The Moshav Part 2: Sukkot

I had such a delightful time at the Moshav during Rosh Hashanah that I went back for Sukkot. Sukkot is the biblical "Feast of Tabernacles," in which the Israelites were commanded to live in booths for seven days so that, according to the Leviticus 23, "your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt."

In Israel, Sukkot is a festival of rejoicing. Having just finished Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (both of which are very serious holidays), a week of Sukkot is like a week of partying here in Israel. One of my favorite parts of Sukkot, however, is the huge variety of sukkah that Jews build to eat (and sometimes sleep) in during the week.

This is a picture of Vered's family's sukkah.

A fun thing to do during Sukkot is to walk around West Jerusalem and the Old City and see the different types of sukkah set up all over. These next few pictures are just a few sukkot (plural of sukkah) in the Old City of Jerusalem.








This last one is overlooking the broad wall in Jerusalem, which dates back to the 8th century BC (and where the Assyrians and the Israelites duked it out during the reign of Hezekiah...the sukkah is inside the wall of Jerusalem, while I am standing where the Assyrians would have been, outside the wall). I get really excited about this wall because I love this story. Eat it, Assyrians!

Anyway. Many Jews in Israel eat in the sukkah, even the ones who aren't religious, but usually only the ultra-orthodox (and the children, who think it's great fun) sleep in the sukkah.

The trip out to the moshav was uneventful. Getting around Israel is quite simple, convenient, and cheap, comparatively--I went to the central bus station, got on a bus, paid about $5, and rode for about an hour before I got to the moshav. While Israeli bus drivers may not be the nicest people in the world (although some are!) and often make me feel like an idiot (I had to say the name of the moshav at least 6 times before the bus driver understood what I was saying, and he wasn't exactly patient with me!), they are usually pretty willing to tell you when you get to your stop. Just don't be offended if they grunt at you when you ask them to tell you when to get off.

This is what the bus stop closest to the moshav looks like: fresh air and miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers just doesn't have the same ring) of open space.

In my opinion, Jerusalem is a very exhausting city to live in (the clash of politics and history and culture seems to permeate everything), so it is wonderful to leave for a while and take a breath of fresh air. It's kind of like working in an office where everyone is smoking--no matter how much you love your work, it's such a relief to leave the smoke-filled rooms and step outside for a few hours!

My time at the moshav was wonderful. Vered and her family are superb hosts (and hopefully one day she will come visit Utah!) and although it was much less eventful than my adventure-filled stay during Rosh Hashanah, we ate our meals in the sukkah, which was delightful. And Vered is hilarious. Just a few examples: I have a bad habit of wiping my wet hands on my jeans after washing them in the kitchen (too many years of not having a dry dishcloth available, I guess). Anyway, Vered caught me once as I started wiping my hands on my jeans and said, "Use the dishcloth! Your pants will thank me." Another time I was telling her that in one of my apartments in Taiwan I poured bleach down the drain to kill the cockroaches that would come up out of the sink every day. When I mentioned that the bleach killed the cockroaches, she said, "Maybe. Or maybe they just came up the next day with blonde hair! 'Thank you' [she said as she flipped her long black hair], 'thanks for the new hair color!'"

I don't know if you all find that as funny as I did, but I was laughing about it for days and days.

My favorite thing, though, was when I told her I was Mormon. "You are?!! But you're so...normal! I thought Mormons wore long dresses and black suit coats with top hats..."

"Well, they did in the 1800's," I said, "but so did everyone else!" I laughed for hours when I realized that she thought Mormons and Amish were the same thing (we're not, by the way!).

[Side note: her mother did know what Mormons are and told me that she absolutely loves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. "One day I was driving home and one of their broadcasts came on," she told me. "When I got home I just sat in the car to finish the broadcast, because I couldn't bear to miss even three minutes of the concert to come inside and turn on the radio!"]

So happy Sukkot, everyone. The holidays are over now and life is back to normal. My grad classes start tomorrow, and I will admit that I am just a little bit terrified! I'm not sure what to even expect, but I'm sure it will be the ride of my life...

Yom Kippur in Jerusalem

Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, is the holiest of Jewish holidays. This year, it was from sundown October 7 to sundown October 8. Yom Kippur is observed all over Israel, even by the non-religious Jews, and is a day of fasting, mourning, and prayer. And absolutely NO DRIVING.

I knew what Yom Kippur was before I came here, but when other branch members told me about "the day we can't go in to church," I was a little skeptical. Everyone in the Primary presidency (which, btw, I'm in the Primary presidency!) was really worried about what would happen to Primary. "None of us will be able to get in to church," they said. "They close the roads and no one drives. So only the children who live at the Jerusalem Center will be in church, but what will we do about Primary for those kids?"

I certainly didn't want to sit at my apartment alone all day while all the Jews in Israel were mourning, so I volunteered to spend the night with a member of the branch who lives in East Jerusalem and take care of Primary in the morning. But really, I thought, it can't be that hard to get in to church. It's nice to respect the holiest Jewish holiday, but surely some people drive on Yom Kippur. I mean, religious Jews don't drive on the Sabbath or other holy holidays, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of cars on the road causing traffic jams every holiday!

(Turns out that we just watched General Conference instead of having Primary, so I didn't have to do anything anyway, but that's beside the point.)

The point is, I went to meet my friend (Arlissa) Friday afternoon. She was getting off work early because "they close the roads and I won't be able to get home after 4."

I'm used to everything shutting down (busses, stores, and everything else) early Friday afternoon for Shabbat each week, so I wasn't surprised to see that there were very few cars on the road at 3 pm on the eve of Yom Kippur. But nevertheless, Arlissa and I both breathed a sigh of relief when we got out of West Jerusalem before 4, when the roads were supposed to close.

We decided to run and grab some groceries in Beit Hanina, an Arab area just outside of Jerusalem, and thought for sure that we would be safe, since we were just going from East Jerusalem to East Jerusalem.

But guys. When we tried to get out of Beit Hanina, THE ROADS WERE CLOSED. The police had come and put huge cement roadblocks in the road, and no traffic could get in or out.

Luckily, we found another route home without roadblocks, but I was astounded. The reason that no one drives on Yom Kippur is because the police enforce the no-driving rule by putting up roadblocks on all the roads!

Unfortunately, I didn't any pictures of the barriers, so you'll just have to imagine it. But if you come to visit Jerusalem during Yom Kippur, don't expect to be able to drive anywhere...

(As a side note, I was talking to an Arab man in a store that evening, and he said that this year was great because the police left most of the roads in East Jerusalem open so that the Arab population could go about their business, since they do not celebrate Yom Kippur. Only roads that went through or near Jewish areas were closed, but most of East Jerusalem was still accessible--which he said was a big improvement over previous years, when all the roads were closed.)

Meeting the President

Each year, as a part of the Sukkot (the biblical Feast of Tabernacles) celebration here in Israel, the president of Israel opens up his house to greet visitors (meaning his yard is filled with displays and he comes out and makes a speech to the crowd). The week of Sukkot is like a great big party in Israel, as most people have a break from work and school. The first and last days of Sukkot are "holy" holidays, meaning they are like Shabbat (no work, no transportation, etc), but the middle days are filled with fun events. Museums are packed, there are concerts and special displays everywhere, and people stay out until the early hours of the morning partying in the streets (or going to synagogue, for the super religious ones). This makes it the perfect time for the president of Israel to host a "party" and promote a certain initiative.

Naturally, I didn't want to miss out on a chance to meet the president of Israel!

This year the president (Shimon Peres) was promoting a "green" initiative, so the decorations and displays were pulsing with the "friendly to the environment" vibe.

People were walking around dressed like kohlrabi and strawberries, you could take pictures with cardboard cutouts of recycling trucks, and there was a random satellite display (?) 

Oh, and don't forget the random missile in the middle of the yard (green initiative = promote the military?)

I was laughing with my friend about the amount of "propaganda" that permeated the event, showing Israel as a happy, family-friendly place that supports recycling and is friendly to the environment (and ignoring the bigger issues and problems currently facing this country). I decided that when it's your country, it's patriotism, but when it's another country, it's propaganda!

The pictures below were some sort of "recycled art."

And you better believe that I got a picture of the famous room! This is where the president of Israel often receives visiting dignitaries and politicians.

My fellow Arabic-speaking friends Sabra, Greg, and Beverli (taking the picture) went with me.

These stunning fruit-vegetable-flower displays served to promote the idea of a "green Israel."

And this random and slightly awkward picture of Beverli was really just an excuse to take a picture of Elvis. Bet you didn't know he's really in Israel, did you? (I think he had a part in the program, but we left before he sang...)

My favorite part of the whole event was the random people who kept walking around with plates of cookies. I guess whoever was in charge of the event decided that after we got through all that security, the best way to keep a restless crowd happy while waiting for the president to speak was with an endless supply of cookies!

Shimon Peres only spoke for about 10-15 minutes, but it was enough time for him to promote the prosperity and environmental friendliness of Israel--and for protestors to stand up and start shouting about the ridiculous costs of housing in Israel (protests have been going on for several weeks now because the cost of living in Israel is skyrocketing out of control) and for security to drag said protestors out.

I have to say that it was somewhat less of an ordeal than "meeting" President Obama this summer (which event I have yet to blog about!), but really, how many people can say they've "met" the president of Israel?

Mahane Yehuda Market

Welcome to Mahane Yehuda market. It's a large market in West Jerusalem, complete with shouting vendors, huge crowds, and plenty of locals buying their fruits, vegetables, meat, and of course halva--not to mention the chocolately rolls of deliciousness that are famous here. I figured the best way for you, dear readers, to experience it was through a wordless photo essay, so here it is:

Living Life in Four Languages

One of my goals for my time here in Jerusalem is to come back fluent in four languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and Chinese, and of course it would be wonderful if I could still speak English. :) This has proved to be a wonderful challenge, and I have all sorts of awkward and hilarious adventures as I try to keep the four languages separate in my head. Sometimes, however, it doesn't always work so well.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the Arabic-speaking Palestinian city of Ramallah. I had ridden the bus and spoken to people in Arabic on the way there, but when I hailed a taxi I got in and started speaking to the driver in Chinese! That was awkward.

Another time I was crossing the separation wall to get into Ramallah. I wasn't sure where to go, so I asked these women (in Arabic) if they knew where the bus was to go to Ramallah. They just stared at me, uncomprehending, and one of them finally said (in Arabic) "Arabic. We speak Arabic." "I'm speaking Arabic!" I said back. I knew my Arabic was intelligible, but they just weren't expecting this white girl with red hair to speak to them in Arabic and so they thought I was speaking English or something!

Sometimes it is hard for me to know what language to speak to people: Hebrew, Arabic. Most of the time it is quite obvious, but sometimes I can't tell the nationality of the person before I start speaking to them! Like the other day when I was going to my kickboxing class. I couldn't figure out how to lock the locker (turns out you had to insert a 10-shekel coin), so I asked these girls walking by in Hebrew if they spoke English, and then asked if they knew how to lock the locker (in English). Then they turned to each other and started speaking in Arabic! "I know how to ask that in Arabic!" I wanted to shout, but I didn't. They didn't know how to lock the locker, either, so I guess it didn't matter what language I asked them in!

Another day I was on the other campus of Hebrew University (I take classes on the Mount Scopus campus, but I had to go to the Givat Ram campus, on the other side of the city and right next to where I live right now) to do some research in the library there. I asked a man in Hebrew for how to get to the library, and he walked with me there to show me the way. We exchanged small talk in Hebrew, but I was really struggling to keep pretending like I was understanding what he was saying. Suddenly, we passed someone right as we got to the library complex and the man giving me directions started talking to the other man in Arabic! "You speak Arabic?!" I asked (in Arabic), now aware that he was Arab-Israeli. "I speak much Arabic much better than I speak Hebrew!" I said, thinking of how it would have been so much less awkward for me if we had been speaking in Arabic.

A few days ago I went hiking in the forest near Jerusalem with another grad student. We knew that the hiking trails were right next to the parking lot of the Ein Kerem Hadassah hospital, but we had no idea which parking lot! So we started asking around--but couldn't seem to find anyone that spoke English. I do speak a little Hebrew, but I am always missing vital words in the conversation. For example, in asking someone where the hiking trails are, I can say, "Excuse me, do you know where the ..... is?" but unfortunately I don't know how to say hiking or trail. Yeah. Doesn't do me much good. (This happens to me in almost every conversation in Hebrew. I am missing those key verbs and nouns...which I guess is motivation for me to study harder!) Anyway, I asked one security guard (in Hebrew) if he spoke English, and he said (in Hebrew) "No." When I looked disappointed and was about to walk away, he said, "Don't worry, I speak great Hebrew! What do you need?"

Great. Him speaking great Hebrew did little for the fact that my own Hebrew skills are so minimal! My friend and I tried to explain that we wanted to go hiking. "We want to...travel...near the hospital," we said, trying to make motions like we were hiking. "You want to walk around the hospital? Why?!" he asked. "Go ahead and walk around it!"

I walked up to another security guard and asked him (in Hebrew), "Do you speak English?"

"No," he answered in Arabic.

"Oh! Do you speak Arabic?"

"No," he answered in English.

Utterly confused at this point, I just stumbled through another hand-motioning game of showing that we wanted to hike. Luckily, he knew where the trail was, and we were on our way.

And one final story: since I have to take a level test for Arabic at the end of October, much of my free time is spent studying Arabic and re-memorizing vocabulary. The bus is the perfect place to do this, but I get some strange looks from a lot of people (yes, there is a lot of discrimination in Israel between Jews and Arabs. Shocking, I know.)

I was on the bus studying a list of vocabulary words when suddenly the man next to me said (in English--he was from America but I think had moved to Israel), "You're studying Arabic?!!!" with a look of slight disgust on his face. "Yep," I answered. "Ugh," he said. "It's such a...guttural language."

Yes, well, maybe I like studying guttural languages! It's prejudice like this that inspires me to work even harder at becoming proficient at both languages. And maybe, just maybe, one day people won't have such strong feelings of disgust about either a people or their language!

And just because blog posts are always better with pictures, I'll leave you with this one.

Rosh Hashanah at the Moshav

The month of October is full of Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) all fall within a few weeks of each other, which means a lot of celebrating (and a lot of days without public transportation--the downside of living in a country that shuts down every week on Shabbat and on all the religious holidays!). And for the past several years I have been dying to celebrate these holidays in Jerusalem, ever since I heard about the shofar-blowing and palm frond-waving and everything else.

Lucky me, this year I got my wish!

My graduate program paired students up with families who wanted to host foreigners for the high holy holidays, and I was lucky enough to be paired up with a family in Tal Shahar, a small farming community halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

I'm going to have to apologize right now for the quality and lack of pictures--since Rosh Hashanah is a high holy holiday, observant Jews don't use electricity, drive, or use cameras. And although, as a Christian, I am not expected to follow any of those rules (as will later be apparent), I wanted to be respectful and as non-awkward as possible. So I just took my pocket-sized digital camera and took pictures discreetly. (The fact that the batteries in my camera were almost dead made it easier to resist taking many pictures!)

The house I stayed in was adorable and reminded me of childhood memories of going to stay at my Grandma Campbell's 100-year-old house in Idaho (minus the creepy basement). 

My host, Vered, told me that her parents built this house "with their own hands" more than 30 years ago when they first moved out here. She and her mother apologized several times for the state of the house (and one of Vered's brothers spent a few hours taking pictures of the cracks in the walls to submit to the TV show "Extreme Makeover" to see if they could get a spot on the show), but I told them they had more than 50 years to go before their home could rival my grandma's house (which surprisingly has held together quite well)!

This was my room. Isn't it cute? Vered said they call it the "giraffe room."


The view from the 2nd floor at sunset.

Their house had some serious character. Each room was a different size, and there were surprises everywhere. Like this airplane room.

My favorite part was this landing right at the top of the stairs. I love the camel.

Tal Shahar itself is a cute little farming community of about 50-60 families, just off the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It has an elementary school, a synagogue, and a gas station. If you need anything else, the next closest city is only about 15 minutes away.

Each of the houses has one of these little name plates out front, identifying the family that lives there. This is for the synagogue.

And this is the synagogue. I love it. When I told Vered that I wanted to take a picture of it, she looked at me strangely. "It's so cute!" I said. "No," she said, "It's kind of falling apart." "It's picturesque and quaint," I told her. But seriously. It is picturesque and quaint!

And who couldn't love a town with this little beauty? (courtesy of Vered's yard)

Before you become too enamored with the pictures of this adorable little moshav (the Hebrew word for these small little communities), let me share with you a few of the highlights from the trip:

1. I went to synagogue twice with Vered, and the first time they blew the shofar 100 times throughout the service. They only blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah (100 times each service, I think) and on Yom Kippur (just once, to signal the end of the fast), so this was especially thrilling to me. 

2. Wednesday night we went to Vered's mother's house (Vered, a graduate student at Hebrew University, is currently the only one living in the family home) for dinner. Vered, three of her siblings, and her mom and mom's boyfriend were all there, and they certainly made for a lively bunch! After dinner and more than an hour of them bantering back and forth in Hebrew, Vered's mother asked me how long I had been studying Hebrew. "One month," I answered. "That's all?" she asked. "You should have said something and we would have spoken in English. You missed half the jokes!"

"No," I answered, laughing. "I missed all the jokes!" [If you don't find this funny, go and study another language for a month and then sit in on someone's conversation and see how much you can understand. For me, it was very little...and I certainly wasn't catching any of their puns!]

3. Thursday morning I went to synagogue with Vered, where I met the rabbi briefly. Vered had told him that I was coming to visit and that I was Christian. (I told her that I'm Christian as soon as she emailed me with the invitation to spend the holiday with her, in case she wondered why I don't drink wine and why I am so unfamiliar with Jewish practices!) That night, as I was sitting outside chatting with Vered and her family, two of the rabbi's daughters (about 11 and 9) walked up, looking very solemn and scared, and started to talk to Vered. She called me over and said, "There's been some sort of emergency...and the rabbi needs you to drive his son to the hospital! Can you do that?"

I knew, of course, that as an observant Jew he couldn't drive on the holiday, but I was slightly confused as to why they asked me, as Vered's entire family (except Vered herself) are secular Jews and were about to drive home. I quickly realized, however, that observant Jews can only ask non-Jews to break Shabbat and holiday rules for them (such as driving and turning on lights), and as the only Christian in the moshav, I was the only one they could ask!

Naturally I said yes and ran with the sisters back to the rabbi's house, fearing the worst. The girls knew enough English to tell me that their brother had cut his head open and he was covered with blood, and I was worried that I would have to drive an unconscious boy to the hospital in the middle of the night! Thankfully, though, when I got there the boy was quite conscious, the blood had all been cleaned up, and his father told me that the kids had been playing and someone had thrown a chair ("you know how kids are") and it had hit him in the head. "He was covered with blood," the rabbi said, "and you can see his brain through the opening in his head!" Sick.

Even in this state of emergency, I was surprised to see that the rabbi was still so strict in keeping the Shabbat rules. He gave me the keys to the car and then said, "And I'm sorry, but I'll need you to open the doors for us." I did so and then got in the driver's seat. I reached out to close my door, but before I could shut it the rabbi shouted "WAIT! We need to close our doors first."

I let them close their doors and then closed mine, still totally surprised that even in this state of emergency the rabbi was concerned about turning off lights (which happens when the last person closes their door!).

The trip to the hospital was pretty uneventful...a few hours of waiting around, they glued the cut closed and gave the boy a tetanus...etc, etc. As we were waiting, I tried my hardest to make friends with the boy, Ephraim. I kept trying to speak to him in Hebrew to see if he would smile...but nothing. His dad finally told me, "He speaks English!" so I tried that too. Still nothing.

Finally, while he was waiting for the tetanus shot, I told him, "I think you're very brave" in Hebrew. And finally! He smiled! He even laughed a little bit.

Later, when I told Vered what I had said, she said, "No! You didn't tell him he was brave...you said he was very angry!"

No wonder he was laughing!

When we got back to the moshav late that night, Vered asked the rabbi the same question I'm sure all of you are wondering--"Rabbi, the Torah says that life is more important than a holiday, than Shabbat--why didn't you take him to the hospital yourself, since it was an issue of life?"

The rabbi told her that yes, he could have taken him to the hospital--but once he was stitched up and it was no longer an issue of life, he wouldn't be able to drive him home and he would be stuck at the hospital for two days! And then there would be no one to conduct synagogue services, and everyone in the town would remember the time when the rabbi was stuck at the hospital for two days!

3. While I was at the moshav Vered told me that she needed to help an old woman feed her animals Friday morning. She told me I didn't have to help, but I told her that I know how to feed animals and I would be more than happy to go with her! Still, she expressed doubts the whole morning--wondering if it would be faster if she just went herself, since she thought it would take more time to have to explain everything to me! I chose not to be offended, realizing that when she lived in America, she lived in a rich Jewish community and the children were all spoiled. And I was certainly taught how to work as a child! Even though we never had animals, my parents would hang their heads in shame if I didn't know how to feed the chickens!

Vered, naturally, was shocked that we got done in half the time. (She had chickens and rabbits and other birds and an emu and goats and lots of other animals--probably 2-300.) Elisa, the old woman whose animals we fed, told me that I was a "natural" and "absolutely perfect!" Others in the moshav, however, were also worried about my experience with the animals--and the rabbi later asked if I experienced any trauma from feeding them! Nope, not me...I'm Utah bred! :) And while this picture proves nothing about me feeding the chickens, I thought I would include it because A-it shows off the awesome cowboy hat (I need one of those!) and Beatles shirt that Vered lent me, B-this is the outfit I wore to feed the animals, and C-I thought the composition and color scheme was pretty awesome.

4. The rabbi was so thankful that I drove his son to the hospital that he invited me and Vered over for lunch on Friday (after we fed the animals). On holidays and Shabbat, religious Jews perform a kiddush before eating, which is a blessing over bread and wine. They bless the wine and everyone drinks some, and then they bless the bless the bread and everyone eats a piece. I had told Vered several times I don't drink wine, but I still had several awkward kiddish moments where I just left the wine sitting in my cup (it's only a swallow) and didn't drink anything for the rest of the evening, thinking that that was perhaps the least awkward solution.

Anyway, at the rabbi's house naturally some wine was poured in my cup, and naturally I didn't drink it. After the kiddush was over and everyone started eating, I whispered to Vered and asked if she wanted to drink my wine. "Oh yeah," she said, and then told the rabbi, "Breanne's a Mormon and doesn't drink wine." "Not even just a little?" the rabbi's wife asked, and I said no, not even just a little. "She doesn't drink coffee or tea, either," volunteered Vered.

"No coffee!" exclaimed the rabbi's wife. "Alcohol I can understand, but coffee?! You don't know what you're missing out on!"

I laughed to myself that an observant Jew would be surprised that I abstained from drinking something. And I had enough tact to NOT say what I was thinking: "You've never had a bacon cheeseburger? You don't know what you're missing!" (Observant Jews, of course, don't eat pork and don't eat meat and milk products together, so this would be a double whammy.)

5. Vered and I didn't attend synagogue service Friday night because her family came in for dinner. But later we were informed that the rabbi told everyone in the service about what had happened to his son and how I drove him to the hospital, etc...and then he told everyone that I'm Mormon, and Mormons don't drink alcohol, and they are a lot like Jewish people! (I'm assuming he was referring to my large family and modest clothing.) Although I am not affiliated with BYU I respect their non-proselyting rules (which helps keep the BYU Center open in Jerusalem) so I don't tell people about the beliefs of Latter-day Saints, but here was a rabbi in synagogue doing it for me! :)

6. After Saturday morning synagogue service (they sure do attend a lot of synagogue services on Shabbat and holidays!), the rabbi waited until everyone left and then asked if I would like to go up to the front and see the Torah scroll--which is a great honor! Naturally, I was thrilled, and he opened up the scroll and asked me if I could read it. My 4 years of training served me well, and the rabbi was astounded that I could read the Torah. "You're amazing," he kept saying...especially after he learned that I know Chinese and Arabic as well! (It really wasn't that impressive, though, because the Hebrew said something like, "And the Lord said to Moses...." which you learn in the first semester of Biblical Hebrew!)

Well, friends, I think my trip to the moshav was a success. It was so great, actually, that I am going back to celebrate the end of Sukkot with Vered! Who knows what adventures await me...