a night run. If only!

Sam and Louisa enjoying the delicious spicy tofu salad at Baccio, one of our favorite Tel Aviv haunts.

Matat invited me to a "hackathon" that her brother Gilad was in. They spent several days (and months leading up, really) programming, and then in culminated in a big rooftop party in Shapira. Food, drinks, fascinating people, and a great view! 

The program they made is a collection of people's memories and experiences on different streets in Tel Aviv, so you can look it up on google maps and get life stories and not just info, and they're going to turn it into a coffee table book as well. I think it's a fantastic idea! Can you guess which one is mine? ;)

I joined Sam and Leonora for a late night schnitzel dinner, and it was delicious.

This is my favorite place to write in Tel Aviv, a little cafe/bookstore called The Little Prince.

Hebron:

Hebron is one of the most controversial cities/topics in Israel. It is primarily an Arab Palestinian city, the most economically important Palestinian city, but it has religious and historical significance for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as it is where Abraham purchased land to bury his wife and eventually their descendants. The supposed site of this grave is the Cave of the Patriarchs:

As with all things, you should really look this up if you're interested in accurate historical information. I'm just going to summarize what I learned from our guides and some preliminary research so you can get the gist of things.

The story goes that Abraham bought this plot of land, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Leah, and Jacob are buried in the cave. Jews then built a synagogue on top of the cave.  The city was conquered over and over by crusaders and then by Saladin. Saladin added the Muslim minarets to the building and converted it from a synagogue into a Mosque, and barred all non-Muslims from entry. If you're new to Muslim narrative, then they believe they descend from Isaac's brother, Ishmael, which means that Abraham is their patriarch as well.

Israel re-conquered Hebron in 1967 (who started that war and how you want to contextualize it again, I'll leave up to you to read about), and Moshe Dayan left the Waqf (Jordanian authority over Muslim sites in Israel) in charge of administering it. So now the interior is divided - part for Jews, and part for Muslims. The waqf also held that the cave itself was sacred and off limits... but Moshe Dayan snuck someone down there to take photos, and then a few decades ago some Jewish settlers snuck down there and found human remains and candles/items of worship dating from the time of Abraham, which is pretty cool. Or violating. Depending on your point of view. (Wiki doesn't mention this find, but our guide was pretty adamant. Archaeology is REALLY political here.)

So today, in order to grant access to the entire site to members of each religion, on 10 days out of the year only Muslims can enter the site, and 10 days out of the year only Jews can enter, and the rest of the year it's divided.  We just happened to be visiting on one of the days Jews cannot enter, which was really too bad. And it also made me really mad. But I'll just leave it at that.

We were allowed up to the "7th step" which was as close as Jews could get for centuries until Israel recaptured the city.

This guy was getting really emotional and wailing a lot.

As for the rest of Hebron...

There are about 500 Jewish settlers who passionately believe that Hebron is so important to the Jews that Jews must live there, that they must live there. Hebron is not a city where Jews and Palestinians get along so well though, so there was violence against these settlers, and the Israeli response was to basically delineate a section of the city for the settlers and ban Palestinians from entering that part of the city. It's several blocks around the Cave of the Patriarchs (Palestinians enter the site basically from another direction). This area and the settlers are guarded by about 1500 Israeli soldiers, who stood around looking really bored as far as I could see.  This division has obviously caused a lot of hardship for the Palestinians, as it disrupted an important commercial sector of the city and essentially forced people to move. Although the properties mostly still belong to Palestinians, they're not allowed to walk on the street so they really can't live there.  As in, they literally need to exit their homes via their roofs because they can't set foot on the street.  1500 soldiers hanging around a civilian area has also led to many human rights abuses, as you might imagine.

And at the same time, 85% or so of the city is only for Palestinians, and Isrealis are not allowed. As an American Jew, I think I can enter, and I might try to before I consider applying for Israeli citizenship and lose that mobility.

Empty street that used to be the Old City market

Outpost 

According to Shev, the Palestinian woman living here housed protesters, and in retaliation, the Israeli government welded her front door shut.

Even the graffiti is conflicted

A gap in the wall through which you can see...

The rest of Palestinian Hebron.

We met with some Jewish settlers who basically argue that they also have a right to be in Hebron, and without the protection of the soldiers they wouldn't be safe, as demonstrated by the murder of many Jews in the city.

I think it's obvious the current system isn't really working for anybody... but for me the only real compelling point for the status quo is that when previous holy sites have been turned over they've been desecrated and Jews banned entry. There just really hasn't been any precedent set by the Palestinian Authority that turning over land will result in consideration of Jewish holy interests or fair entry to Jews. So we're stuck in this ridiculous limbo.

We also met with a Palestinian activist who basically told us how much it sucks to live in the Jewish part of Hebron and how disruptive the division of the city is.  As compelling as he was, I really found his rhetoric distasteful. "Look," he said, "I know you Jews had a hard time of things in Europe, but that doesn't mean you can behave this way here."  I gave him a chance to modify his wording, and said, "Really? A hard time of things in Europe?" "Yeah," he replied. "I'm sorry you had a hard time, but..."

*face palm*

The biggest thing I learned from the day is that both sides need a PR lesson.  No, of course the deeper lesson is that both sides seem to have about 0 understanding of the other.

Doroters in empty Hebron

Even the artwork in Hebron depicts the military presence

The feeling of the day was just pretty icky over all. There was a fair amount of gun fire throughout the day, and groups of kids throwing rocks, and just a really uncomfortable tension. Jerusalem felt comparatively light!

I'll talk about homelessness next time :)