Haifa - the end to this trip to Israel

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Today was my last day in Israel and for the first time it rained. Maybe the sky was sad that I had to leave?

I had a very slow day. The Ketubah lady picked us up at 9. For those of you who don’t know a Ketubah is a Jewish marriage contract that basically spells out the responsibilities of the groom if the marriage fails. In today’s world, there are egalitarian Ketubahs that include provisions for the bride and the groom, the groom and the groom or the bride and the bride. They can be in various dialects of Hebrew, English or a mix of the two. They were nice, but not overwhelmingly beautiful. Our Ketubah is beautiful, but it is a standard document. I don’t know if Jess and Matt will want the customization that this woman provides or something fancier and more standard. I really want to get them one from Israel.

When we got back to the hotel, I helped Jack with updating the PowerPoint presentation that his committee is going to present to the “Joint” tomorrow. The Joint is the Joint Distribution Committee which is a national organization in the US that funds projects in Israel. In the late 40’s my grandfather worked for the Joint touring DP camps in Europe where Jews who survived the Holocaust were locked up. No kidding, they were released from a concentration camp to be locked up in a DP camp by the allies since nobody wanted them. The Joint is still in business and is a player in the “Seder Plate”. The “Seder Plate” is the name given to the slide that shows the 12 groups that are involved in this project. In mid-afternoon, I hung out listening to Jack and his buddy, the program manager, discuss how to try to get through all the politics. With CJP, the Joint, several Municipal departments and half a dozen other groups involved, politics is inevitable. When most, if not all the players are Jewish, then you have politics squared. At 2 when we were just about to go to lunch, we were cornered in the lobby and told that we HAD to go to a presentation at the middle school down the block because the students and faculty would be disappointed if too few people from CJP showed up. Guilt is a great motivator, especially for Jews, so despite our hunger we headed over to the school. The event turned out to be fun. We were divided into small groups with one American, one teacher and two students. The two young women in my group were adorable. They both like chemistry and physics, despite the fact that in Israel just as in the US there is a bias against women in science. They are working on a project to come up with alternatives to the disposable plastic bags used in supermarket and the recovery of clean water. The work is being done jointly with a Jewish day school just outside Boston using Facebook and Skype. Approximately 36 students from the US are coming to Israel in April and then 36 of the Israeli students are coming to Boston in May. I gave them my email and told them that when they know what their schedule will be in Boston, they should contact me and I’d take them and 2 other young women interested in science to either the Museum of Science or if the group takes them there, I’ll take them to the MIT museum. I wonder if they’ll contact me.
At four we finally had lunch – falafel. It’s not that I don’t like falafel, but I think it will be a while before I have it once I get home. I spent the early evening was packing and now I’m on the train from Haifa to the airport. My flight is at 12:30 so I should be good and tired and with the help of modern chemistry, ready to sleep. Going home the flight is 13 hours. When I arrive, I’ll take a cab to JFK, fly to Boston and take a cab to work. I would have preferred to stay in Israel.
Isreael is such a complicated, noisy country. Everyone has an opinion and no one is shy about sharing it. I met some wonderful people during my volunteering at Nevatim and during my stay in Haifa. Some were Israeli, some American and some from other parts of the world. It was comfortable and comforting to spend 10 days will people who share my commitment to the future of the Jewish state.

Addendum
I'm adding this note on Friday night after coming home from synagogue. I struck up a conversation with a woman at services who was telling me that she lived in Vienna for six months during the past year. The antisemisim is so bad that when you go to services they use metal detectors at the entrance to the synagogue and that when the services begin the doors are locked and security patrols outside throughout the whole services. She questions the long term viablility of Jewish communities in Europe. I think if more Jews in the US knew what was going on in Europe they would understand the reason why we need Israel.

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