Monthly Archives: October 2011

Desert complexities

31 Monday Oct 2011

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Ships of the Negev, untroubled by human cares

The Negev is beautiful, and Hilary and I greatly enjoyed a tour there last week. If, however, we thought we would escape the politics of the city with a bucolic wander in the countryside, we were mistaken.

One fascinating stop was a visit to a Bedouin women’s weaving collective and store. The organizer with whom we met spoke passionately about how the group had a twofold purpose – to earn money for the women so they could have some independent income, and to educate the women about their rights. Examples she gave included the right to say no to being a second wife, the right to be protected from violence, up to and including honor killings, and the right to attend high school and university. She emphasized how the collective had started from the Bedouin women themselves and how they still take risks to run it – the store has been burned down by men in the community who do not want women to be empowered.

As complex as these women’s struggles are, there is another level of complexity. Our Israeli guide pointed out the nice houses in this Bedouin town, contrasting them to the shacks of the more nomadic Bedouin, though she still critiqued how dirty the town was. While our guide did not mention it, the Israeli government since 1948 has limited the Bedouin to certain areas of the Negev, and has also tried to settle them in towns. Our guide also pointed out an old lady on the road with her donkey and said “this is the lot of Bedouin women” without such an empowerment program. The message was clear: modern, Western society – provided by Israel – is much better for Bedouin women, and Bedouin in general, than traditional society.

I don’t necessarily disagree – in fact, I am frequently nervous about romanticizing the situation of pre-modern peoples. I am, however, suspicious of the motivations of the government. Some quick research turns up a long history of government mistreatment of the Bedouin. During and after the 1948 war, as late as 1959, army patrols broke up Bedouin encampments and forced them across the borders to Jordan or Egypt. The Bedouin were restricted to about 10% of the Negev. We also visited a goat farm (making delicious cheese!) that is part of a program funded by Israel specifically to bring more Jews to the Negev. Our guide did not tell us this; the farmer mentioned it unselfconsciously during our tour. We also visited a pharmaceuticals plant, the largest maker of generic drugs in the world. The plant representatives told us about both the benefit of their medicines and the green nature of their production. A public health physician was also on our tour, however, and told us about the industrial area’s history of polluting the Negev and sharply rising cancer rates among the Bedouin as a result.

We stopped a Bedouin restaurant and campground for lunch, and two of our party recognized it as a place where they (separately) stayed on their Birthright trips to Israel – free trips for Diaspora Jews to learn about Israel. This made me wonder – to what extent were we following a common route meant to communicate a specific view of the Negev?

Jewish-Christian relations in the Holy Land

24 Monday Oct 2011

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The road from Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus to the Augusta Victoria complex on the Mount of Olives has no sidewalk. Yet another challenge to Jewish-Christian relations in Jerusalem?

There stands a significant barrier between Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Christians learning about each other’s traditions. Each side sees itself as a minority, indeed a double minority. Today I spoke with Ms. Hana Bendcowsky, the Program Director for the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations. Ms. Bendcowsky noted that Israeli Jews see themselves both as Jews in a majority Christian Western world and as Israelis in an Arab region. Israeli Palestinian Christians see themselves as Palestinians in the Jewish Israeli state and as Christians among the majority Muslim Palestinians. For each, this double minority status can give them permission not to listen to the other.

As I have heard before, many Israeli Jews find it difficult not to associate any information about Christianity with the long history of European Christian anti-Semitism. Along with this association comes a hostility to and fear of missionary activity. So “let your children learn about your Christian neighbors” is heard as “open your children up to missionizing activities by the powerful and anti-Semitic Christian world.”

Many Israeli Palestinian Christians will connect information about Judaism with justifications for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, especially with the more extremist settlers, and with anti-Arab prejudice in Israel. They will also fear breaking ranks with their fellow Israeli Palestinians who are Muslim.  Thus “allow your children to learn about your Jewish neighbors” is heard as “open your children up to be co-opted by the oppressor and accused of collaboration.”

In addition to fear, righteous anger is another reaction Ms. Bendcowsky has encountered. “You want me to feel empathy for them? I’m the oppressed one. My job is to protect myself and my community. It is not incumbent upon the victim, or even right, for him to empathize with the persecutor.” Again, this feeling can come either from Israeli Jews or from Israeli Palestinian Christians (and, I suspect, from Israeli Palestinian Muslims.)

What to do? For Ms. Bendcowsky, the work moves through personal connections. She needs to get to know Jewish Israeli teachers, principals, tour guides, and army educators individually. They come to understand that she is an Israeli Jew with no agenda to convert them or their charges. She also needs to get to know Israeli Palestinian Christian principals, teachers, and community leaders. They come to realize that she is not seeking to expand Israeli dominance further into their lives or to divide them from their fellow Palestinians.

Excitingly, JCJCR has been able to work with groups that would not otherwise have learned about “the other.” They have set up partnerships between Jewish and Catholic schools were not at the beginning oriented toward diversity. In these schools some teachers and principals, she reports, have become enthusiastic supporters of learning about each other’s communities. In some of their work in teachers’ colleges Ms. Bendcowsky has seen teachers in training go from complete ignorance about other belief systems to excited fascination with the parallels and divergences between their tradition and those of others.

Planning a (really big) paper

22 Saturday Oct 2011

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Gantt chart of my research project

Over the years I’ve given my students a lot of advice on planning the paper writing process: Plan backwards from your goal. Look ahead to other obligations you might have coming. Break a large task into small pieces. Schedule in lots of time for revision. Make an outline. Keep good records of your research. On and on.

So now I am myself writing a paper – a very big paper. Since I seem to have a habit of becoming a student again every several years, this is not a very unusual experience. This paper will probably be the most in depth I have ever written, however. So how am I approaching it?

Well, my first response was just to stumble through it as best I could, letting what happens, happen. Physician, heal thyself! Fortunately, my wife asks difficult questions and is not satisfied with pathetic answers. So I now have a first draft of a schedule. Since I love playing with applications, I have put my schedule into a Gantt chart. (Click on the image above to enlarge.) Any thoughts, my dear readers? What’s missing? What is too ambitious? To what have I allocated too much time?

A few ways of celebrating Sukkot

20 Thursday Oct 2011

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There are many ways of celebrating Sukkot. Here are several we saw:

Art at the President's residence

Harvest bounty display in the President's sukkah

A martial arts / dance display at a mostly secular street fair

Haredis follow dance to music blasting from a brightly lit van parading through our neighborhood

Terrorism, and driving people from their homes: both are wrong

19 Wednesday Oct 2011

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The Ibrahimi Mosque / Cave of the Patriarchs, in al-Khalil / Hebron

I’ve been reading about some of the Palestinian militants that have been released in exchange for Gilad Shalit. At least some are indeed terrorists, using the UN definition of “acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes.” Some aimed specifically at military targets, which most scholars would not classify as terrorism, but some went after cafés, buses, etc. One of the two women released, Amna Musa, is a powerful example: she convinced an Israeli teen to come with her and then had him shot. One man grabbed the wheel of a bus and drove it off the road – 16 people died. Another stabbed a 15 year-old girl to death. But Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas says to those released, “We thank God for your return and your safety. You are freedom fighters and holy warriors for the sake of God and the homeland.” Anticipating the Palestinian celebrations of the prisoners’ return, the Israeli press had been full of opinion pieces that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed in his speech, “The State of Israel is different from its enemies: Here, we do not celebrate the release of murderers.  Here, we do not applaud those who took life.  On the contrary, we believe in the sanctity of life.  We sanctify life.  This is the ancient tradition of the Jewish People.” The Israeli ethical critique of the Palestinians is a strong one: terrorism, and praise for terrorism, is wrong.

At the same time, I have been reading about and indeed seeing the careful, patient, often quiet, sometimes less subtle Israelization of Palestinian homes and neighborhoods. It is happening across East Jerusalem, in Hebron, in Bethlehem, and even in the Old City. Palestinian houses are demolished and turned into parking lots, and then five years later those parking lots turn into Israeli settler housing. A barrier necessary for Israeli security is placed not between areas of greatest Israeli settlement and Palestinian settlement, but through the middle of Palestinian areas. Schools are underfunded in Palestinian neighborhoods. Approval of home repair is delayed. Identity cards are revoked. Streets and then whole neighborhoods are renamed from a Palestinian identity to a Jewish identity. Settlements are placed on hilltops near Palestinian villages. An entire modern bureaucratic apparatus is mobilized to push Palestinians out of their homes.  As Prime Minister Abbas said in his U.N. speech, “The Israeli government …continues… the systematic confiscation of the Palestinian lands and the construction of thousands of new settlement units in various areas of the West Bank, particularly in East Jerusalem, and accelerated construction of the annexation Wall that is eating up large tracts of our land, dividing it into separate and isolated islands and cantons, destroying family life and communities and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families. The occupying Power also continues to refuse permits for our people to build in Occupied East Jerusalem, at the same time that it intensifies its decades-long campaign of demolition and confiscation of homes, displacing Palestinian owners and residents under a multi-pronged policy of ethnic cleansing aimed at pushing them away from their ancestral homeland.” The Palestinian critique of the Israelis is a strong one: driving people from their homes is wrong.

Assuming two sides in any conflict are morally equivalent is intellectually lazy, or possibly dishonest. In this case, the two sides are not mirror images. Each has a different challenge in striving for a more ethical society. Each does, however, have a significant change it needs to make.

Sukkot is Christmas (from the “fun holiday” point of view)

16 Sunday Oct 2011

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Note – this post is cultural, not religious in nature!

Even at this tender age, my insights into comparative religions were stunning

As a little kid in Queens, my world was “Catholic, Protestant, Jew” to use the title of Will Herberg’s 1955 book. I don’t know when I became aware of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and other traditions, but certainly later than these three. While I was extremely fuzzy on the theology, some things were clear: Catholics went to CCD, Jews went to Hebrew School, and Protestants did not go to anything. Protestants got the best of that deal, no question. Jews got a huge party in middle school called the bar mitzvah – clearly a win for them. Catholics and Protestants got Christmas, and Jews got a kind of pretend Christmas called Hannukah, which for some reason everyone spelled different ways and said wasn’t as good as Christmas (though some tried to argue you got eight days of presents.)

Get your etrogs here! Great for waving!

It blinks!

As I grew up I learned that Hannukah was a minor festival and that the really big ones were Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur and Passover. My initial impression, however, stuck with me: it seemed liked Judaism had no holiday with a long break, tinsel and the chance to set up big, fun symbols in your house and on your lawn. Turns out I was wrong! Welcome to Sukkot in Jerusalem. The shopping, the decorations, the “what does your set up look like?”, the visiting relatives – it’s all here on Sukkot. Arguably, Sukkot is even cooler for little kids. Christmas trees are pretty sweet, but a tent on steroids in everyone’s backyard – it’s like someone surveyed seven year olds to finish the sentence “it would be so awesome if…” I mean, our neighbor’s sukkah even has blinking lights!

Hurva Square, from a hard-won quiet spot on the side

As I discovered today, Sukkot also comes with its place you simultaneously absolutely must and must not go. In New York on Christmas, that place is Rockefeller Center and the window displays on Fifth Avenue –  it is iconic. Though locals claim to never go, they end up going far more years than they admit. For Sukkot in Jerusalem, that place is, obviously, the Western Wall. Even public transportation failed us today, as our #1 bus got stuck in such horrendous traffic that almost everyone got off and hiked up the hill to the Dung Gate in the midday heat. When we entered what is usually the run-up to the Kotel, far before one enters the plaza itself, there were already signs and barriers directing men one way and women the other. The whole Jewish Quarter was one big celebration, with a prayer ceremony / rally going on in Hurva Square. Haredi, observant and secular Jews, tourists and locals – all were out in force. A sign in English indicated the way to someone’s bar mitzvah. People on cell phones loudly coordinated with their relatives. A bunch of modern Orthodox guys streamed into a synagogue. As we entered the street dividing the Muslim and Christian Quarters the manic crush of people lightened and the almost entirely Jewish crowd was replaced by the typical Christian tour groups and local Palestinians shopping. I breathed a sigh of relief – one I recognize from getting on the Long Island Rail Road after a busy day in Manhattan during the winter holidays.

First Impressions of Hebron

15 Saturday Oct 2011

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There are many websites giving the political and religious background to Hebron. Suffice it to say: about 500 Israeli settlers living in the middle of an old Palestinian city, near sites both Jews and Muslims believe are sacred.

First, I was somewhat surprised to encounter a real, live Palestinian city, which like Bethlehem or East Jerusalem, has an outskirts of tire shops, etc. along the entrance road, a new city, and an old city. In the new city cars jam the streets and the concrete four to eight story buildings hold shops selling cell phones, clothes and food. The police and soldiers one sees, like in Ramallah or Bethlehem, are Palestinian Authority.

My surprise came because I had read about how empty, divided and depressing Hebron was. I was interested to find that this description, and it is completely accurate, refers to a specific part of the city – the old city and several major streets near it. As I saw it today Hebron (or al-Khalil in Arabic) really exists in three forms: the new city described above, much of the old city, and a closed neighborhood that used to be a major market street.

EAPPI International Observers

The old city lives a kind of half-life. I walked through most of the old city without crossing an Israeli checkpoint, though video cameras, guard towers and pairs of soldiers at street corners were common. The old city also now has earned the distinction of being the place I first encountered a genuine combat patrol – i.e. seven soldiers, spaced apart, on either side of the street, constantly sweeping their eyes in all directions. They were followed by two women with the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (international observers always wisely wear identifying clothing).

Settler building over shuttered shops

All Israeli soldiers I saw today in Hebron wore their helmets. For context, so far in a month of visiting the Old City of Jerusalem I cannot recall seeing an Israeli soldier wearing his helmet. Some shops were open, though the closer we got to the Ibrahimi Mosque more and more were closed. Some areas had metal gratings across the top of the street, because settlers living above, I was told, throw garbage down on the Palestinians in the street.

Sealed off street

Near the mosque we went through a checkpoint like those along the security fence / wall – turnstiles with the guard out of sight, a green and red light to signal when you can go through, and then a metal detector. (You only see the soldiers after this procedure.) We then emerged out of the old city and into a ghost town. This is what I had read about. Some people still live there – we saw kids in windows, and the occasional Palestinian walking from one point to another. But these are large streets with three story buildings, major intersections and a large parking lot – all with no cars, every shop shuttered, and checkpoints at every entrance. I would guess it is about three blocks wide and very long, stretching up to another checkpoint.

Happy settlers

As I was passing back through the checkpoint I saw perhaps the strangest sight I have yet come across in this region – a nicely, casually dressed observant Jewish family came walking around a corner. My neighborhood in West Jerusalem, of course, is full of families dressed this way. I was prepared to see angry settlers with guns, but this happy family walking down this post-apocalyptic wasteland of a street was absolutely bizarre.

The state of play

11 Tuesday Oct 2011

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A brief introduction to my current life, as sent to the professor who will be teaching my research methodologies class online.

Hello and Shana Tova (Happy Jewish New Year!)

As I write the sun in the cloudless Jerusalem sky has been tempered by a breeze.  Daily living here is, unsurprisingly, remarkably different from teaching religion, coaching crew and supervising a dormitory at St. Andrew’s School in rural Delaware. My gardening is non-existent here (OK, I water the plants on our apartment balcony), and my exercise habit has been broken. I have sated my desire for purposeful motion, however, by wandering the Old City, exploring West Bank cities like Bethlehem and Ramallah, and attempting to find the cheapest possible grocery store. (You may have read about the Israeli cost of living protests – they are not for nothing, I assure you!)

Most days I have been emailing with and meeting with folks who can tell me how Israelis and Palestinians teach about religion. I’ve become extremely familiar with the Israeli bus system, and have visited interviewees all around Jerusalem and also in the Israeli cities of Ramle and Ra’anana. (Every time I say Ra’anana I have to remind myself that it would be culturally inappropriate to break out into the Sesame Street song “Manamana.”) I have become somewhat familiar with the Palestinian bus system (and thus with the Israeli checkpoint system) visiting friends and simply exploring, but have not yet visited any teachers or contacts on the PA side of things.

Another cool thing about this new place - no cars on Yom Kippur!

My 5 year old and 3 year old daughters have adjusted to their new life beautifully. The Jerusalem American International School offers them both a wonderful learning environment and friends who speak English. It offers my wife and I expat contacts – my wife (who in real life has been a teacher, an educational researcher and run small non-profits) has already been invited onto their advisory board! Beyond the school walls, my wife is struggling with not being able to read or speak almost a word of Hebrew or Arabic. (I learned the Hebrew alphabet in grad school and have been doing some Rosetta Stone, so I’m slightly less frustrated when in Hebrew speaking areas). She is, however, reconnecting to her upbringing as a global nomad (as a young child she lived in Paris and as a preteen and teen in Britain).

So far, beginning with personal and Fulbright contacts, I have spoken with a good number of fascinating non-profit directors with tangential links to religious education in Israel/Palestine. These conversations have been valuable for several reasons. Along with the readings provided me by my advisor (Zvi Bekerman of Hebrew University’s School of Education) they have given me a sense of the “lay of the land”: who designs curriculum (centralized in Israel, old Jordanian designs in PA areas), how the schools and/or religion classes divide up (into a million pieces: secular, religious, very religious, Arab, Christian, Muslim), and what Israelis generally think about their education system (Jewish Israelis – it’s ineffective and underfunded; Arab Israelis – it’s discriminatory). Of course, all of the forgoing characterizations are oversimplifications; to see a (I hope!) somewhat more subtle treatment of my interviews to date, please see my blog.

Just in the past several days have I decided the time has come to strongly focus on connecting with actual current teachers. I have also asked my advisor to help me build my interview protocol. More on these moves also available on my blog.

I greatly enjoyed doing an initial read through of the papers you posted under “capstone project” for last years’ folks. They have confirmed some of my anticipated and actual practices, corrected others, and primarily raised questions I look forward to discussing with you. (My biggest question is, not surprisingly, what form my capstone project should take.) Thanks for this opportunity to work with you and the support you are offering!

Terence

Getting around West Jerusalem by bus

09 Sunday Oct 2011

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This is a new kind of post for me: a how to. Those of you currently following my blog are almost certainly in the U.S. and/or know Jerusalem better than I do – so feel free to skip this post. I intend this guide for new visitors to the city.

How the bleep do I get close to here from West Jerusalem?

If you want to get from point A to point B in West Jerusalem using the Egged bus system, and you read English but not Hebrew, there are two websites that help immensely. (The intricacies of the two East Jerusalem bus systems will need to wait for another post.) One website, unsurprisingly, is the Egged schedule and trip planner in English – www.egged.co.il/eng/  . The other is an impressive site developed by a private citizen – http://www.jlembusmap.com/ .

Neither site on its own on gets me all of the information I usually need to plot my course to a new destination. The Egged schedule and trip planner does not take addresses and does not think in terms of “nearby.” So unlike the New York City MTA trip planner, for example, you cannot enter your departure and destination addresses and have it tell you “walk ½ mile northwest, get on bus 13, get off at Shivtei Yisrael,” etc. This is where the bus map comes in handy. What follows is my recommended method for using the two websites together.

Begin with the bus map. By default it opens with every Egged bus line in Jerusalem shown. This can be overwhelming, but keep it like this for the moment.

  1. Zoom in on the area from which you are leaving, and remember or write down the lines that cross near to your departure point.
  2. Zoom in on the area to which you are heading, and remember or write down the lines that pass near to your destination.
  3. On the left you will see that you can select or unselect the bus lines and other information. Unselect all.
  4. Then individually select both those lines that cross near your departure point and those that pass near your destination.
  5. Zoom out. Look at the intersection of these various lines, and see what you would guess would be the most efficient combination for getting to where you are going.

Now, you might think you are done – “Great, I’ll take the #13 bus to Shivtei Yisrael, where it meets the #1bus, which I’ll to Lions Gate.” Not quite. Notice that the lines don’t tell you where the bus stops are. For that, you will need the Egged trip planner. When you go to the Egged page:

  1. Select the schedule option.
  2. Put in your first bus number.
  3. Choose either the closest stop to your departure point, if you can identify it already from the popup menu, or one that you would guess is before your departure point. (The popup list does not identify the address of every bus stop – it uses neighborhoods or famous sites – the special Egged English terms for which you’ll have to figure out!)
  4. Choose either your destination, if you can identify it already from the popup menu, or a stop after your destination.
  5. Press “daily timetable and stops” and then “stops” after the time that most closely approximates when you want to leave. Now you get a list that identifies the exact addresses of the bus stops on the route.
  6. Open a separate google maps page, and map the bus stops you think are closest to your departure point. Record the directions.
  7. Repeat with the other lines. Notice that even though two bus lines intersect, they might not share the same bus stop – you might need to walk a bit. You’ll need to google map those connections, as well as the trip from your destination bus stop to your actual destination.
  8. Finally, use the trip planner to identify the scheduled times of departure and arrival of your buses. Do not, however, take these times too seriously, and make sure to note the approximate frequency. You’ll want to know once you’ve waited for 20 minutes at your transfer stop whether this stinks or is par for the course.

Good luck, and please suggest improvements to this algorithm.