Sof Chag Sameach

I've been on vacation for a week and a half, and amazingly, I haven't found any time to post to this site. I only wish I could say it's because I've been keeping busy, but that sadly isn't true. There have been quite a few highlights since my last post, though.
1. I found the PR Troopers CD. As noted in Ari's comment to previous post, it is sitting in my cousin's DVD player in Herzliya. I haven't listened to it yet.
2. I went to a Gidi Gov concert. He played Inyan Shel Zman. I sang along. No one heard me.
3. I went to a Genders concert. The lead singer wants to read my thesis. I still haven't sent it to him.
4. I finally emailed Yoav Kutner (director of Channel 24) my thesis. If he responds, I'll ask him for a job.
5. I got searched by the police. My crime? Standing next to someone who called them fucking pigs without realizing that their car windows were down.
6. I cooked. And did a pretty good job.
7. I found an amazing mixtape by DJ Juvi. It's got two songs by the Hasid. Not related to me.
In the spirit of Sukkot being a 7 day holiday (that's right Diaspora, we have calendars now, we don't need to keep adding extra days), I'll keep it to those 7 highlights. But aside from those, this vacation has been a great time for me to think about my life, both how I am spending it now and what I might want in my future. I'm finding it really tough for me to be observant in Israel, mostly because Judaism is so tied to community for me, and the observant Jewish community just doesn't do it for me here. That said, there are also times where no other community does it for me here either. It's amazing how often I feel out of place here, but for whatever reason, I still like living in Israel. I don't know if I'll want to live in Jerusalem forever, or even next year. I don't know if I'll want to be a Jewish educator. I can't tell if it bothers me or not how much my observance is tied to who I want to spend time with, but I guess only time will tell. Beintayim, as long as I don't choose based on who has the most attractive women, I don't think it's too problematic.

Addiction

I definitely have a problem. Today I bought two hip hop CDs not because I wanted to listen to them, but because I felt that I had to own them. So now I own Israel's original hip hop duo, "Is Hop," with their breakthrough hit "1,2,3, Yesh Li Mesiba." That is 30 shekels I will never get back. In the meantime, all this time I've spent looking for the PR Troopers, I still haven't found their CDs, but they do exist. So give me time, and I'll have that as well.
On another note, after much thought, I've decided it's stupid for me to be shomer negiya. That is all.

Return of GAL?

Recently heard from a friend:

chill628: good news, jessica really wants to get you in on the seminary chick scene... she'll work her contacts in the frum community.... good things are on the way for the hackit

Wow.

I Watch Too Much Music Television

Let me start this by saying that I am currently watching Arutz 24 as I write this. At the moment, being the hip hop editor (a position that definitely doesn't exist and doesn't need to exist) for this channel would be my dream job. Of course, I haven't even bothered to thank the director of the station for his help with my thesis, let alone send him a resume (ie my thesis). That said, I pretty much watch this channel every moment that I am in my apartment that isn't Shabbas, yom tov, or an Eagles game.
So why is this news now? I just got back from Istanbul on Sunday, and I think in some ways the highlight of my trip was watching Turkish and French hip hop music videos. And no, the videos were not that good. Zot omeret, neither was my trip to Istanbul.
Here are a few things I learned about myself on this trip:
1) I don't think it's fair to expect people in foreign countries to speak English.
2) I think it's necessary to at least make an effort to learn the names of major tourist attractions in their native language.
3) I don't think it's cute to think of every piece of traditional garb of a foreign country as a prospective Purim costume.
4) I have too much ADD to stop and take a picture of every random English misspelling or wait for my friends while they do the same.
5) I prefer not to walk around wearing a big sign that says, "Rip me off, I'm a tourist."
6) I don't feel the need to advertise my Judaism every waking moment of my life, especially in cities not used to seeing such outward expressions of Judaism.
7) I can't bring myself to break Shabbat or kashrut, no matter how frustrated I get with observance.
But don't let me imply that the trip was a total bust. It was still Istanbul after all. I can understand why my entire family left, but I can also understand why they all still go back to visit every now and then. I would definitely recommend it, even for clueless vuzvuzim.
Shannah tovah!

Ken L'Heskem, Ken L'Nikayon

It took me a long time, but I finally went to a peace rally in Israel last night. Thanks to the bitching of some friends, I only saw about 30 minutes, but I was fairly impressed by it while I was there. People actually attended, the director of the Fuchsberg center was there, and it seemed to be a fairly moderate crowd, not too radical. Then I left and there were some very insignificant counter-protesters. They didn't appreciate the word play I made with their signs (their sign said "Matai Nafsik Livroach" which means "when will we stop fleeing?"; I turned to Ari and asked, "Matai Naspik Livroach" which means "when will we have fled enough?"). Their response was phenomenal: they started to pray for me! It was the start of a great night.
After returning to Syndrome, where I had watched the spectacular Quami de la Fox, Ori Shohat and Sagol 59 two nights earlier, my friends and I were ready to just about call it an evening. We walked back home by way of Bet Nativ so I could see my sister (whom Ari was shocked to see had aged about 8 years since he was her counselor at Ramah) and we found that some orange ribbons had infiltrated Kikar Paris, the site of the peace rally earlier that evening. Ari did what any concerned citizen would do, and he started taking the orange ribbons off of the posts. I started to follow suit, and soon enough, I got in a shouting match with one of the anti-Israel protesters. [ed. by anti-Israel I mean anti-Disengagement, an act carried out by the Israeli army under the direction of the democratically elected government of Israel]. Sadly, I didn't know the Hebrew for "you're enslaving another people and making all Jews look bad for it," and I hadn't attended slichot, so I didn't feel comfortable pulling the hillul hashem card. Maybe next time.
In the meantime, I accomplished a few goals. I brought home a lot of orange ribbon, (safely removed from public spaces where they don't belong), and I picked up a lot of trash in the kikar. Maybe next time I'll get punched in the face by a settler.

Yesh Bi Ahava V'Hi Tnatzeach

I have love in me, and love will win. For the Eagles. Boo Falcons! Knopf knows what he can do with his Falcons victory.

I Won't Forget and I Won't Forgive

Last year in January I had possibly one of the worst days of my life. I found out that my laptop would cost $800 to fix or else all my thesis research would be gone (I fixed it, obviously); I was very stressed out about doing research without my computer anyway; and I was fairly convinced I wouldn't graduate from college. To make matters worse, I was wearing a navy blue hoodie and an orange t-shirt. As I walked from my hotel (across from the Conservative Yeshiva) to Hebrew U's Jewish National Library, I passed the Knesset, and a huge protest outside of it. There, wearing all blue and all navy, were a lot of anti-disengagement protesters. Long before they came up with the grossly inaccurate "Yehudi Lo M'garesh Yehudi" (I would love one of those as my landlord- I could stop paying rent without fear of ever getting evicted), they stuck to their basic racist creedo, "Eretz Yisrael L'Am Yisrael"--The Land of Israel is for the People of Israel. I disagreed with them, but I had to go do research, so I left it alone.
On the walk back to the hotel, armed with 80 pages of useless articles, I passed the Knesset again. I immediately zipped up my hoodie all the way- not daring to show even a hint of orange. However, the protest was over, and all that was left was a ton of litter all over the Knesset grounds, including many posters reading Eretz Yisrael L'Am Yisrael. Now maybe it's just me, but my feeling is that if you believe that the land exclusively belongs to you, you need to clean up after yourself a little bit.
Fast forward to right now. Yehudi Lo M'garesh Yehudi (a Jew doesn't expel a Jew) is still prevalent, if blatantly false now. But they have a new one, "Lo Nishkach v'lo Nisloach"-- I won't forget and I won't forgive. And we wonder why the Right of Return is such a big issue for Palestinian refugees of 1948. Given how many of the Anti-Disengagement folks are religious, and how many more will probably at least end up fasting for Yom Kippur, you'd think they would realize the importance of forgiveness this time of year. I've learned to forgive them enough to restrain myself from throwing garbage at every Gush Katif supporter I see. But if they insist on neither forgiving nor forgetting for long enough, I might have to change my mind.