Days 1, 2, and 3... Finally!

So I discovered I have free wifi in the hotel lobby, so I'm sitting here and I finally have an hour free (but not really... I'm exhausted and need to pack for Tzfat tomorrow, where we will be staying through New Years - but they don't call it New Years here, they call it "Sylvestre" and don't like celebrating it because it coincides with the birthday of a man called Sylvester who was responsible for killing thousands of Jews).  I've been incredibly busy but it's all been amazing so far: the classes in the morning are amazing, the afternoon sightseeing has been eventful, and nights on Ben Yahuda street have been a lot of fun.  Here's the highlights:

Day One


We arrived in the hotel exhausted and were immediately shuffled through to dinner without even getting into our room first.  My bags were left in one of the madrichim's room (madrichim = Rabbi in charge of the trip): more on that later.  Dinner was great and everyone in my trip is really cool.  After dinner we wanted to head out to explore Ben Yahuda (we are free to do whatever we want at night) but I couldn't get my bags because the Rabbi disappeared after dinner, so I just went out wearing my orange Illini hoodie and sweatpants.

We walked for about half an hour down Yaffa Road and finally came to Ben Yahuda street, the main artery of Jerusalem.  Being a Monday night and only 10:00 pm at the time, nothing was really going on but I quickly realized that wearing an orange Illini hood screams "wealthy American tourist" and got me treated a little differently than the other guys I was walking with.  For example, we'd walk down an alley off Ben Yahuda street and guys standing out front in front of bars would home in on us, specifically, to ask us to come in for our business, promising lots of good deals.  They were pretty pushy and if we showed any hesitation they'd grab our arm and lead us in.  We wanted to keep walking around so we'd leave soon after, saying we had to meet friends.  But being unfamiliar with the area we circled around and crossed through the same alley multiple times, we must have gotten led into one bar, Zali's, at least three different times by three different guys who work there.  We eventually did end up going there but it was funny to realize we'd be unsuspectingly led into the same bar three times.

Ben Yahuda street was pretty active as the night went on but it's very a very relaxed atmosphere, with people lounging around outside with hookah just talking.  We met a lot of people, many from America, and it was really cool to see how from all these different places we ended up in Israel because of our common bond being Jewish.  We've gotten really good at playing Jewish geography (when you figure out your mutual friends with a Jewish stranger, there's always a few because it's such a connected community).  At about 3 we finally headed back to the hotel and called it a night, we called a cab though because we weren't exactly sure how to get back.  We tried speaking only Hebrew in the cab so that they wouldn't try to take advantage of us being American and charge higher fares, but my Illini hoodie must have given me away and it cost 40 shekels (3.6 sheckels = 1 dollar, so about 11 bucks for a drive about a mile down Yaffa Road), but we later realized this may have been the correct fare because after a certain time the rates double.

Day Two


We woke up at 8 to get breakfast and head to Ohr Sameach (it's a yeshivah, which is a school were Jews go to study Talmud) for our morning classes.  The program is structured so the guys and girls live in separate hotels, go to separate classes, and are together for afternoon activities and dinner.  So the guys on the trip all went to Ohr Sameach, a very pretty yeshivah about a mile away from our hotel.  We've had so many interesting talks there from some really smart speakers but I don't want to get into that here because it could fill a book.

After classes, we went sightseeing in the Old City and ended up at the Western Wall.  We had a surprise there though, this one rabbi joined our group who ran a synagogue in the Muslim quarter.  As a group, we all travelled with him through the Muslim quarter to see this synagogue in the middle of an Arabic village.  The guy told an amazing story about how the Muslims face a death penalty by their community if they sell off their home to a Jew, so the Israeli government has to pay a lot of money basically start a new life for any Arabs who sell their home to Jews.  The rabbi was determined to set up the synagogue because the Jewish families in the Muslim quarter had nowhere to go, so he left his life teaching and gave up everything to set it up.  He said at first his Muslim neighbors were very resistant to the synagogue enroaching on what they saw as their rightful land, and he had to walk through a crowd of Muslim kids throwing rocks at the Jewish families who were walking to the synagogue and talk to the principal of the school to get them to stop.  He said by not showing any fear, he really sent a message and from that day on, the school had posted a teacher to stand outside every morning to stop any kids from throwing rocks.

Hearing all this (he established the synagogue about a decade ago), it was pretty surreal and I had a hard time imagining such blatant anti-Semitism.  By the time he finished the talk in his synagogue, it was getting dark so we headed back.  On the way out of the Muslim quarter, I paid special attention to the Arab neighbors and how they viewed us, a crowd of about 20 American Jewish tourists parading around their neighborhood with an armed guard close behind.  I thought I detected some crinkled brows and under-their-breath mutters, but it was hard to say for sure because the next second they'd be leaping to their feet to try to sell things to us.  I thought that the hatred was, for the most part, a passive-aggressive thing and had a hard time imagining any of them actually throwing stones and screaming at Jewish families.  After all, tourists came trhough the area plenty of times so even if they didn't like it, they must be used to the foreign presence.  However, I really underestimated how strongly these people believe in their right to the land and how much they hated seeing Jews walk through it like they were on a tour.  And a scary thing happened as the alleys grew dark on our walk back.

Walking near the end of the pack, I didn't see what happened but I heard raised voices behind me and turned to see Yaakov, the guard for the group, facing an angry Muslim teen.  The guy looked like he could be about my age, and his two friends were anxiously pulling him away from Yaakov as he got up in Yaakov's face and said things in Hebrew that I didn't understand.  Yaakov stood, expressionless, holding his rifle and the Rabbi ushered us all along the alley.  After a few tense seconds, the two Muslim friends pulled away their angry friend, and he yelled as he left in English "I'm sick of this!", no doubt referring to us walking through his neighborhood.  As we walked out, Yaakov pointed out two hustling figures dressed in all black running past us towards where the Arabs went.  He mentioned how they were elite Israeli undercover police officers, who had detected the commotion and were going to make sure nothing happened.  They were there no more than 15 seconds after the guy separated from Yaakov.

I heard the rest of the story once we were out.  The Muslim teen had been belligerently waving some kind of stick in the faces of the girls in our group, trying to intimidate them and had spooked one of the girls.  Seeing this, Yaakov stepped in and told him to cut it out.  This got him angry and he got in Yaakov's face and yelled things before being separated from his friends.  While he was in Yaakov's face, screaming and very angry, I noticed that even though he was being pulled away by his friends, he made no move towards Yaakov.  Yaakov said they knew not to mess with Israeli guards and said that the entire experience was unfortunately fairly common.  There was no doubt in my mind that without Yaakov's rifle and the hidden threat of the elite Israeli police officers just around the corner, the situation would have escalated.  Even though the entire incident lasted no more than 15 seconds and consisted only of some yelling that could have happened anywhere, the fact that it was rooted in anti-Semitism and between Muslims and us as Jews made the whole thing pretty intense.

It was really crazy to be a part of a Muslim-Jewish conflict and an experience that I don't really want to have again.  While it was definitely scary at the time, thinking about it now makes me realize just how important people's beliefs are to them.  These were Muslim teens who, had their families moved to the US and gone to my high school, I could have easily been friends with.  Instead, they were living in a neighborhood where they were under a death threat for selling their apartments to Jews, in a Jewish country with American tourists walking around snapping photos.  It's obvious why they were upset at the circumstances.  However, I also saw the impressive power of the Israeli police.  They really do a great job at making the area secure.  Never for a second did I think the Muslim teen was going to lay a finger on Yaakov.  It was an emotional verbal outburst, and I think both him and Yaakov understood that it wouldn't get beyond that point.  They know what's going on and know the Israeli police are just around the corner if anything happens.

I didn't have a hard time imagining the Arab neighbors throwing stones after that incident.

Day Three


Another amazing morning at the yeshivah, with great talks and a delicious lunch of hummus and schwarma.  We toured the Old City today, seeing all the thousands of years of history of Jerusalem and hiking through the water tunnels.  At the end, we watched a 3D movie (Avatar is changing things already!) about the foundation of Jerusalem.  At the end of the movie, the narrator said how the Jewish people were once again bringing Jerusalem back to life, with cool 3D pop-ups of various buildings that had been built in Jerusalem recently.  The last building they showed was Hebrew University, and it was amazing to see that and know that I am a part of it.

I took a very long nap after dinner and now it's 12:45 and my battery on my laptop's about to run out.  Tomorrow morning we head of for Tzfat, so I won't be able a post again for another few days at least until we get back to the Jerusalem Gate Hotel.  If I could sum up everything so far, it'd be: amazingly insightful classes in the morning, very cool activites in the afternoon, and a lot of fun on Ben Yehuda street at night.  The incident with Yaakov and the Muslim teen was the only time during the trip I've ever felt scared of my surroundings, and it was bound to happen with us walking through the Muslim quarter as night fell.  However, I really want to stress that seeing the synagogue in the Muslim quarter WAS safe, they wouldn't have taken us there otherwise and the whole incident lasted no more than 15 seconds, just a few shouts of frustration.  I mention it here because I think it's important to realize how the conflict is very real, and it was definitely demonstrative of why I shouldn't walk through those neighborhoods alone after dark, just like I wouldn't wander through the South Side of Chicago at night alone wearing KKK garb.  The trip so far has been amazing and a ton of fun, and I've learned a lot, and can't wait to learn more about kabbalah in Tzfat.  I love it here.