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Yartzeit (Yiddish): the anniversary of a person’s passing

As many of you may know, today is my father’s, Mark Rosenthal, Yartzeit. He died four years ago from terminal thyroid cancer. Traditionally, you would go to temple and say the Mourner’s Kaddish. Most reform jews go on the nearest Friday. I’ve always felt that you should find a way to honor the person who died….like do something that they liked to do, eat something that they like, etc. Problem is, I’m just having a hard time finding something. People say that a person is never truly gone if you still think of them. Well, I feel like I’m reminded of him everytime I look in the mirror, say a bad joke, joke with a waiter, get grumpy, or even when I get disappointed with people because they didn’t do the best that they could do. So it’s hard to find one specific thing to do today to honor him. Ironically, it’s much easier to find something that he hated then something that he liked. I feel like I should go eat mustard, go to an italian restaurant that has paper table clothes, watch a sporting event with lots of commercials, etc. It’s also sometimes a hard day for me because we had our differences, but at the end of the day, I am my father’s son.

So one thing that Dad definitely loved to do is go traveling. So it seems appropriate that I just spend some time packing up my backpack and getting ready to meet my brother in Croatia. It’s very weird for me as I am just getting used to being in Israel, and now I’m leaving for 12 days. I’m definitely looking forward to spending some quality time with my old travel partner. I am a bit concerned to leave Jessica alone in Isarel, but am reassured that she is definitely not alone as many of her classmates have already said stuff about making plans and being around. Gotta love community.

Well that is all for now. Give someone you love a hug, cause life is frankly too short not too.

A quick post, mainly to upload some images.

The other night, they had a tour of the areas around the Old City and into the Old City. It was really interesting learning some of the biblical history of the area as opposed to just walking around and enjoying the scenery.

On Friday, the interns arranged a trip to Tel Aviv. We spent the first part of the day walking around the market, and the rest of the day at the beach. Unfortunately, we spent the time playing and didn’t really take any pictures. We finished off our day attending Shabbat services on the pier overlooking the Meditterean Sea. It was definitely very beautiful and different then any other service that I’ve been to. It was also entirely in Hebrew. The rendition of ‘What a Wonderful World’ completely in hebrew was a highlight for me.

We went to three holy sites in two days:  the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Each one had its own sense of grandeur and beauty, but they also had many tourists (like me) looking at everything and taking pictures.  And annoying people who thought that it might be amusing to take pictures of a stuffed baby penguin at said holy sites.  (um.. also me)

In any case, I found it troubling that tourists were allowed to come in, make noise and discuss mundane concerns while there were services taking place both at the church and the Western Wall.  (Interesting, tourists are asked to leave during prayer hours at the Temple Mount.)  This might work as a solution to the other sites, but it might become complicated for multiple groups who wish to use the wall/Church at the same time.

While it is difficult to understand why tourists were allowed to interrupt or observe services, it was interesting to see.  Each holy site had a unique beauty that not only resided within the building materials themselves but also the love that many of the worshipers brought to their prayer experiences.  There were people in tears at the Western Wall as well as those who had a holy aura about there faces.  There was some intense praying going down (or up depending upon your orientation.)

Now for something completely different…

I had my first week of ulpan classes.  We are studying modern hebrew from 8:30 – 1:00 each day.  (Tuesdays we have tefillah in the morning, and we have had some extra sessions here and there about biblical Israel.)  The administration created 4 Hebrew levels (alef, bet, gimel and dalet)  All of our classes will be based on these levels.  I was placed in level gimel.  So far there is a ton of new vocabulary… but I have not really learned any new grammar.  :(  (although we have touched on some simple grammar… good review)

Level gimel has two teachers who switch off each day so homework is assigned and collected by the same teacher.  Thus we get our assignments a day ahead of time. I am finding it difficult to learn to speak and understand spoken Hebrew though, because it is not enough immersion.   I am thinking about ordering TV so that I can watch children’s shows in Hebrew.  We will see how that goes.  I have also heard that people learn Hebrew well when watching soap operas in Hebrew.  As the dean mentioned then I’ll know how to say catchy phrases such as, “I am your long lost sister from Argentina,”  or “I am carrying your baby.”

Other than that, all is well.  Chad is getting ready to go to  Croatia with his brother Scott, and we are planning to go to see Batman tomorrow night.  We miss everyone, and hope that you are well!!

We hope to hear from y’all soon!

Chad here to add some thoughts in regards to the Holy Sites. I’ve always found different religions fascinating, so getting to see the different sites was a great experience. First, one of the things that amazes me about religion is the importance that is put on ritual objects. Upon entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, people were praying in front of a large stone that had oil on it. Looking up from the stone, there was a huge mosaic that was depicted Jesus’ anointment before his burial. People were putting objects onto the stone to bless them. Objects included items brought from home and also cheap postcards bought down the street. So that’s fascinating to believe that Jesus’ dead body was on this stone before his burial, until you find out that the stone is only about 200 years old and just commemorates his annointment. Hmmm….. The list goes on of Christian sites and objects throughout Jerusalem. The reason that they are holy is that one or more of the churches decided that they were holy. Very fascinating.

Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock was also a great experience. We get there by pure chance as we were actually trying to meet up with some friends and got into the wrong line. We thought we were in the security line for the Western Wall. Instead, we were in the security line for Temple Mount. We called our friends, and they came to meet us. So a slight historical account of Temple Mount. The top of Temple Mount is where they believe Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac. It is also where they believe Mohammed ascended to Heaven. It was also the location of the first and second Temples 2500 years ago. So needless to say, it has history. It’s also controversial.

So it was quite cool to be up there. The top is a huge place. Someone said it was 37 acres…or something like 15 football fields. During the Muslim holy days, they can fit over a million people on the top. A sight that I’d love to see, but will never be able to. The Dome of the Rock is closed to tourists, so I can’t tell you what it looks like. I respect the reasons they close it, but am still disappointed that I couldn’t go in.

So that is it for now. I will leave you with some pictures from Temple Mount and the walk that we took around the Ramparts of the Old City.

One of the interesting bi-products of Jess going to school to be a Rabbi is the religious exploration that I get to go on. Whether or not I like it is irrelevant, because I’m surrounded by it. Last night was a good example of the journey.

This week for Shabbat (Friday night), HUC hosted all of the students plus some select guests for services and dinner. Services were a bit more alternative then your normal run of the mill services, and you could tell when you walked in the door that it’d be different as the seats were set-up to be facing each other in a more circle like pattern. The HUC fourth year interns lead services with a guitar and a lot of singing.

After a delicious dinner, a couple of the more musically inclined song leaders of the group lead us in a very enjoyable song session.

Afterwards, the philosophical part of the evening began. A few of us met up at our apartment to just hang out and talk. One of the guys talked about his exploration of what Shabbat meant to him, and was curious about other people’s journeys and what Shabbat meant to them in the past and where they would like Shabbat to fit in the future. Now, I’ll admit that is a pretty deep and loaded question, but it definitely brought up interesting discussions and was very interesting to see where the different students were coming from.

As for me, Shabbos lately has been more of a Friday night thing. Saturday is the day that I take care of all of the logistics like bills, cleaning the house, etc. That being said, the idea of a day of rest is really appealing. Day of Rest isn’t really accurate, how about a day of elevation. A day where instead of getting bogged down with the logistics of life, we slow down just a little and truly enjoy the people and the land around us. A day to stop and smell the roses (if you can…).

It’s a pretty powerful idea…and people have been doing it in some form or another for thousands of years. It has always been easier to do this when you’re in a close knit community. In New York, we’d go out to the park and just hang out with a pot-luck lunch or even just to throw around a frisbee and enjoy a nice day. Back at Teva, it was incredibly easy to enjoy a Shabbat because everyone was doing it. Nobody talked about work, and everyone was just finding there special way to ‘elevate’ the day.

Lately, it has become harder and harder for me to separate a day. Even after having this great exploratory discussion till late into the night, the first thing I did this morning was wake up, pick-up my computer, check my email, surf the internet, and even check my work email. D’oh!

One thing that has always been very clear to me is that having a spiritual religious experience indoors doesn’t necessarily work for me. I’ve always felt much more connected with myself and where I stand in the world, and where I want to stand in the world when I’m out in nature on a hike. Maybe it’s just because all of the mundane distractions are gone. There’s no email, internet, Wii, bills, or dirty dishes that get in the way on a hike. There is just you, the people you are with, and the nature around you (and since I’m out of shape, the pain of exercise). Of course, living in Jerusalem, it’s a lot harder to get out of the city on Shabbos because the entire city shuts down, well not entirely, but it’s significantly harder to get around and find stores that are open.

So as the year progresses and Jess progresses towards one day being a Rabbi, it will be interesting to see where my journey goes.

Since Jess likes to finish her entries with questions, feel free to think about, and post your thoughts in the comments section below. What does Shabbat or the Sabbath mean to you? Do you do anything to differentiate this day compared to the rest of the week? What would you like to do differently that you don’t already do?

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So I thought I’d take this opportunity to discuss our apartment. Before we left, there were a lot of questions concerning how we’re going to live, what the apartments were like, etc. After living here for the last 10 days, I have a better idea. In fact, instead of telling you about it in text, we posted our first video on YouTube!

So that’s it. Any questions?

Some of the more cool features of our place are the drying rack, our laundry line, and our 2 different hot water heaters.

Our drying rack is cool just because it’s part of the cabinets and I’ve never seen it before. The laundry line is great because our clothes dry in less time then using our dryer, and it’s much better for the environment.

The two heaters are pretty cool as one is a passive solar water heater and the other is a tankless water heater . The passive system uses the suns heat to naturally heat up the water without any electricity, while the tankless water heater only uses energy to heat the water you’re using. This differs from the American water heaters as our system is constantly keeping gallons of water hot all day long, regardless if you are home or not. Basically a huge waste of energy.

I’m basically loving the more environmental parts of the apartment. Not much else is different from an American apartment. The plugs are different shape and a different voltage and the TV is PAL instead of NTSC (which is why our Mario Kart displays in Black and White…grrr….). Instead of a mops we have floor squigees.

That’s all for now. Later on, we’ll post about live outside of the apartment. Wahoo!

I only have vague memories of Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem) from my first trip to Israel in the early 1990′s.  The monuments were quite impactful.  They focused on remembering using symbolic architecture as an artistic tool.  

These strategies contrast with the Washington DC museum greatly.  In Washington DC there is a greater focus on the atrocities themselves… the goal is seemingly to hit participants over the head with the horrors that permeated the Holocaust (some examples include: a piles of shoes, hair or glasses.)   

With this in mind I entered Yad Vashem not knowing what to expect as it had been renovated sense my last visit.  

From the outside, the museum looked like a gigantic triangular cylinder stabbed into a mountain.  The tip of the triangle was made of glass. 

When we entered, we quickly became silent… as if all of our conversation seemed insignificant.  The first movie clips were about the rich and cultured life of the Jews in Germany and the surrounding areas.  After viewing this introduction, we wove our way through various exhibits filled with factual information, recordings of personal testimonies alongside photos and objects.  The museum was set up chronologically, and told the story from the point of view of the Jewish people’s struggles. The end of the museum opened up to a view of Jerusalem and pathways to the more subtle memorials.  

We spent at least 4 and 1/2 hours pouring over the information, listening to peoples’ stories and visiting the more symbolic “memorial sites.”  By the end we all felt hungry, tired and sore… but also guilty for letting these trivial pains trouble us in the face of what we were visiting.  

A few exhibits were particularly memorable:throughout the entrance and exit courtyards there were trees planted for each of the righteous gentiles, the memorial for the children consisted of candles in a dark room with several mirrors (in the background, childrens’ names and ages were read out loud) and the story of a survivor meeting a soldier seeing what was really taking place for the first time as he stared in horror at the site of his starving body.  

I also found that the nations’ failure to destroy the concentration camps after learning about what was taking place was completely unacceptable and troubling.  Yes there is a war and resources need to be devoted to ending it as soon as possible, but there were many occasions in which war targets were close to concentration camps, there was no excuse not to bomb them.  

In 1942 one world leader wrote, “I don’t know what a Jew is, we only know what human being are.”

I still cling to a certain amount of optimism and hope for the future, but I know that it is going to take a lot of work.  

I think that this was the only piece missing, the next steps… how do we prevent future horrors?  how can we bring people together to move beyond their hatred and fear of each other?  How can we truly reach people?  

Any ideas?  What kind of exhibit would you build to address these concerns?  What would it look like?  What would you hope for it to achieve?  

I’ll be interested to read your thoughts and comments.

l’hit, 

Jessica

Hey all,

In the last few days, we have gone to 2 major tourist spots. They are completely different, but at the same time related.

The first one was the Old City of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera battery, so there won’t be pictures till I head back there. I love the old city. The narrow streets, the people selling goods, all the crap that you can haggle for, etc. The streets are so narrow that there are very few cars in the old city. At the same time, it’s incredibly touristy. If you’re Jewish, you go to the Western Wall…Christain you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulechre, and Muslim…Temple Mount. So there really is a major holy spot for the big 3 religions.

So of course, we had to stop at the Western Wall. For those that don’t know, the Western Wall is over 2000 years old and ‘was merely a retaining wall supporting the outer portion of the Temple Mount, upon which stood the Second Temple.’ Most of what I say is only my (Chad’s opinion) and Jessica will probably have a very different viewpoint. The reason why it’s a holy place now is that it’s the closest spot that Jews can get to where the Second Temple once stood….2000+ years ago. Other than that…it’s just an old wall. Maybe it’s just my own issues, but I just don’t see how this one wall can be more holy then walking through a forest, sitting on a mountain top, enjoying a view in the desert, etc.

If you never been to the wall, it’s an experience. First, they separate the men and the women. 3/4 of the available wall space (and the section that would have been the closest to the Second Temple) is for the men, and 1/4 is for the women. Now I have an incredibly hard time with this. Just can’t see why one gender can be ‘more important’ or even holier then another gender. That’s probably why I’m reform and have no issues being married to a future Rabbi. I could go on a long rant about this, but I won’t. As a male, the moment you walk close to the wall, you will get accosted by very religious Jews who want to put religious items on your body and say a prayer. It’s a commandment in the Torah, but ends up being just another tourist photo. In fact, that was the hardest part for me. If you go to church, would you walk around taking tourist photos, or would you try and be respectful and discreet?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Old City for it’s history. It’s hard to believe that there are areas of this city where people walked over 2000 years ago. It’s hard to even fathom that number. Just sit back and close your eyes and picture the wagons, and people hawking their goods, etc. It’s pretty amazing.

So the next day, we went to Yad Veshem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. If you’re thinking about going, you must mentally prepare yourself to be emotionally beaten, stomped, put through a food processor and then spit back out. Once you think the pain is done….they do it a few more times. It is an emotionally exhausting day. The Memorial itself is the best one I’ve been to. The main building walks you through the rise of the Nazi Party through the liberation and rehabilitation of the Jewish people. It’s very modern, and has video interviews of survivors throughout the museum. In fact, if we sat down to watch them all, we’d probably still be there. The pictures and stories are hard to hear, but what they do is humanize this event that is just too hard to describe. I can’t even begin to describe the horrors that these people, my cultural ancestors, went through and somehow survived. At a certain point, the stories made it so human, that I was picturing the horror and what would it be like if all of us had to live through this atrocity. Let me tell you, it’s not a fun line of thought. Would we try to be hero’s, just go along with it, hide, rob for food, etc?

What it proves to me is that no human being deserves to live in fear because of who they are, their religious choice, their culture, gender, etc. It sucks even more that 6 million people had to die to teach the world a lesson about discrimination, and while we have come a long way…we still have truly learned the lesson. Genocides still occur, discrimination based on race, culture, and gender still exist. Someday….someday…

The 2 rooms that were hardest for me were the Hall of Records and the Children’s Memorial. The Hall of Records is a circular room full of binders telling the story of a Jew that was murdered in the Holocaust. I couldn’t stay in the room. 6 million is a big number. Now think of all of the experiences that you’ve had, all of the people that you’ve met, all of the joys and sorrows you’ve experienced. All of those just simply wiped away in a furnace or by a bullet. This Hall was designed to tell those stories…or what little of those stories still exist. There is a room in the back that survivor’s or the family’s of people that were murdered in the Holocaust can go and can archive their pictures and type up their stories of the victim’s so that they will never be forgotten.

The Children’s Memorial is even worse. It’s worse becaus of it’s simplicity. 1.5 million children died in the Holocaust. The room is a dark room with a single candle reflect millions of times throughout the room. A single voice slowly naming the murdered children’s names. The candles message is simple, not only were the children murdered, but those children would have grown up and had more children. Simple, yet painful.

So I wish this journal entry were more exciting and less depressing. I’ll have to upload some pictures of the market at some point, because that is always more of a fun experience.

Hope all is well and that you remember the line…’Never Again!’.

We have internet!!!!  Whoohoo!!!  It is amazing how much I take that connection for granted.  Email has become my regular mail.  Only junk mail, the occasional news letter, wedding invitations and thank you cards come in the mail these days.  In Israel, I will probably only receive bills via snail mail.  It’s all part of my desire for instant gratification.  Especially with a new time difference, I find that this is the best way to keep in touch.  

On a completely unrelated note, yesterday we visited our first tourist site.  As we have been busy acclimating to life here, we have mainly spent time locating grocery stores, places to purchase school supplies and registering for class.  It felt nice to take a break from the logistics.  We chose to see the kotel and walk around the old city.

 The first time I visited the wall, I was in high school (summer of 1991?)   I remember it having a great impact on me this first trip.  I felt an instant connection with my past present and future Jewish self.  I remember touching it and feeling connected.  I knew that it was only a wall, but there was something magical about the experience.  

The second visit I came with Jewish Family Educators (2003).  I remember being accosted and asked for money by the crowd.  I remember taking pictures of the wall and I remember looking up at it again… as if waiting for the special connection that I had felt the first time.  It didn’t come.  I simply felt like I was visiting a monument, and I was ready to move on to the next site.

I went to the wall this time not expecting anything.  Chad and I went with a couple of people that we have met here through HUC.  We all wore our long skirts (except for Chad…) and ventured slowly toward the wall.  This time I had a task, delivering a few 2nd grade notes to the wall.  I found it difficult to locate the perfect slots for the notes, there were already so many pieces of paper sticking out of every nook and cranny.  There were also several notes on the ground that must have fallen out.  I wondered who cleaned up the notes and what they did with them.  Did those who clean up the area read the carefully written prayers and wishes?  Or did they simply discard them them in a trash receptacle?  Did the people who wrote the notes feel that they had to stay in the wall for a certain length of time??  How did this custom emerge?  

I wonder how I will view the wall as I begin to study the context of the time and customs that have surrounded it over time.  I am also curious to hear other peoples’ experiences at the kotel.  Have you written notes to be placed in the wall?  How did it feel to visit it?  What questions did you leave with?  When you were there was it separated?  Have wall visit experiences evolved?  If so in what way?  

Hope that everyone is well!

As we left the plane, I finally felt that this was real…. we really are leaving to live in Israel for a year.  

My first feelings, while clouded by exhaustion and jet lag, were filled with a bit of apprehension and an odd juxtaposition of coming and leaving home at the same time.  

How is Israel like home?

There is something innately familiar about Israel.  Perhaps it is the countless hours that I have spent as a Jewish educator looking to connect students to Israel the land, people and culture. Maybe it is the natural connection with the images that we constantly poor over when studying Israel.  or perhaps it is some ineffable feeling that links me to our past… or maybe not.  - Whatever it is, it is very present… I am here not as a tourist this time, but a temporary resident.  

How is Israel not like home?

Israel is missing all of you!   Other than that it is the little things… the sub par orange juice, the lack of skim milk, the language barriers (hopefully this will get better as I learn more Hebrew), the hustle of the city (honking horns, and aggressive pedestrians).  The other differences are more tied to American comforts… which I can say I miss less most of the time.  This stems from the fact that Americans tend to be a little more “privileged” than most people in the world.  

I will stop here for now, only adding that  I am curious to find out more about many things…

Israeli clothing styles (what are they)? why do Israelis have better rugalech than americans? Why coke is so expensive? How do Israelis celebrate Shabbat in Jerusalem compared to other Israeli cities?  Where are the interesting places to explore off the beaten track?  What Israeli Television is like?  Why Israelis will throw their cigarettes onto the ground without putting them out first?  How does HUC and the reform movement interact with Jerusalem and Israeli culture in Jerusalem?  Where can I find AC?  and what really started the whole fries or “chips” with felafel?

Tune in next time to find out my somewhat biased opinions about these and more topics!

Shabbat Shalom,

Jessica

Greetings from Jerusalem.

First of all, we arrived safe. Our flights were pretty uneventful. Luckily, we got Economy Plus for the longest leg, so it was a bit more comfortable.

Now for what you really want to hear about. Israel. It’s been ten years since I (Chad) was here last, and five years for Jessica. We got our bags and made through customs hassle free. Our land lady sent us instructions on the best way to get from the airport to our apartment. She was spot on, and we met her in front of our new home.

Our landlady brought her husband and they helped us lug our 7+ pieces of luggage (picture to be uploaded soon) up the five flights of stairs. Definitely above and beyond what was required of them. I can try to describe our apartment, but instead next week I’m going to post a short video walkthrough of our apartment. Isn’t technology great? It’s very comfortable and we have plenty of storage space. We haven’t seen any other apartments yet, so we have no base for comparison, but we like it.

After resting for a few minutes, we headed out for our first adventure down the street to the German Colony. As we were walking, a asked Jess who was going to run into someone they knew first. Well, less than 5 minutes later, Jess won as she ran into an old friend that she hadn’t seen in a few years. Gotta love Jewish Geography. After that, we enjoyed a Shawarma dinner, and then headed back to our apartment. At 9:30, we both crashed and enjoyed a blissful night of rest.

Well, blissful for Jess as I woke up at 3am wide awake. Oye. So I got up, and played the computer and listend to the sounds of the city waking up around our place. At a more reasonable hour, Jess woke up and we went about unpacking our bags. We then started out to find HUC (Hebrew Union College) to get all of our information and take a campus tour that they offered. When we got there, we met about 10+ of her follow students plus some of their SO’s (signifant others). So far, I’ve only met one other SO that is staying for the full year. The campus is much bigger then you’d expect, but it is very nice. One of the rooms upstairs has this gorgeous view of the Old City. In years past, they did High Holy Day services in this room.

After we got our cell phones, health insurance, etc. we grabbed some lunch, set-up our internet service (it will be installed on Tuesday), and then took a much needed nap. For dinner, we headed out to find a restuarant that I read about. Of course, we walked by it without even seeing it and ended up at a sushi restaurant. We’re still looking for a good sushi restaurant, if anyone knows of one.

HUC has interns to help with orientation and have different events planned for the next couple of weeks. Last night, we headed to a bar that is off the beaten path. It was very nice, and the owner loves meeting up with the different students every year. He even bought a bottle of whisky to welcome us.

This morning, the interns took us to Mechaneh Yehuda…aka the Shuk…aka the open air market. I love going there. Beyond the fact that there is the greatest Rugalech stand in the world here, it is just fun seeing everyone out shopping and getting ready for Shabbat. The booths were full of fruits, vegetables, spices, nuts, dried fruit, etc. We stocked up on fruit and veggies and headed home.

Now, we’re at a shawarma stand taking advantage of free internet. It’s pretty warm out and we’re definitely drinking a ton of water.

I’m trying to process my initial feelings, but so far am having a hard time putting them into words. I’m ready to go out and be a tourist, yet also enjoying being able to go home at the end of the day.

We’ll update soon.

L’hitraot,

Chad and Jess