Interview: 21 Years in Israel (2)

[Interview with Paula Gaon, part 2.]

-I am interested in your take on the recent events in the Negev and South TA.

OK, my take on recent events in the Negev & South Tel Aviv. I take it you're referring to incidents involving refugees/immigrants from Sudan. In all honesty, I have not been following the news closely. And when I do catch snippets on the radio, can't help but wonder how accurate the stories are. Also, since I live in the Negev, don't have much feeling for the reality in Tel Aviv. But will give you a few impressions.

From what I see here in this little Negev town, most Sudanese are young men, some with families. From the hours they come and go & the buses they take, looks like they are working in service jobs at the Dead Sea, probably hotels and food services - not jobs people are anxious to take. I have no idea what percentage are employed, or if employed how legal it is. At any given time of day, young men are hanging around the downtown area and in apartment residential areas. But in all honesty, have no idea if they are employed or work night shifts.

When the Sudanese first came here about three years ago, people were suspicious and wondered if they were really refugees or illegals fleeing an awful situation. It looks like some have left, either sent back or decided to go back. But now I get the feeling, at least here, that on the whole, they are hardly noticed. My personal theory is that since this town is more than 40% immigrants, most from the former Soviet Union, residents feel more empathy with people who, for whatever reason, have been displaced.

As you can imagine, Tel Aviv is much more upscale than any town in the Negev. There are a lot more people with a lot more money, more upscale hotels and places of entertainment, more places that would require low-wage employment. The neighborhoods where the African refugees live, as far as I know, have always been poor Israeli neighborhoods with the reputation that many poor neighborhoods have. Get the picture? It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see the potential for some serious friction.

According to news reports, African residents were attacked by young Israelis. Having worked in the school system, I'm not surprised by this. From my experience, politically correct has taken a strange twist here. Schools, for whatever reason, do not teach or enforce the idea of appropriate behaviour in the appropriate place. The idea of impulse control and expressing one's self inteligently, refraining from insults or attacks was not consistently taught or enforced. I've even heard Israelis aged 50 and above say the same. Why this has come to be - can't tell you exactly. But have gotten the feeling that this is a result of tensions in Israeli society among the different Jewish ethnic groups and has caused a kind of 'despair' regarding matters of discipline in the educational system. Nobody wants a fight, or risk an accusation of being against any Jewish ethnic group, so those in the educational system walk on eggs and make excuses.

In any case, it's terribly embarassing. Of course the USA has severly criticized Israel's racism. How soon they forget... But we do expect more from the Jewish State.

OK, now back to why I came to the Negev. It's very simple, actually. I've just always dug the Negev, Here's an interesting piece of trivia my town is almost the same latitude as Tucson.

On a more serious note, I moved to Jerusalem for perceived job opportunity. But personally, I find Jerusalem unlivable. It's terribly expensive. The cheaper areas are far flung, requiring long, nerve-racking bus trips - cars cost 4 times US price. And the security issues are abssolutely grinding. The Negev is cleaner, cheaper, and low-stress. I have a higher quality of life for a little less money.

***

Chesler: Arest Mother as Accomplice in Sarah and Amina Said Killing

Phyllis Chesler:

On January 1, 2008, two American teenager sisters, 17 year-old Amina Said, and 18 year-old Sarah Said, were shot to death by their Egyptian father, Yaser Said, in Irving, Texas. After a lifetime of being physically and sexually abused by their father, the girls had finally decided to run away.

Sarah had rejected an arranged marriage with a much-older friend of her father’s whom she had never met. Both Amina and Sarah had boyfriends—and thus, their father viewed them as “whores” who had disobeyed the rules and who therefore deserved to die. ...

DIL1 blogged about it here.
Now, Phyllis writes, based on her communications with the girls' great-aunt Jill

Abplanalp, she believes that
Texas-born Patricia (“Tissie”) Said, the mother of the two girls, should long ago have been charged as an accomplice in their honor killing. She is the one who tricked them, first by running away with them—and then by luring them back home in a series of phone calls. ...

According to great aunt Jill, there are three witnesses who can testify that, although Tissie ran away with her daughters, she did so in order to spy on them for Yaser; that all along, Tissie had planned to return to her husband—which she did. She knew that Yaser planned to kill his daughters. And nevertheless, upon her return, she started calling her daughters persistently.

Read the rest at the link.

Interview: 21 Years in Israel

During my visit to Israel last November, I met up with an old friend, Paula Gaon, who has been living in Israel for many years now. She kindly agreed to an interview.

-So, how long have you been living in Israel?

21 years in September.

-Where did you live when you first moved to Israel?

I lived on a kibbutz near Jerusalem while studying in a university level ulpan (intense Hebrew language course) and working part-time on the kibbutz. It was a very interesting experience since most of the students were from the former Soviet Union. After ulpan, I even spoke Hebrew with a Russian accent. At the time, I didn't have much confidence about speaking to Israelis. So I tended to speak only with Russian speakers, a more level playing field.

-How long were you on the kibbutz, and what were your impressions of it?

I was on that kibbutz for only six months. This kibbutz was one of the large, veteran, very successful, kibbutzim. It seemed to have been very well managed - nothing wasted & kibbutz members very settled into their jobs. But, as an ulpan student and temporary resident, most members didn't take much notice of us, nor were they interested in getting to know most of us. Of course ulpanistim were given the least desirable jobs - like employees from manpower agencies & regarded as pretty disposable. In general, kibbutz members, at least at that time on that kibbutz, were quite closed to most things outside their world - including the need for common courtesy. I don't want to sound too negative here. The day-to-day life was really quite pleasant & it was wonderful having so many chores, like laundry & meals taken care of and very well done.

-Where did you go after the kibbutz?

After ulpan on kibbutz, the story starts to get complicated, at least time-wise. But looking back on it, I realize that it was really more the same. So I'll stick to the essentials.

After ulpan, I spent the next two and a half years on two other kibbutzim in the north, southern part of the Galilee. Both were religious and newer. Neither remained kibbutzim. As far as I know, both are now yeshuvim, settlements. I was actually up for membership on the first of the two, but soon saw that this was not going to be. In any case, I managed to get the kind of work on both that allowed me to hone language skills. So from there, I moved to Beit El in the Shamron Sumaria. Beit El was a large National Religious (Dati Leumi) Settlement. Understand that religious communities do not typically like single people, especially single women. So it was somewhat rare that I moved there. But they did areas that single people live in.

OK, so to continue with the Beit El chapter. I had been in Israel just over three years at this point. In all honesty, this is the time that I probably should have returned to the USA. Beit El was a very nice place, but I really came to understand the differences in Israeli and Ameriican mentality. For example, I was always invited by friends for sabbath and holidays meals. Why? Because a single person can't possibly manage. Have to admit that I did resent the fact that people wanted to feel sorry for me because I was single - couldn't understand that I've been alone most of my adult life and had long, long ago realized that that was not likely to change. They just couldn't get it and somehow felt that thay had to be partly responsibe for my well-being and at the same time resented the responsibility.

With all that, the four years at Beit El were nice ones. I came to realize that religious people are people just like everyone else - with the same challenges and obligations. And the people there are kind & decent folks.

My challenge was having to fall back on teaching elementary school English to earn a living. At the time, the Ministry of Education was so desperate for elementary English teachers that they financed certification courses for English-speaking academics.

I had substituted some, so they begged me to sign up for the certification course and teach a few hours at an elementary school in Jerusalem. This is the time that I referred to earlier as the time I should have returned to the USA. In all honesty, have to admit that I was worried about finding my niche in the American workforce, and being able to manage health insurance. Nonetheless, teaching in the public school system was a disaster from the very beginning - talking about a square peg in a round hole! The seminar did put me on probation for awhile, but they were so desperate that they even asked me to continue when I offered to quit. In any case, I did leave. But wasn't the only one. Most of those who went through this course eventually left. Looks like every body learned something from this experience.

***

Egypt: A Faded, Burdened Country

Michael Totten:

I never believed the uprising and palace coup that overthrew Hosni Mubarak would lead to a liberal democracy in the land of the pharoahs. I doubt Ajami did either. It isn’t what most Egyptians are yearning for, not at this time. And if most Egyptians don’t want it, who could possibly build it? ...

Fouad Ajami has more.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

Here is what I learned from watching half an hour of news on CNN:

1. BARACK OBAMA WAS NOT BORN IN KENYA.
2. Marvel Comics is going to have a character come out of the closet as gay, a development for which BARACK OBAMA opened the door. And speaking of BARACK OBAMA,
3. Will Smith will soon be starring in a movie about BARACK OBAMA.
4. And finally, I got to watch two women talking about prostate cancer.

Obama the Cool

The sexual warmth is definitely there—but the rest of it has sharp edges. . . Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness—and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me.”

Vandals Trash Valencia Street

This happened last night, within about two to five blocks of my house. A gang of Occupiers / anarchists / thugs vandalized a section of Valencia Street in the Mission District, San Francisco. Here's more from Mission Loc@al:

A group of protesters vandalized dozens of businesses, cars and any property they came across as they marched through the Mission on Monday night. One person was arrested according to Sgt. Daryl Fong but no details about the arrest were made available yet.

The mile-long trek of vandalism began at 18th and Dolores streets, where a group of more than 100 protesters met as part of an early May Day march. The protesters walked east on 18th Street, turned left on Valencia Street, right on Duboce Avenue, and made a right on Mission Street before being confronted by riot police at 14th and Mission, according to Justin Beck, an independent journalist who followed the protesters.

Police dispersed the crowd in the area of 12th and Folsom streets, Fong said.

In a statement released early Tuesday morning, Occupy San Francisco said the vandals were not associated with the movement, but the statement was taken down shortly after. ...

The vandalism began almost immediately after the group took off from Dolores Park at around 9 p.m. The protesters paint-bombed Tartine Bakery on 18th and Guerrero streets. When they reached Farina, one protester grabbed a chair and attempted to break a window but was not successful, said police officer D. Daza. Several of the protesters, dressed in black clothing and with their faces covered, threw sacks filled with paint at the restaurant’s windows, drew anarchist symbols on them and spraypainted “Yuppies out!”

Police confronted the protesters in front of the restaurant and a small group of them dispersed, but the main crew continued along Valencia Street. ...

Read the rest at the link.

SFGate has more:

Broken glass littered several streets in San Francisco's Mission District after protesters vandalized cars and buildings Monday night, including a police station.

The vandals were in a group that marched from Dolores Park shortly after 9 p.m., following a rally in advance of Tuesday's planned Occupy general strike, police said. Traveling down 18th Street and onto Valencia Street, the black-clad, masked protesters smashed windows with crowbars and signs, threw paint on buildings and spray-painted anarchy symbols on the hoods of parked cars. ...

Go read it all.

ATM at 511/513 Valencia.

Farina, across the street from the Women's Building (where I go for Friday night services at the Mission Minyan) was hit hard. Graffiti included things like "Yuppies out!"

Windows were broken (not visible in this photo) at the Mission District police station.

Weston Wear clothing store.

Therapy.

Even this dog boarding service on Mission Street was not spared the paint gun. Die yuppie puppies!

Not pictured here, but the whole front of ArtZone 461 was smashed and defaced. When I walked by there this morning, workers were re-painting the facade, and the glass storefront was boarded up. There were tracks of orange paint on the sidewalk from last night.

I am beyond disgusted.

UPDATE: OccupySF condemns vandalism.

Feministe on the Real Secret Service Scandal

Katie at Feministe:

This was not about U.S. government workers paying for sex; this was about refusing to pay for it. In Colombia’s “tolerance zones,” the sex trade is legal. And yet, a U.S. citizen and government worker thought it was all right to break the law by giving a sex worker $30, less than a twentieth of the $800 fee agreed upon the night before. After the woman raised a justifiable ruckus, she was paid $225, not enough to cover the $250 fee she pays to the man who “helps find her customers.” ...

Go read it all here.

Tunisia: Arab Spring's Birthplace, A Year Later

Al-Monitor visits Gafsa, Tunisia, a year after the Arab Spring began there.

Young men there mobilized against the former regime of Ben Ali as early as 2008 and were at the vanguard of the revolution that led to the president’s ouster in January 2011. A year and some months after the so-called Jasmine revolution that caught the world by surprise, Al-Monitor, which had the only cameraman on the ground during the riots last week, went back to the region only to find that disenchantment was still running high. ...

Watch the video, and don't forget to bookmark Al-Monitor.

"Girls" and McDonald's

Fox:

Last week, Lena Dunham was one of the most talked about young women in the entertainment industry. At just 25, she has created, directed, starred in and produced (along with "Bridesmaids" producer Judd Apatow) the highly-anticipated new HBO series “Girls.”

But following the racy comedy’s debut on Sunday night, a decidedly different vibe has emerged. Dunham has come under fire for failing to convey a wider scope of ethnicities and races in her show's cultural melting pot of New York City. ...

Jenny E. M. at We Mix Our Own Mythologies writes:

Let’s get one thing out of the way quickly: I do NOT believe that Lena Dunham’s “Girls” has an obligation to “diversity.” I am of the mind, which I’ve seen written about elsewhere, that if “Bored to Death” didn’t have that obligation, then “Girls” doesn’t have it either. What is that, anyway? That a show about Women is defined as “other,” and therefore it has to represent every population that is ever “othered”? I think it’s almost more progressive to have a show about rich white girls that doesn’t try to be universally diverse, where that’s not its raison d’être, because then we’re one step closer to women not being “other.”

However, the whole debate about diversity, and whether “Girls” is obligated to have more of it, is limited to boxes on a diversity checklist (does it have a person of color? check; gay person? check; disabled person? check), and I guess I am opposed to that checklist view of humanity, not only because it promotes tokenism, but also because it isn’t humanistic enough, holistic enough. It reminds me of people in relationships who have a Conversation about whether they’re going to be Exclusive, and if they aren’t Exclusive, it means they’re Free to date and sleep with other people. What about the emotional tenor of your relationship? What about the implicit promises you’ve made to the other person by confiding in them, by acting as if you care about being with them? I’ve always been wary of people who treat other people like a checklist, who need a contract to have a relationship.

But if “Girls” wanted to acknowledge the diversity of the human experience in a more holistic way, it might do so in a less lazy approach to the main character’s central problem. ...

Read the rest at the link.

Jerusalem - 2

Israel Diary, part 9.

Jerusalem

Israel Diary, part 8.

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

In Judaism, Jerusalem has been the holiest city since, according to the Hebrew Bible, King David of Israel first established it as the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel in c.1000 BCE, and his son Solomon commissioned the building of the First Temple in the city.

You get off at the bus station in Jerusalem and you're on Jaffa Street. Head east on Jaffa and you're on your way to the Old City. That's about 30 to 40 minutes on foot. There's a brand-new light rail, too, that goes along Jaffa, but I haven't been on it.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is from one country to another; I'm tempted to say another planet. In Tel Aviv, you might have gotten used to advertising posters with pictures of scantily clad women; in Jerusalem, you'll be hard pressed to find pictures of women in any state of attire. That's a symptom of the growing clout of the haredi (ultra-orthodox) community, and it's been the subject of some controversy lately; more on that later. Men wearing black hats, and women wearing a skirt and a kisuy rosh (head covering) are the rule, not the exception here.

Just before reaching the Old City, I turned off Jaffa Street and followed the directions I'd been given to Salomon Street. It's the site of Tmol Shilshom, a delightful cafe/restaurant/bookstore run by a friend of a friend named David. The establishment's name derives from the novel by S. Y. Agnon. If you go to Jerusalem, you need to visit Tmol Shilshom.

David had to divide his time between working and chatting with me, but we had some great conversation. He is originally from Tel Aviv but has been living in Jerusalem for 30 years. I asked him what was on his mind these days; he mentioned Iran. He said, "If we attack Iran, we risk losing the support of the international community." (I refrained from asking, "WHAT support?") He added, "We risk losing the support of the United States."

David also talked about the disappearance of women from public spaces in Jerusalem. It was the left-leaning Ha'Aretz, he said, that blew the whistle on this some months ago. No pictures of women on advertising posters, and no female voices on public announcements - this was the new trend in Jerusalem, at the behest of the pious haredim. I do not know exactly where the matter stands now, but it's been in the news and it's an ongoing struggle.

The Old City has seven gates; the one you'll approach from Jaffa Street is the Jaffa Gate. I entered through here.

There's a tourist information office just inside. I thought it would be a good idea to stop in there before going on. I asked for a tourist map in English, and the man at the counter gave me one, but I ended up being happier with my more detailed, Hebrew-language map of Jerusalem that I'd bought from a stationery store in Tel Aviv. I kept the map as a souvenir, though.

I had just one question. "Are there any places I shouldn't go?"

He thought about it for a moment. "No," he said. "No, it's fine." I don't know much about Jerusalem, but I wanted to play it safe.

I took the tour guide's hesitation as an admonition not to push my luck, so I confined my visit to the Jewish Quarter for this trip. I found my way to the Kotel (the Western Wall) and made the obligatory pilgrimage to its smooth, stony surface. I'd visited just twice before - eighteen and 24 years ago.

The Western Wall, Jerusalem, June 1987

After the security checkpoint, there's a couple of people posted to make sure visitors are dressed properly, and, on the men's side, the usual gaggle of men coming and going, prayer congregations in various sizes and stages of completion of the daily prayers, individuals reciting psalms or speaking from the heart, and a whole bunch of tourists just milling about aimlessly.

Over toward the mechitsa (gender divider), though, there seemed to be quite a bit of friendly cross-border communication between the men and the women. The women were praying and singing with great gusto - perhaps pointedly so, as the arrangements for men's and women's services at the Wall have been the subject of a great deal of contention. There is an organized movement for women praying at the Western Wall. From where I stood (and I didn't get close to the group, so I don't know for sure) it appeared that the men in this group were generally sympathetic to the women's right to pray expressively. At any rate, there was a great deal of audible singing and chanting from the women's side, and much conversation across the divider.

I spent a good two hours just wandering the streets of the Jewish Quarter. The Old City is like Borges' Aleph: small on the outside, but of nearly infinite size inside. But the streets are narrow like a labyrinth: it occurred to me that notwithstanding my earlier misgivings, the greatest peril to life and limb in the Old City is probably the danger of being crushed against the side of a building by a motor vehicle.

The 1948 Defenders' Plaza is spacious and lovely; down an adjoining alley, there is a memorial to those who lost their lives defending the Jewish Quarter in that war, in which all of the Quarter's 2000 Jewish inhabitants were evicted or killed. Our side took it back in 1967.

1948 Defenders' Square. (The year 1948 is represented as "Tashach" in Hebrew.)



As I sat on a bench on the Plaza, a bar mitzvah celebration came slowly winding into view. There were musicians blowing horns and banging drums, dressed in white, and, but for their long sidelocks, looking for all the world like Hare Krishnas. The boy seemed to be having the time of his life.