lizrael update

In appreciation of צהר, or small windows.

I attended a secular wedding last night; if it wasn’t my first Israeli secular wedding, then I have only been to one or two before this. The secular Israeli wedding is something I don’t fully grasp.

A Jewish wedding is so chock full of beautiful, wacky and wild traditions, why not have that be a part of your experience? It just seems that aside from the chuppah part, the wedding is just a dance party. What’s that wedding video like? A night out in Tel Aviv?

Well, obviously, to each their own, and I’m only really talking about Israeli Jews who are already somewhat traditional enough to have a Jewish wedding at all. It’s just my opinion; I like a good solid Jewish wedding with character.

Anyway, because of the marriage laws in Israel, put forth by the religious authorities in the government, a Jew can only marry a Jew on Israeli soil and to be considered acceptable, the chuppah ceremony must follow the rules set out by Judaism according to the Rabbanut.

This structure does not go over well with the mainly secular/lightly traditional Jewish population of Israel. Fortunately, there are organizations that exist to try and ease the process - whether you decide to get married Jewishly or not.

If a couple does decide to marry the Jewish (”legal”) way, צהר (tzohar) is an absolutely wonderful organization dedicated to making the wedding ceremony process as smooth, understandable and comfortable as possible. Secular couples can have a צהר rabbi officiate the chuppah (since most people don’t have a rabbi they call their own). The (Orthodox) rabbi comes with experience, a nice voice, jokes to please the crowd, and above all, the acceptance of the Rabbanut.

“צהר” means opportunity, opening or “small window.” Tzohar’s tagline is “a window between worlds.” This makes me so incredibly happy: A constructive organization of religious rabbis who are bridging their worlds with the worlds of the secular population in order to give a positive outlook and helpful experience.

We didn’t get married through Tzohar necessarily, but our rabbi was a Tzohar rabbi. He had the gig down and so did the guy who officiated the chuppah last night. It was really awesome to watch the crowd sing along with the rav and laugh at his jokes about the Maccabi Tel Aviv game. It was awesome to watch the rav respect the taste of the couple, as the bride presented her chatan with a ring and the couple kissed after the breaking of the glass.

The organization does not seek to ‘kiruv’ couples actively. I think the best thing it does is to start a new couple off in the world of marriage with a bit of appreciation for Jewish marriage as well as a good aftertaste towards the religious process.

Today’s word: טקס

We attended the Yom Hashoah tekes (טקס or ceremony) tonight, organized by the neighborhood Scouts and Bnei Akiva kids.

It was very much a small-town tekes. A few things came to mind while I stood and watched:

• It never occurred to me before how it must have been for the Mizrachi population to get to Israel in the 1950s, meet all these Ashkenazi European Jews for the first time and hear the horrors. What did they think?
• It is inevitable that there will be loud, disruptive, annoying kids at a Holocaust remembrance event. But isn’t that what our grandparents survived for? To continue the Jewish people? Kids will be kids, but thank god they are here, right?
• This was the first public Tzur Hadassah event that I saw the community come together for a moment. I took notice of the different languages spoken, skin tones, ages, etc.
• If my kids end up growing to be tight jeans-wearing, spiky haired, Nike swoosh-donning arsim, I am going to - oh, man. Somewhere my parents are laughing at me.

Today’s word: שוקו ולחמניה

It must be Israeli food day at work. They just brought us a classic Israeli snack, and as one coworker remarked, “what are we, in kindergarten?”

It’s שוקו ולחמניה, a white roll with “shoko b’sakit”, or chocolate milk in a bag:

I realize how weird that may sound, but I guess that weirdness was broken for me years ago when I spent a summer here and an Israeli friend of mine said we were getting breakfast and he walked into a makolet and came out with two white rolls and two bags of chocolate milk.

Today’s word: תאונת דרכים

Here’s what I get to listen to 45293436% of the time while driving home from school. It’s a loosely translated sampling of the radio D.J. on Galgalatz reading the traffic report:

“And now, the traffic. Folks, take it easy on the roads out there… We all want to get home safely, and we all need to be a little patient. Here’s some reasons why: On road A, from city B to city C, you have about 30 minutes of waiting to due to a תאונת דרכים at the entrance of exit D. And then on road E, going through junction F in the G direction, there is a תאונת דרכים causing 40 minute delays - careful, drivers. In direction H, towards city I, poor drivers will be waiting 20 minutes to pass to highway J because of a… well, תאונת דרכים. On highway K, on the L side of the M exit, they are just clearing up the remains of what seems to be a serious תאונת דרכים; please, drivers, think of the people around you. We will all get home tonight. Be patient. City N is not looking too good right now; junction O, between P and Q, is heavily backed up after a - can you guess? - תאונת דרכים that has caused all kinds of chaos. Road R is just picking up after an afternoon of back up between city S and city T, when not one - not two - but three תאונות דרכים caused lots of trouble for drivers towards city U. At junction V from city W to city X, there has been a תאונת דרכים causing major delays for those drivers trying to get to highway Y. And - this just in - a תאונת דרכים at the entrance to major city Z. Ah, brothers. A little patience, and we’ll all get home.”

So. Can you guess what today’s word - תאונת דרכים - means?

Today’s word: שנאת חינם

Here’s a backup to my last post in case it wasn’t enough to get my point across.

I proudly observe my own brand of Jewishness - and consider it great, holy and everything else - if my alternative for spiritual ‘climbing’ is this:

U.S. immigrant beaten up in ‘pogrom’ by ultra-Orthodox gang

“An American immigrant was attacked and beaten Sunday night in Beit Shemesh by a gang of ultra-Orthodox zealots, in what appears to be an escalation of tension between religious groups in the city.

T., who is himself ultra-Orthodox, was kicked, beaten and threatened with further violence in an attack that landed him in the hospital. T.’s car windows were also smashed. T., who asked to go unnamed, has been active in trying to stem the recent tide of Haredi violence in the city.”

Ah! Of course! Extreme modesty, extreme Shabbat-keeping, extreme Judaism are waaay more important than keeping a shrinking nation bound together by love for fellow Jew! I must not have studied that gemora in high school. It’s a wonder they’d skip such an important part.

This is completely sickening. Perhaps this is what it feels like to an ultra-Orthodox charedi who sees a gay couple.

But is a person’s sexuality - hidden under layers of skin and human organs - really worse than a Jew with payot beating up another Jew with payot in the middle of the street for not being religious enough?

Is homosexual sex really worse than שנאת חינם? Is it as damaging to the Jewish people than hatred of your neighbors? Did homosexuality single-handedly bring down the Temples?

I didn’t think so.

Gaydamak is the new Rothschild.

I learned a new word today - or is it metaphor? - from my landlady’s son. He’s here to do some repairs and got to asking us if when we move, we’re buying or renting. He mentioned how this building we live in is a wealthy kablan’s (contractor) dream. In his words:

“All you need is some ‘Gaydamak’ to come here and buy all the property from the owners, knock the building down and build a tower of apartments.”

Until now, the wealthy Jewish gabillionaire that Israelis would use as their metaphor in conversation was Rothschild - not a specific one, just the famous European family of wealth. In fact, in the Hebrew version of Fiddler on the Roof, the song “If I was a rich man” is translated as, “If I was a Rothschild.”

Well, according to my landlord’s son, the Rothschild example is going out in the 21st century and a new guy has stepped up to be the wealthy, dreamy metaphor of Israeli money conversations: Arcadi Gayadamak, Russian-Israeli king of Jerusalem, Sderot and massive amounts of charity.

Welcome to a new age of the Israeli wealth-dream.

Leftover Chanukah gelt: the shnekel.

I saw the brand-new two shekel coin today.

There’s already a group on Facebook petitioning everyone to dub the coin the “shnekel” or “שנקל”. Well, why not? It’s shnei shkalim (two shekels).
Not only that, but the shnekel has it’s own website, too: www.shnekel.org

I guess this it’ll make it easier at those כל פריט ב2 שקל stores.

Today’s word: Etrog Journalism.

I learned a new word - or rather, term - today at the Arab-Israeli Journalism panel I sat on: etrog journalism.

The idea, thunk up by a Haaretz reporter a few years ago, is that certain items of news need to be treated as delicately as an etrog, the yellow citrus fruit we Jews use on Succot. We keep them in boxes, wrapped carefully in styrofoam or straw hair-like substances so as not to break the end of it.

The example given, and the original story, apparently, was that Sharon needed to be protected like an etrog to play down corruption in the government so that other news about the peace process and disengagement could prevail. From there came “etrog journalism”: protecting an issue so that other issues can thrive.

Today’s word: celeb/סלב

So the Globes article I was interviewed for came out today:

My first Israeli 15 minutes of fame… You might call me a סלב (pronounced ‘celeb’). Can you guess what it means? Creative, I know.

UPDATE: Here’s the section of the article where I yap about Facebook. It’s the best I could do, they don’t post the full articles on the Globes site.

UPDATE: Here’s the article.

Today’s Word: Senior/בכיר.

In the past week I have read articles and received emails concerning the strike-affected academic schedule and peppered among all of them is the word בכיר (bachir), meaning ’senior’, as in ’senior professor’.

Only senior professors are striking, because they are the ones being affected by the paycheck problems. Other professors get paid according to a different system and so they are beginning the academic year this week.

The strike of the senior professors began yesterday and is well into its second day. I begin class today; I’d say ‘classes’ but one of them is canceled while the other is not.

That’s because, well, you guessed it: one of my professors is בכיר while the other is just plain… teaching.