Leaving on a Jet Plane

This really is the end… saying goodbye to my police beeper at my favorite coffee shop, Noctorno

Well – here it is, the post that explains why I’m quitting the Post. “Quitting the Post!” you say, with a shocked expression. “But ever since you were 12 years old, all you wanted to be was a reporter in Jerusalem! You have all that, a crazy flexible schedule, the ability to work in pajamas all day, sneaking a beer whenever you feel like it, complete freedom in everything you do, on a first-name basis with the mayor, and have the city’s major movers and shakers on speed dial  – how could you walk away from THAT?”

And when you put it that way, well, you’re right. How could I walk away from what is in many ways my perfect job?

While casting about on the world wide web for the next direction my life will take, I came across an application for a journalism fellowship that resonated deep in my soul.

“Cynicism and world-weariness—that sense of having seen everything before—are toxic in journalism. You need an ongoing sense of wonder at the world: an unrelenting curiosity, and more… You need to take joy in finding the counter-intuitive ways in which your stories play- out, internationally.”

Put simply, I have lost my sense of wonder. When my police beeper beeps, I’m no longer curious to see what has happened, I just pray that I can write it up in a few sentences and be done. After meeting with an older journalist I very much admire, she cautioned me that burnout was part of the package of being a daily reporter. To combat burnout, she suggested, have one story per week that brings back that spark, that love of reporting, that got you into the field in the first place. “Call it in” – do the minimum if you have to, something I hate deep within my bones, in order to meet the daily requirements of your job. But make sure once a week that you find that one story you so excited to interview people about are so excited to turn in to your editor.

So that worked – for about four months. I wrote a number of stories I was very proud of, even in the midst of a major burnout. Now I have hit the point where the burnout is all-encompassing. I’m done, finished, finito. I can’t work up the enthusiasm I once had for being a Jerusalem reporter. I struggle every single day when I sit down to write my stories. I waste hours procrastinating, I check Facebook obsessively, something I rarely do when I’m excited about writing. When I find myself scanning the BuzzFeed pets section for the 50 cutest dog faces, I know I’m in trouble.

That cynicism and world weariness has become overwhelming, and I do feel like many of the stories I’m writing I’ve written in some other form before.

Originally I planned to only stay at this job for a year, in order to preserve my humanity and my sanity. I believe that I have been able to preserve my humanity – the sensitivity that sets me apart from many of the ruthless Israeli journalists, like the one who recorded a grieving mother screaming at him and then cynically sent it to the rest of the Jerusalem reporters to laugh at her (true story). But now I have to worry about my sanity.

Part of the reason that I have blogged less and less as time goes on is that the wonder has disappeared. I feel less of a need to work through my emotions through this informal blog because, frankly, I care less and less. Also, the stories are less surprising to me, less challenging.

I think what makes me a successful journalist is my ability to relate to a range of different people in different situations. Some of my crazy life experiences – Christian missionary in Peru, lonely and depressed in Spain, trip leader in Ecuador, bike tourer through the West Coast – open me up to the wide range of human emotion and experience. So now it’s time for some new experiences. To stretch myself beyond my comfort zone and remind myself that the world does not revolve around Jerusalem.

To reclaim my Spanish after years of neglect as I traded my rr’s for reshes. To live again on less than $10 per day as I travel through lands exotic and strange, to experience the joy of a surprise magic moment while traveling when everything just comes together even though I’m sure it’s about to fall apart. To take stock of my life and my career and to get a lot of physical distance from both in order to illuminate the next step for me.

In Israel, the concept of “tiyul hagadol” – the big trip after your army service – is a time-honored tradition. The idea that at age 27 I plan to be unemployed and homeless for a year is a bit harder to swallow for my American friends and family. But I know that this is the right move for me, to reignite that spark of curiosity that makes every day full of stories I can’t wait to share with the world.

 

Jerusalem is a Port City
By Yehuda Amichai

Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of the ages of ages.
The Temple Mount is a great ship, a pleasure yawl
In splendor. From the portholes of her Wailing Wall, jubilant saints
Peer like passengers. Hasidim on the pier wave
Goodbye, yelling hurrah, bon voyage. She
Is always docking, always embarking. And the fences and docks
And policemen and flags and churches’ high masts
And the mosques and the smokestacks of synagogues and the chanteys
Of praise and mountain-billows. The ram’s horn sounds out sunset: one more
Has set sail. Yom Kippur sailors in white uniforms
Ascend between the ropes and ladders of tried-and-true prayers.
And the profits of market and gates and goldencap domes:
Jerusalem is the Venice of God.

####
I haven’t given you fair warning
But our ship, she sails at dawn…
It’s true I must be going but I swear I won’t be long
There isn’t that much ocean between Boston and St John’s
I’m a rover and I’m bound to sail away
I’m a rover can you love me anyways?
–Great Big Sea

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEFYi2ddXi0

All my life’s a circle

Towards the end of my tenure at the Post, I often felt like I was rewriting the same stories and only changing a few names and the dates. But here’s some proof that things do change, albeit slightly.

My first article as Jpost’s Jerusalem reporter:

Drastic fall in e. J’lem home approvals

By MELANIE LIDMAN

LAST UPDATED: 08/27/2010 01:51

Municipality: Any talk of a freeze is baseless.

Read the article here

The basis: There has been a “de facto freeze” in east Jerusalem construction after the March 2010 Biden fiasco, when Vice President Joe Biden felt personally insulted by an announcement to build 1,600 units in Ramat Shlomo during his visit. But everyone is denying it, from the Prime Minister to the Mayor, saying that there’s no freeze and construction approvals are continuing apace over the Green Line.

AND THEN, TWO AND A HALF YEARS PASSED.  BAM!

My last article as Jpost’s Jerusalem reporter (one of three articles I wrote on my last day, ah, the Jpost):

E1 building projects delayed ahead of Obama visit

By MELANIE LIDMAN

03/13/2013 22:40

50 homes in Har Homa neighborhood, waste infrastructure for E1 dropped from agenda to avoid repeat of 2010 “Biden fiasco.”

Read the article here

The basis: Yep, we’re freezing housing approvals over the Green Line ahead of Obama’s visit, and we want to be sure that he knows it, say City Councilors and Prime Minister’s Office.

So, basically, same story, but this time political leadership admitting what’s going on. But I guess I’ll never know, was this an actual shift, or did I just get better and squeezing answers out of the right people?

Gender-specific prayer shawls

Another Passover, another year speaking at Temple Emunah. This time, I focused on the tension between extremist religious and secular populations in Jerusalem:

I’ve had a lot of strange interviews in my two and a half years as the Jerusalem correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, but the conversation I had with Shmulik Ben Ruby, the crusty 18-year-vet of the Jerusalem police spokesperson’s unit, certainly is at the top of the list.

“OK, Shmulik, lay it down for me one more time to make sure I understand,” I said to him last July, after half a dozen women from the Women of the Wall group were arrested at a monthly rosh hodesh service. Well, he explained, it’s like this. There is the women’s tallit, which are the colorful tallit worn draped around the neck. And then there’s male tallit, which are blue and white or black and white, and worn folded across the shoulders. Women can wear female tallit, and men can wear male tallit, but women can’t wear male tallit, he explained matter-of-factly.

“Shmulik, that’s absolutely ridiculous. There’s no such thing as a male tallit or a female tallit,” I told him. “There’s no law, and it’s not written anywhere in the Torah. Who decides what is a female tallit and what is a male tallit anyways?” I asked. “The police,” he said huffily. “Well, that gives a whole new meaning to the term fashion police,” I said.

It’s always a challenge to maintain neutrality as a journalist. But when I report on women’s rights in religious issues like this, it’s impossible for a girl raised in an egalitarian Conservative synagogue in America not to get livid when the police tell her it’s their decision who gets to wear what tallit at the Western Wall. Or other aspects, like the haredi men who won’t even look at me when I interview them or force me to sit in the back of the bus. One time,  while wearing the most modest haredi outfit that I could while reporting on haredi riots, one senior-looking figure came up to me. “It really bothers us that you’re a woman and you’re here with all the men,” he told me. “It really bothers me that you don’t pay taxes,” I shot back.

It’s fitting that I talk to you now about the issue of secular-haredi tensions on Passover, because the seder is a metaphor that the Rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, uses without fail every time I call asking for a response to the latest arrests of Women of the Wall.

“Imagine a father who hosts a seder each year for his family,” he tells me every time. The father has ten children, and each of his children marries someone from a different place with different traditions. At their own homes they can follow these new traditions, but when they come back to their father’s home, they must follow their father’s traditions. Otherwise, Rabinowitz says, there will be chaos and pandemonium. Strict adherence to dad’s seder is the only way to preserve the seder in its entirety. If we started changing one thing here or there, pretty soon the whole thing would be unrecognizable and complete anarchy, Rabinowitz believes.

For Rabinowitz, the Western Wall, and by extension Jerusalem, are the definitions of “father’s house,” a place where traditions are never changed.

But Anat Hoffman, the chairwoman of Women of the Wall, sees it differently.

“I think what an impoverished seder is Rabinovich offering us, that everyone will do what dad is doing year after year after year,” says Hoffman. “And dad will never benefit from the Yemenite sister-in-law or the Iraqi son-in-law, from all the different varieties that his children got married to? No. He will do exactly the same seder all the time. It’s good for dad, but it’s not good for everybody else. He is ignoring our diversity.”

One thing that I’ve struggled with in Jerusalem is the Israeli attitude towards religious observance feels very black and white: you’re either doing it all, all the halakha, all the Shabbats and observance, and you identify as religious. Or you do none of it, and you’re classified as secular. While obviously there are rich variations across society, Reform and Conservative movements have really struggled to gain a foothold in Israel for this reason.

But the longer I lived in Jerusalem and interacted with haredim in my daily life, the more I started to gain more of a grudging respect for the ultra-Orthodox. There was the time my roommate and I went to “toivel” our dishes in the community mikveh, or ritual bath, so we could have a kosher kitchen for my religious friends. Two secular girls wandering deep in the alleyways of Meah Shaarim, and everyone we met was so helpful.

There is something beautiful and holy in their unbending insistence to follow their version of Jewish law. When you isolate yourself to that degree, assimilation becomes a complete non-issue. There’s something to be said for their obstinacy and dedication to maintaining the traditions without an iota of change. Perhaps without their isolation, many aspects of Judaism would have been lost throughout our long diaspora.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not running through the streets of Bnei Barak singing kumbaya in a floor-length skirt. I’m still infuriated by the long-bearded rabbi who charges through the Mahaneh Yehdua vegetable market an hour before Shabbat on Friday afternoon, honking on a plastic trumpet and verbally berating any stall owner that hasn’t started closing up. When I go shopping for camping trips with my friends, I still have to check the hechshers, because one friend won’t eat anything certified by the extremist Eda Haredit sect.

But I’m also trying to appreciate the aspects of beauty in their way of life. As infuriating as their influence sometimes is, their insistence on tradition means that Israel as a state maintains an observant Jewish character. There’s the white static of TV stations which don’t broadcast on Yom Kippur, or the peaceful quiet of Shabbat when stores are intimidated into staying shut. As Israel hurtles through the news cycle scrambling to find her identity, the ultra-Orthodox provide stable roots to anchor our wanderings.

I have no desire myself to maintain that lifestyle, but I am increasingly appreciating that each of us has a role to play in the continuation of Jewish life.

Our goal, as a Conservative congregation in America, is to always be seeking new ways to interact and bring in new members, new ways to make it meaningful, new ways to leave our metaphorical Egypts and arrive in spiritual places flowing with milk and honey. The haredim also have a role to play, bringing Judaism in the opposite direction, becoming more and more stringent as they try to defend the traditions from change and technology.

If we change the seder too much, incorporate too many new traditions, we will lose the essence of the seder itself. But if we refuse to change anything, the seder will become a dead and lifeless service with no relevance for today.

That’s what I hope to impart with you today: the importance of this constant dance between guarding traditions and evolving to find new meaning. What keeps Judaism vibrant and alive is the tension caused by each one of the myriad streams of Judaism, pulling in their own direction. Our religion is a religion of arguments, of debates both civil and less so, each side pushing and pulling as we fumble towards an endlessly shifting balancing point.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Temple Emunah as a community for shaping and strengthening my Jewish identity as a young person and a teenager. Thanks to all of my teachers at Temple Emunah, including Lowell Bensky and Mike Rosenberg, among many others, so I can stand tall with the ability to read Torah or lead prayers, if I so choose. I would not be where I am today without all of you in this supportive community.

I also want to thank my parents and brother for their unwavering support to pursue some pretty fantastical dreams, despite the fact that you’re less than thrilled about my decision to walk away from my current job. Thanks also to my grandparents, who didn’t get too angry that I only told them I was in Egypt after I came back, and who also allow me to fly with their love and support for almost everything I do.

And now I want to bless all of us, in each of our seders tonight, to strike the right balance between guarding the traditions and evolving with new meanings. To honor both the traditions of our fathers and mothers, and to honor the new traditions we’ve gathered in our own journeys. And may all of us wear whatever tallit we desire – no matter what Rabbi Shmulik of the fashion police says – next year in Jerusalem.

L’shana haba’ah b’yerushalayim habnuyah.

The Eighth Plague

Delicious candied locust caramels on a bed of coconut almond whipped cream from chef Moshe Basson

My stomach was not happy with my last major article for the Jerusalem Post.

After a swarm of locusts infiltrated the border from Egypt to southern Israel, I kept bugging (pun intended) the video reporter to take a road trip to see one of the Ten Plauges in live action. But it’s hard to convince people to drive five hours each way to see a bunch of bugs.

So when I got wind that celebrated Jerusalem chef Moshe Basson was cooking up the locusts for local dishes, I leapt at the chance. I’ve been wanting to write about Basson, who specializes in local, biblical cooking, ever since I went with my friend Hannah to eat at his restaurant Eucalyptus over the summer. Hannah’s a big foodie and heavily involved in the localvore scene in Boston, so Eucalyptus was at the top of her list for Jerusalem activities. I’d eaten there before during some press conference for journalists, but was thrilled by the emphasis on traditional food from ancient Israel with local spices and plants for flavoring which Basson often picks on the same day.

I finally convinced the photographer to accompany me – the videographer was too squeamish to do the article – as a way to say ‘see ya later’ to my crazy three and a half years at the Post (more on that later). Basson was late, as he had to gather wood sorrel for a photoshot with Ynet after our article and his favorite patch of wood sorrel had just been fumigated.

While we waited, Marc and I split the most succulent side of lamb I’ve ever tasted, baked in a ceramic dish and covered with a dough that the waiter stabbed with a fork as she served in order to let the steam out. Moshe finally arrived, bearing fistfuls of green plants from Modi’in, and we set to work cooking the locusts.

I was excited to eat the same things Yemenite Jews used to crunch on during the plagues in ancient times. Also, I was already planning a way to smuggle them back into the States to make an appearance at our family seder.

Watching Basson work was like watching an artist. He would clasp his hands beneath his chin, with his pointer fingers over his lips, and close his eyes, imagining how the spices would meld in the dish. Despite the frenzy of the kitchen, which was serving a regular day’s dishes in addition to making locust for me especially for the article, Basson glided around the kitchen, an island of calm among swirling sous chefs.

He prepared the locust dish and the wood sorrel dish simultaneously, getting ready for two separate photo shoots. I asked a million questions, thrilled to be in Basson’s kitchen.

“What’s this?” I asked, of a bunch of greenery sitting on the counter.

“Stinging nettles,” Basson answered, as he confidently began to strip them from the stalks.

“But, um, aren’t they fairly irritable for your skin?” I asked.

“It’s all in your attitude,” Basson answered. “If you believe it won’t hurt you, it won’t.”

As someone who’s tangled with stinging nettles on my various wanderings through the wilderness, I beg to differ with that interpretation.

“But you can eat them, cooked, right?” I asked.

“Well, you can eat them raw as well. As long as you believe they won’t bother you, they won’t irritate your throat,” Basson assured me.

Fat chance, I thought, knowing I have a high sensitivity to all poisonous plants, including a serious allergy to poison ivy that took Israeli doctors four months to diagnose (in their defense, there is no poison ivy in Israel, but then again, none of the doctors I saw were born in Israel, either). But maybe it’s all in my head, rather than my epidermis. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for life: if you believe it won’t make your skin break out into an itchy rash, it won’t.

Yep, that’s me eating locusts. Photos by Marc Israel Sellem

“Do you want to try?” asked Basson, offering me a few leaves.

“Well, why not!”

Probably not the best idea. While I didn’t have any adverse side effects, my throat and stomach felt weird. Though maybe it was all in my head?

It took a few hours, but the locust dishes finally emerged: candied locust caramels on top of coconut almond whipped cream. Deep fried locusts with a pickled lemon, saffron, and red pepper sauce.

My stomach continued to rejoice: filled with succulent meat, stinging nettles, and now… locusts? I’ve developed a reputation as a bit of a gonzo journalist – signing up to participate in Tu B’Av (Hebrew Valentines Day) speed dating in an ancient Herodian cave, rather than writing about the event. [Note to my editors: I did get a date out of it, and I never wrote the article, so I guess that one didn’t work out so well for you guys]. So I guess there was really no other way to go out with a bang: rather than writing about a swarm of pestilence, well, I should probably be eating it.

I hung around the kitchen for the end of the Ynet photo shoot, trying my hand at making kubbe filled with wood sorrel and mushroom. One of my kubbeh (an Iraqi-style stuffed meatball) even made the final photo shoot. If a gourmet chef is going to cook free food for me, and let me help, who am I to refuse?

Just another day on the job. If you are confident enough and don’t let it bother you, it’ll all go down peacefully.

Locusts: A plague or a blessing?

By MELANIE LIDMAN

03/11/2013 20:30

When news broke of locusts swarming over Egypt, farmers trembled in their boots. Locusts can cause millions of dollars of damage to crops as they chomp through fields. In Israel, pesticide experts went on high alert and eventually were deployed.

But when Jerusalem chef Moshe Basson heard about the locusts, he thought about two things: Schnitzel, and social justice. Schnitzel, because that’s his favorite way of eating locusts. A light dusting of bread crumbs, fried up in olive oil, served with a touch of salt.

And social justice?

“Locusts eat the rich peoples’ food, and poor people eat the locusts, and they get an excellent source of protein for free,” explained Basson, an award-winning chef who owns the Eucalyptus Restaurant in Jerusalem that specializes in local heritage and biblical foods.

Continue reading on Jpost.com

The world’s holiest pile of trash

I originally started this blog to reflect on the absurdity of Jerusalem’s news. While dealing with some of the more personal aspects of life in Jerusalem in my last few posts, here’s a return to the news-fueled reflections…

The truth is, I almost missed the story about the world’s holiest pile of trash. As the only Jerusalem reporter, clues for stories pile up in my inbox. But I don’t have time to go around sniffing around something that could turn out not to be a story. I’m responsible for publishing approximately 1,500 words per day, and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day for me to show up at an event and not write about it. This often works negatively, with the Jerusalem Post covering events or issues that aren’t quite news, but that we’ve already invested time in and need to fill the paper because we don’t have time to pursue an additional two stories.

So when someone named Zachi started sending me emails about piles of debris being thrown out on the Temple Mount, I decided to ignore them. I did some research and learned that Zachi is not some random crazy person, but the director of the Temple Mount Sifting project, which is an organization recognized by the Israel Antiquities Authority to sift through the various debris that was dumped by the Muslim Waqf following a 1999 excavation. A right-wing organization with a clear ideology, but at least Zachi was connected. I started getting daily emails from him, detailing the debris removal. But I saw barely anything in the Hebrew Press, and was distracted by other stories in Jerusalem that I simply couldn’t ignore, such as a another beating of an Arab young person at the hands of Jewish teenagers (the third in four months).

I won’t write about an issue as sensitive as the Temple Mount without going there first, especially when I know one of the parties has an agenda. Zachi and I planned to meet, at an overlook to watch the debris removal, but then he called to tell me that they had stopped and it wasn’t worth it. Then we made a plan for him to give me a tour of the Temple Mount and his house got burglarized the night before. When I finally got up the Temple Mount, more than a week had gone by. This story was still relevant, and strangely had been mostly ignored by the international media, which is unusual for anything that has to do with the Temple Mount.

Here’s some background on the issue:

 The debris dates back to 1999, when the Wakf, the Jordanian body that retains authority over the Temple Mount and other Muslim holy places, used bulldozers to remove some 10,000 tons of dirt from the area known as King Solomon’s Stables to create an emergency exit for the Marwani Mosque, which can accommodate 10,000 people.

Archaeologists were stunned at the wanton disregard for preserving the material. Garbage trucks dumped the debris in a big heap in one end of the nearby Kidron Valley.

In 2004, following a petition by archaeologists  the High Court of Justice halted the removal of the debris.

Since then, the eastern part of the Temple Mount has become perhaps the world’s most controversial garbage dump, with piles of trash marring the holy site. Construction debris and nylon sheeting are mixed in with medieval Mameluk wall engravings and shards of ancient Herodian floor tiles.

Some pictures from my Christmas day tour:

Remnants of both Jewish and Arab history are haphazardly scattered

Zachi Dvira points out artifacts in piles of trash on Temple Mount

Trash in unsightly piles on Temple Mount

Plastic bags are mixed in with ancient artifacts

Dvira points out some Herodian artifacts

Can you spot the area that is under renovation for the Waqf?

The derelict state of one of the holiest sites for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is just shocking. It really resembles a garbage dump. But if you read the article, you’ll see that even though everyone wants the piles of trash to be gone, they’ll never go away. The Muslims don’t want the Jews to go through the debris, because they don’t want the archaeologists to find artifacts that prove Jewish presence in the area. The Jews won’t let the Muslims remove it from the site unless their archaeologists get a chance to sift through it in a more organized way.

So, like many things in Jerusalem, the world’s holiest pile of trash will just stay there: collecting dust and plastic bags, prolonging the conflict for yet another day.

Debris removed from Temple Mount sparks controversy

By MELANIE LIDMAN

01/01/2013 01:11

Archaeologists say “modern trash” may contain ancient artifacts, but police call that rubbish.

The adage that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” rings especially true on the Temple Mount, where even the smallest piece of ancient trash – such as a seal bearing the name “Bethlehem” or a bell that possibly fell off a priests’ robe – can reveal volumes about religious practices.

Workers from the Temple Mount Sifting Project say that over the past week, six to eight garbage trucks, illegally removed debris, possibly rich in archaeological finds, from the site.

Continue reading on jpost.com

Balabasta! Life in the shuk

This place is overwhelming for the senses. First there’s the colors – reds and greens and yellows so deep and so vivid and so artfully arranged that photographers have a conniption when they arrive. Even the amateur photographer is swept up by the plethora of color, the swirling people, the way the mist clings on the parsley leaves and the way those challah loaves are haphazardly stacked on top of each other, shiny egg yolk topping glinting in the sun.

The sounds, perhaps, are what sweep me away more than the smells. Sure, there are smells – when my stairwell doesn’t smell like cat poop the smell wafts through the vent from the kitchen of the Indian restaurant and sometimes it feels like the walls are coated in curry. You’ve got your bakeries, of course, transmitting hugs and safety in the smell of baking bread. But honestly, vegetables don’t really smell like anything unless they’re rotten.

But the sounds, oh the sounds of the shuk! Jimmy who owns the Flavored Arak stall, singing away on his microphone, spreading wisdom for all the world to hear that gets increasingly less coherent as the day progresses. The Aish Hatorah cover band, which set up shop next to the Chabad tefillin stand, sneaking “hakadosh baruch hoo” (praise the lord!) songs into their repetitive repertoire of classic oldies of Stand by Me and No Woman No Cry (hey buddy, you’re learning the entire Torah. Can’t you learn just ONE OR TWO more songs? You are ruining these songs for me!!).

Customers at the Ethiopian store below me screaming at each other in Amharic, or, more recently, Tigrinya, as more and more African migrants move into the neighborhood. Obnoxious Americans on Birthright wearing shorts so short I’m embarrassed for their knees, complaining there’s nothing here to buy. There’s the regular cries advertising wares – “Look at the size of my cucumber! I betcha you’ve never seen a cucumber this size! My cucumber is the biggest in the shuk!” to the more innocuous “Get your bananas before they’re gone!” “Last of the cherries! Last of the cherries!” “Ladies and gentlemen, look at these peaches! Sweetest peaches ever!” And there’s the annoying guy asking for charity for needy families who’s too lazy to yell so he recorded himself asking for donations and plays it at full volume.

Then there’s the people – on Fridays you feel like you’re part of a rushing current, swirling through the stalls. It’s worse in the closed shuk, where you could get swept past the Halva Kingdom without reaching out to snag a piece of their coffee halva free for the tasting. Then come the stampeding tourists, cameras outstretched, each trying to capture the colorful liveliness in pixels, but really their photos will end up looking like a bunch of heads with blurry peppers in the background.

When the Chabad men come marching through with their yellow “Moshiach!” flags, threading through the crowd that’s gathered to hear a circle of drummers, you just have to smile at all the different quadrants of Jerusalem being smashed up into one small area. And you have to pray that the similar parade of Messianic Jews or the left-wing “End the Occupation” marchers will start a little later today so the flags won’t turn into weapons between the warring groups. The Mahaneh Yehuda shuk: this is where I live.

Back when I was still a naïve Zionist I used to think the shuk of Fridays was the holiest place in all of Israel. All these people frantically getting ready for Shabbat, running around like maniacs to buy everything to make sure it’s all done in time, so incredibly stressed out by their enforced day of rest.

I like that I can sit here on my balcony and watch all of them from above. On Fridays I’ve become so incredibly lazy – perhaps in reaction to the hustle and bustle of the shuk all I can do is sit here and watch and be glad that I’m not down in that churning mass of humanity.

Yesterday I must have watched half a dozen or more Israeli tour groups under my balcony. I’m from Lexington, Massachusetts, so I’m used to the interest of random tourists in my neighborhood. But these aren’t random tourists, they’re Israelis, who have come to see a magical little corner of Jerusalem and a slice of the way markets used to be. Hey guys, I live here, I want to tell them. You’re paying to come here and have someone tell you the stories of these alleyways, but I get to live this every day and the stories are everywhere you turn if you keep your ears open.

The other day I went down to buy milk from the convenience store in the shuk. Three flights of stairs, 150 meters, and then back. Just needed some milk for my cereal.

It took me 40 minutes to traverse 300 meters, there and back. Maybe in the future when I want some privacy this will be annoying, but for now, it’s so quaint and provincial that I’m utterly charmed. This is what it must be like to have lived in a small village 100 years ago, saying hello to everyone, everyone knowing your business.

First there’s the woman selling junk outside my stairwell, we talk about the weather and how hard she’s been working and whether or not her son will be able to pick her up later. From there I wave to Jimmy, who’s cleaning his bar from the previous night’s merriment. At the convenience store, the owner spots my Cycle Jerusalem shirt and we talk about our favorite cycling routes. He makes me promise that I’ll do a hilly mountain bike route near Sderot, an area he calls “the most beautiful in Israel.” I leave with the offer to join his group of hardcore weekend warriors on their next ride. We’ll see.

On my way back I stop and talk with the pita guy. He’s got white hair and piercing blue eyes, and I hear him all day yelling “20 pitas for 10 [shekels]! 20 pitas for 10!” or “Kilo of ruggelach is 15! Kilo of ruggelach is 15!” We usually talk about how I haven’t yet found an Israeli boyfriend, or how cool I think his new square pitas are, or where I’ll be eating for upcoming Jewish holidays.

If I took the alternate route to my apartment, I’d pass my old milk place, which turned into a burger and beer joint, and I’d talk with the owner about burgers. He’d promise me the best burger or my life and I’d remind him that I’m American, so it’s probably not going to happen.

Once I reach my apartment door, the neighbor wants to come in and say hello to our dog. She tells me how lonely she’s been since she lost her two dogs within a few months of each other after one died and one ran away. “I sat shiva for them,” she tells me, referring to the traditional Jewish mourning period.

It’s funny how happy these small encounters make me. I’ve only been here a few months, but I feel incorporated into the fabric of life here. I know these aren’t meaningful friendships – but the casual, sustained interaction is something you don’t find in so many places. I wonder if I’ll be able to live in normal suburbia ever again, or if I’ll simply miss too much this hubbub of humanity swirling around me at all points, people who don’t know my name but who recognize my hair and say hello.

I never realized how isolating Rehavia is. Sure, I’ve got my tailor, my convenience store guy, my garden lady. But I only saw them if I sought them out. Here I see these people daily just by walking out the door.

It’s funny, you don’t realize you were missing this type of interaction until you have it, and you look back and think to yourself – oh, that’s why I was unhappy, I was lonely! Being a reporter without an office is quite isolating, and I simply wasn’t getting enough human interaction, the same way in Boston in the winter I don’t get enough sunlight.

I feel rooted here in this place by the, well, they’re not friendships, but perhaps, acquaintances that I’ve woven into my life here. I feel rooted and safe. Perhaps if I were religious and I lived in Katamon and I found a synagogue I loved, I would have found this community long ago, a framework of people united by a physical place. But I didn’t.

Some of the activist organizations in Jerusalem argue that we desperately need events on Saturdays and Shabbat in order to provide secular people with some feeling of community. Religious people have a community built into their weekends by virtue of the way Shabbat is set up. But secular people, we have to fight for a place to belong.

Recently I saw a friend of mine who grew up secular in Jerusalem. We’ve known each other for a decade, and I know she’s struggled intensely for many years to find herself. I ran into her in Tel Aviv, just as I was fleeing from Jerusalem and she was returning for a brief visit with her parents.

“Life is so much better since I left Jerusalem,” she told me. Don’t get me wrong – there are amazing things to this city as well. We spoke about the way good things in Jerusalem – good people, good bars, good parties, good relationships – are so much better in Jerusalem than Tel Aviv because they’re scarce and therefore almost magical. Because though you must work for everything in this city, the work that you invest is reaped in the rewards, which are so much sweeter than anything you’d find in Tel Aviv.

“My problem with Jerusalem,” I told her, “is that I feel like everything is a war. Everything I do I feel like I’m fighting for. I never get to just relax here.” It was perhaps the first time I was able to clarify my thoughts like that, crystallizing them into one sentiment: holy crap, I’m exhausted by life in Jerusalem.

But my friend told me she was so happy to hear that, as someone who grew up in Jerusalem and felt the same way. For both of us it was a moment of legitimacy – two secular girls struggling in the holy city.

I find it strange, but then again completely explainable, why I’ve wrapped myself in my secular identity like an armor. In America, or even in Tel Aviv, I would never say, “I’m secular!” But here I’m in the minority and I have to fight for the right to be a secular Jerusalemite.

What I’m trying to say is when I moved into the shuk (Hebrew for “market,” I never expected to find a community here. It was an accidental but wonderful discovery, that the shuk is still very much a shuk, that despite the gentrification, the charm that’s here isn’t a front put on for tourists. This place is raw, a little rough around the edges (Jimmy says there was a knife fight last night below my balcony while I was at another bar). But it’s authentic, it’s real, and it is a community. That perhaps is the most amazing part of living here. That for me, the shuk is a home.

In Defense of the Pig

Image from theSOP.org

I was on my way to a story today (ok, it took me a few months to get around to posting this) when I had to defend my bacon. Pig farms do exist in Israel, but only on platforms, apparently so that the pigs’ feet don’t touch the holy earth of Israel (that doesn’t seem to prevent pigsty owners from dumping pig waste directly into Israel’s holy drinking water).

“I can’t believe they’re selling bacon! Can you believe they’re selling pig at this store? Real pig! Here in Jerusalem!” An elderly woman was almost hysterical while waiting for the light rail train. “Pig! Here in Jerusalem!” she told everyone at the light rail station.

I know, I know, what am I doing at a light rail station if I claim to bike everywhere? Having a sprained ankle means that I’m just injured enough to need to take public transportation everywhere, but not injured enough that work pays for all my travel by taxi. It’s been quite a drag, though I’ve gotten a new appreciation for the bus system in the city, which I never learned because I bike everywhere. Now I can empathize more with my complaining friends when I write about public transportation. It also means I’ve got lots of time when I’m just sitting around at bus stops waiting and watching people up close.

I knew I should have just kept my mouth shut – always keep your mouth shut in these situations. But perhaps because I was on my way to report on a protest from Women of the Wall, and they were protesting exactly that: a lack of tolerance, an inability to accept that people have different ways of living their lives and different practices.

“So what?” I asked her. “So what if they sell pig?” I didn’t really need to say anything, because then her nephew blew up at her. “Why are you making a big deal of this? You know I eat pig! You know I eat pig and that I like eating pig! If you ever want to see me again, you need to respect my decisions!” It was one of those confrontations that you know has many other dramas leading up to it. He stormed off.

Other people at the bus stop, intrigued by the family drama, joined  into the conversation. “Is that your son?” asked a religious man next to me. “My sister’s son,” the woman replied. “You know, it’s really not a big deal that they’re selling pig,” the old religious man told her. “They’ve been there for years. They’re selling it for the Russians.”

“They had some trouble with the haredim at first, but they’ve been there fore about two years now,” said another religious man wearing a black kippah. “But here? In Jerusalem? This is the holy city?” the woman said.

“What does it matter if it’s the holy city?” I asked. “People in the holy city eat pig. I eat pig.”

“YOU eat pig?” the woman asked me, incredulous. “Are you Jewish?”

“Yes, I’m Jewish. I’m proud to be Jewish, and I’m proud to eat pig.”

“How can that be? You’re not being a good Jew,” she started to lecture me. “How can you eat pig in the Holy City? I was here before the establishment of the State. I was here when the British were here. I was here when they were shooting us for being Jewish. How can you eat pig here?”

“Because it’s my decision and it’s my right to be able to decide what to do,” I said.

“But I was here in Jerusalem when the British were shooting shells at us as we walked down the street,”

“Lady, what are you talking about? What do the British have to do with eating pig?” asked the man with the black kippah.

“We fought for this city. We fought for the holy city. And now people are going and eating pig here!” she said.

“Lady, people have been eating pig here since the British were here. People have been selling pig in Jerusalem and Rehavia for decades.”

“But how? How can you eat pig here, here in the holy city?” she asked again, starting to sound like a broken-hearted broken record. ”

“What, do your kids eat pig?” the woman asked the man with the black kippa. “You’re crazy,” the man answered, clearly offended. “Do my kids eat pig?!” he said to me. “What kind of question is that?”

The light rail came and we all got on at different doors. I wonder if the woman and her nephew made amends, or if the pig debate was a sign of deeper rifts in the family.

But what I wanted to tell her, if I had had the time, is that the British shooting you and my decision to eat pig ARE related. You’re right, crazy conservative lady. In America, I never ate pig. I kept kosher/vegetarian outside the house from age 8 until well into my 20s. Only when I moved to Israel did I stop keeping kosher.

I always figured that when I moved to Israel I’d become religious. Most of my friends here were religious, my adopted families were all religious, and I was moving to Jerusalem. It seemed the natural progression – me, too, I’d be religious as well. Instead, I found myself swinging to the vehemently secular side – a move that surprised me. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

Living outside of Israel, I had to cling to something to set me apart and act as a physical manifestation of my Jewish identity. Here in Israel, I have nothing to prove. I am Jewish just by getting on the light rail or walking down the street, whether or not there are British munitions pointed at me.

At a recent music festival, I was thrilled when indie rocker Avi Adaki finished his set late on Friday afternoon and then led the crowd in a blessing for Shabbat. “This is so cool! This would never happen in America!” I enthused to my friend. He, along with most of the crowd, was pretty apathetic. But that, to me, was exactly the way I want to be Jewish: to have an electric-guitar accompanying me as I welcome the Shabbat, and then to spend the rest of my night of rest rocking out with my friends under the stars in an empty field in the Negev with copious amounts of alcohol. No pig at the festival, because we didn’t have a refrigerator, but last year we did see the Iron Dome in action on our drive home.

I assume that if or when I move back to the US, I might again become kosher. Here, I almost have something to prove in the opposite direction: that no one can tell me how to be Jewish. I will eat pig because I have to maintain my secular identity in the face of so much Orthodoxy forced on me from so many directions.

The interaction reminded me of my friend Ma’ayan’s argument in support of the haredim: if no one guards the Jewish traditions like they do, the traditions will eventually disappear. You may not like them, but the survival of Judaism depends on it. Sure, you can be all hippy dippy and be accepting of everyone and diversity, but eventually, within a few generations everything will be lost to assimilation.

Reluctantly I have to agree that there is some truth in what she says. I don’t like it, and I certainly don’t want to live my life in the haredi manner, but at least the haredim aren’t worried about assimilation and never will be.

But there’s also truth in my position: that because people have fought for Israel, fought and died to create a Jewish homeland, I no longer need to be bound by the traditions that set us apart. I can respect the traditions, but I’m no longer required to keep them as a prerequisite to the survival of Judaism. Because we have a country, Judaism will survive in some form or another. Because we have a country, there is space for a colorful range of Jewish practices, we are no longer all clinging to the same lifeboat amidst a sea of stormy anti-Semitism.

I got off the light rail and went to report on the “Global Shema Flashmob” – an initiative of Jews around the world saying “Shema” in solidarity with Anat Hoffman. The Women of the Wall’s issues with the police continue to amaze me. Only in Israel, have the police decided what constitutes a “female tallit” or a “male tallit.”

I do understand part of where Ma’ayan was coming from, and even where the conservative lady was coming from – why did we fight for this country if it’s going to become like any other place. If nothing sets it apart as Jewish, then what was the point of all the suffering and fighting? I have no answers. I just know one thing: bacon is delicious.

Diaspora Jews stand with Women of the Wall

By MELANIE LIDMAN

10/23/2012 05:15

Hundreds simultaneously recite prayer in flashmob event after arrest of Women of the Wall chairwoman Anat Hoffman.

Hundreds of people around the world on Monday simultaneously recited the shema prayer in a unique flashmob event, in response to the arrest of Women of the Wall chairwoman Anat Hoffman last week.

Hoffman was arrested during a late night event on October 16 while accompanying approximately 250 members of the Hadassah Women’s Organization to the Western Wall.

Continue reading on jpost.com

Next Year in Jerusalem

Just realized I never published this. A little belated – the theme, after all, was Passover – but here are some thoughts I shared with my home synagogue while I was back for the holiday in April. I still can’t believe people pay me to talk!

My speech at Temple Emunah, Passover 2012:

I’d like to thank Rabbi Lerner and everyone here at Temple Emunah for hosting me here. It’s an honor to be able to address the congregation where I grew up, though right now I have a serious inner conflict going where I’m fighting my innate urge to leave the sanctuary during the sermon.

I’d like to talk today about Jerusalem. I am the Jerusalem reporter at the Jerusalem Post, so that’s also what I do for a living. Even after two and a half years, it still hasn’t sunk in that I live in Jerusalem. Every time I hear the word “Yerushalayim” in a prayer or a Shabbat song, I get a little chill. It’s like when I was young and I used to hear Lexington mentioned on the traffic report on the radio. Hey – I think to myself – I LIVE there!

Growing up in a Zionist home outside of Israel, you tend to put the city on a pedestal. Jerusalem is – well, it’s Jerusalem! It’s mentioned in the Torah 632 times, it’s part of Hatikvah, it’s the place Jews have dreamed about for 2,000 years. In the Old City the stones ooze with holiness and you’re so close to the heavens you can practically tweet with God directly. Jerusalem of Gold, Jerusalem of our dreams, Jerusalem of our soul.

And then there’s the Jerusalem that I see as a reporter: a city government overrun with corruption. An ultra-Orthodox community getting more and more extreme, more women wearing burkas, or their Jewish equivalent, every time I go to Mea Shearim. Young Arab boys, with no resources or afterschool programs, throwing rocks in order to attract attention from the international media, and then becoming more and more antagonistic towards the State as they are jailed in ever-increasing numbers. Crushing poverty among both Jews and Arabs, growing homelessness. Rampant racism against Ethiopians, sexism, homophobia. A total disarray in the education system,

Don’t forget that in addition to all of Jerusalem’s political problems, she is the largest and poorest city in Israel. The city has all of the regular urban problems of any poor metropolis – murders, gangs, drugs, you name it. Then there’s the political dimension, through which every local problem – like a shortage of housing and decision to build a few hundred apartments in Gilo, located over the 1967 Green Line – becomes an international story with condemnations from the European Union. There’s also the religious dimension, where Jews are fighting with Muslims, and, with even more vehemence, Jews are fighting with other Jews.

I’m not the only one shocked by the disparity between the Jerusalem of the Torah and the Jerusalem of reality. About fifteen people each year are diagnosed with “Jerusalem Syndrome,” a recognized mental disorder when people are so overwhelmed by the intensity of the city, and often how different the noisy, dirty city is from the holy Jerusalem they imagined – that they experience a severe psychotic break with reality and believe they are the Moshiach. There’s a mental hospital in the Givat Shaul neighborhood of Jerusalem dedicated to dealing with these people, which happens, surprisingly, more than once a month.

I haven’t had a severe psychotic break with reality yet, at least that I know of. But in order to survive my daily job as a reporter, I just keep my head down and not think too hard, plowing through as many stories as I can on a given day. Sometimes, when I try to take a step back and see Jerusalem’s situation as part of a bigger picture, I just get discouraged. Everything seems so hopeless. The conflict with the Arabs is so complicated and violent that peace is impossible. The religious strife is growing each year as extremism becomes more prevalent. And as many of my friends flee for Tel Aviv because they can’t find jobs in Jerusalem – and can’t take the pressure of such a heavy city – the economic situation shows little chance of improving.

Which is why Passover is hard for me. Last year, Passover was deeply personal – having come out of a dangerous experience in Egypt myself, I was just grateful to be surrounded by Jews, I didn’t much care where. But now that I’ve been the beat reporter for a year and a half, I’ve come to know Jerusalem on a much deeper level. As a reporter, I probe the city for her faults. I seek out her cracks and whack away with my pen. I like to think that my articles make a positive difference, but there’s a possibility I’m just inflicting even more damage.

So what does it mean to say “Next year in Jerusalem” when I know Jerusalem is far from perfect?

I feel a bit like the scouts that Moses sent to the land of Israel in the parsha Shlach L’cha, the ones that came back and said “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers…” What happened to them? They were killed by worms that went through their tongue and out their belly, warned my very Zionistic friend who was worried about me saying bad things about Jerusalem.

Even the name Jerusalem, is difficult for me to swallow. There are many variations on what the name means, but the most generally accepted one is a combination of “Yeru” – and he, God, saw – and “Shalem,” meaning “perfect” or “whole.” If God looked at Jerusalem and saw it was perfect, well, he definitely wasn’t looking at the city where I live.

But what I’ve learned in the past two and a half years of living in Jerusalem is that while the city is definitely not perfect, there are moments of indescribable beauty that will simply take your breath away. Every day, about fifteen minutes after the sun slips below the horizon, there’s a brief minute where the white Jerusalem stone captures the orange glow of the sky and the buildings sing with color. On Fridays about 40 minutes before Shabbat, the city seems to sink down in her easy chair and let out an audible sigh of relief, that after six days of being incredibly intense, she finally has some time to rest. I had one of those moments of beauty hiking in the Jerusalem forest with the survivor of a terrorist attack a year after the attack in the same place, as she explained where she had found the strength to continue living. I had another moment training for the marathon early on a Friday morning and flying over the cobblestones of the Old City up to the Mount of Olives, where the early sunlight glints off of the Dome of the Rock. Hearing the stories of my friend’s grandmother’s courage and creativity as she created a life for herself in Israel after leaving Yemen, or the stories of veterans who fought in the Six Day War and still cry when they walk to the top.

It’s seeing the momentos piled high on my friend Michael Levin’s grave from thousands of American visitors who are moved by his story. The little Hassidic kids on bicycles, their tzitzit dangerously close to the spokes. Or getting an email from the mayor’s spokesman assuring me that the city’s public hametz had been sold before Passover.

Jerusalem in Hebrew has a plural ending “Yerushalayim” – the only city in the world in Hebrew to have a plural name. Tradition teaches us that there are two Jerusalems – lower Jerusalem, the day-to-day Jerusalem with the ugly parts that I see. And there’s upper Jerusalem, the Jerusalem we aspire to, the holy Jerusalem of our dreams. By doing acts of loving kindness, we bring the two Jerusalems closer together.

Yeru – shalem. It’s not up to God to see the whole picture and deem it perfect. It’s up to each one of us to seek out and see the moments of beauty hidden inside all of the heartbreak and difficulties. It’s up to us to celebrate those moments with even more passion because they are surrounded by pain.

At the end of the day, Moses didn’t listen to the majority of the scouts who warned of the perils of the land of Israel. He listened to the two who said it was a land flowing with milk and honey. That is the story of the Jewish people – to listen to the ones who say it is possible. The ones that say that not only can we make the desert bloom, but that Jews can even grow fish in the desert.

So don’t listen to me – I’m just a cynical, jaded journalist. Listen to the words of the Torah, the songs of our history, and listen to the Haggadah: Next year in Jerusalem!

I’d like to thank my family for allowing me to live so far away. Though I know that the distance isn’t easy for any of us, I am so grateful you are allowing me to pursue my dreams. Don’t worry, dad, only 59 more days till you get your wife back. I’d like to thank my brother, Ben, who has to put up with a lot of the crap I conveniently escape from by being on the other side of the world. I’d like to thank my grandparents who came all the way up here to celebrate, and the Bernays-Heiger clan, who are like my extended family.

Most of all I’d like to thank Temple Emunah. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and Temple Emunah has certainly been the village for me. It is because of this community that I am where I am today. So I bless you all, and I hope you bless me back – for a springtime filled with brightness and happiness, and a kosher and happy Passover. And may we all say with renewed strength – Next Year in Jerusalem!

From the jail to the opera

After a year and a half, wow, almost two years, as the Jerusalem reporter, I’ve learned to steel myself to the jarring pace of my work, hoping around from one story to the next in totally unconnected subjects spanning the geopolitical, religious, and cultural worlds. But there are days that still jolt me with their incongruity.

I had a day like that recently as I covered for the legal reporter and wrote about the military trial in the death of Asher Palmer and his infant son, who were killed when a rock was hurled at their car last September near Kiryat Arba. I’ve carried guilt about this story because I was covering for the settlements reporter when they were killed. The army initially reported it as a regular car accident, despite the fact that it happened during a period of unrest in an area where rock throwing was frequent. I called the police reporter and powwowed with him – he argued it was a road accident, I argued it was a terrorist attack. In the end, I acquiesced to his side because it was erev hag (holiday eve) and I needed to leave to get to my friend’s house in time for the holiday.

When it later emerged that it was a terrorist attack, I felt like I had dropped the ball. All of the news outlets went with the story that it was a car accident, but still…. So when the news editor asked me to cover developments in the trial, I felt like some of my uneasiness could be redeemed.

It took me more than two hours to get to the Ofer Military Court, between Jerusalem and Ramallah (though it’s only a 15 minute drive, thanks Jpost for being incredibly cheap with your taxis). The case is being heard by a military court because there is no civilian court in the West Bank. Then I waited waited on a bench in the sun outside the drab concrete building for 45 minutes because my permit wasn’t approved to enter the military base.

Palestinians were coming and going all the time, whole families waiting outside while trying to navigate the complicated military legal system. I don’t always come into contact with the security situation in such a vivid way, as a witness to the inner workings of military court. There are some things, I think, that a new immigrant should never have to see, and one of them is the waiting room of a military court. Talk about hopelessness and depression.

More than anything, I hate interviewing bereaved families. I’ve written about that extensively in this blog. But I once mentioned this to a more experienced journalist friend who worked during the Intifada, and she had some interesting insight. Despite the difficulties of talking to a reporter in the midst of their grief, she said, many bereaved families are grateful that someone cares, and that someone will read about their child, and someone will remember them. I think what’s more difficult for me is this mentality of hordes of journalists mobbing the grieving family and not being sensitive to their needs. But done right, a journalist’s job in the wake of tragedy is essential and important to the family, who will save these articles forever.

Covering the murder trial of Asher Palmer was that kind of important. The family, originally from America, already suffered the indignity of it being classified as an accident rather than a terrorist attack, and the muted outcry that came after they reversed the decision. I think the media owes them now to get the story right, and to continue to talk about it.

I know that Asher’s father Michael was grateful for my presence, though I missed the entire trial and only spoke with him afterwards. And if we can provide some small measure of comfort in the face of insurmountable loss, then isn’t that what we’re here for?

Judge accepts Palmer’s victim impact statement

By MELANIE LIDMAN

06/06/2012 20:13

Case dealt with Palestinian man who stole gun from Asher Palmer immediately after he was killed by rock throwing.

A military judge accepted a victim impact statement from the family of Asher Palmer on Wednesday, in a precedent-setting move that gives victims significantly greater recognition in military courts.

The judge accepted a written statement from Michael Palmer, the father of Asher Palmer, who was killed along with his baby son when Arabs threw rocks at his car on Route 60 near Hebron in September.

Continue reading on Jpost.com

~~~~

After Michael Palmer gave me a hitchhike back to Jerusalem (only in Israel), I had a few hours to write up my article and then get ready for the Israel Opera. After two years of waiting, I’d finally wrangled my way onto the press trip for the dress rehearsal of the Israel Opera’s production of Carmen at the foot of Masada.

I was so close I could get these shots with a non-professional camera!

My seventh-row seats in the real world would cost about 20% of my monthly salary, and I knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime to watch opera in the middle of the desert. I could barely contain my excitement despite the general apathy from other journalists who had already seen previous years’ productions.

Sitting and waiting for the opera to begin, I had to pinch myself. How was it that just four hours ago I was in the waiting room of the Ofer Military Prison, utterly depressed about the future of this state, and now, I’m in the middle of a desert waiting for a lavish opera with more than 400 performers?

If anything says “we’re not a developing country anymore,” it’s an over-the-top $8 million operatic production with 17 live horses and donkeys in the middle of the barren desert.

Sometimes it’s all you can do to just shake your head and chuckle at the absurdity of life here. After all, if all of life is a stage, then the show must go on. 

Masada sandstorm gives Israeli opera star break

By MELANIE LIDMAN

06/08/2012 03:10

‘Carmen’ star replaced by local understudy after desert climate proves too much.

The story of Masada tells of Israeli heroism over stronger forces, of determination, of passion, of eking out a living in the harsh desert climate.

The story of the Israeli Opera’s production of Carmen at Masada had many of the same elements: 2,500 people working for six months and subsisting on sheer determination to create a lavish theatrical production in the middle of the desert. Call it extreme opera, if you will.

But the desert climate proved too much for Carmen herself.

Continue reading on jpost.com

Pride and prejudice

This country sets you up for heartbreak.

It’s a strange relationship you build with this country, growing up in America. You’re so close to the idea of Israel, an idea that’s easy to perpetrate from afar and on quick, two-week visits to the country.

And it sets you up for heartbreak, because the reality of Israel will never live up to your expectations. But perhaps because for so many years you’ve been programmed to put the country on a pedestal, even when you’re exposed to the ugly realities it’s hard to break that habit.

I traded harsh words with a friend visiting from America when I told her it frustrated me to see Americans coming for short visits and engaging in political activism. “You don’t live here, you don’t have to deal with the consequences, it’s not your battle,” I told her. She was offended by that opinion, and rightly so.  Israel is intensely personal for her as well. My arrogant, but sincere, opinion doesn’t jibe with the American Jewish way of relating to Israel: we’re all Jewish, so we’re all in this together. Sorry guys, but we’re not. It’s not fun to hear, but I’ll lay it out quick: just because you give massive amounts of money to this country doesn’t mean you understand the daily reality of life here.

As much as you can read online about the news in Israel – and I sincerely hope you do, because let’s be honest, that’s my livelihood – I can never translate all the nuances of the conflict into a concise article. I don’t even understand the nuances myself, because I’m still relatively new.

I guess more than the political activism, what frustrates me with many of the Americans I meet here is that they’ve already formed their opinions before they come to Israel. And the thing about this country is that you can see whatever you want to see. If you’re a leftist, or a rightist, you’ll be able to find facts, people, organizations, and tours of Jerusalem that support your worldview and vilify the “other.”

What I want most of all is for people to come to Israel with an open mind. It’s hard because Jews understandably are interested in Israel, follow the country’s news, and form opinions from afar. But I wish people would come here the same way we visit somewhere like Greece or Morocco: without political opinions, with a humbleness and a willingness to learn from all sorts of people, not just ones who agree with you.

But as angry as I get when Americans treat Israel differently, I completely admit that my relationship with this country is totally skewed as well.

For better or for worse, I hold Israel to a higher standard. It might not be right or fair, but it’s the result of that complicated relationship you have with her in America. I know in my reporting and in my daily life, I hold Israel to a higher standard morally than I would any other country, including America. This country gets under your skin and into your blood, and things are just PERSONAL.

Putting the country on a pedestal works both ways: sometimes, I am crushed by the inequalities here of the current demonstrating group – Ethiopians, or Arabs, or impoverished families. But sometimes, I take immense pride in Israel’s accomplishments. Even when they have nothing to do with me, I can’t help but schep naches just because I am a part of the country and this crazy experience.

That’s what I felt during Pride Week this year – pride, not gay pride people, but Israeli Pride. Laying out in the sun on Hilton Beach in Tel Aviv, the popular gay beach hangout, underneath the rainbow awnings and surrounded by possibly the most beautiful people in the world, I was so proud of Israel in an intensely personal way.

Sure, I was proud of America when Obama finally came out in favor of gay marriage. But it was more like, gee, what took you so long. Here in Israel, with the bad techno beats blasting and the gay guys next to me giving a play-by-play of the Madonna concert, I was so proud to be there. Yes, this country is screwed up and this scene could never happen in Jerusalem. But look at the countries that surround us and look at Hilton Beach. Look at the beautiful, chiseled people here basking in the sun and all this wonderfulness.

Look at what the official army Facebook page publishes in honor of gay pride month.

From IDF Facebook – this photo was later proved to be staged. Ok, it would have been nice if they’d mentioned that on the original post – illustrative photo etc – but the sentiment was the important part. Facebook isn’t NYTimes.

Look at this gorgeous picture of my friends, two religious lesbians who got married in the most beautiful ceremony a few weeks ago.

Is that a little tear I see in your eye? It’s OK, let it out.