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Published: November 20th 2009
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Anemones
In a few months, there will be fields of these blooming across the Galilee. As Gertrud Nelson wisely commented last week, winter and spring are the same thing here. So as autumn deepens, I had to turn on my heat this week. The markets are full of permissions, pears and purple grapes. And at the same time, the flower stands are full of cyclamens and anemones - my favorite flowers! This week I also had occasion to reflect again that one of the incredible things about living in Jerusalem is that even a so-called normal, uneventful week is actually filled with so many astonishing opportunities both in and out of the classroom!
Living This Tuesday was an Ethiopian Jewish holiday called the Sigd. In Ethiopia, it was a holiday of repentance and longing for Jerusalem. The holiday is still observed here in Israel, where the Ethiopian community is about 120,000 people. They gather together on the tayelet, a long vista point just south of the Old City (and across the small valley from my balcony), where there is a stunning view of Jerusalem, for a ceremony. Unfortunately, I missed the ceremony itself; we had classes on Tuesday. But school is just down the street from the tayelet, so a couple of us rushed
Autumn harvest
Even the supermarket shows the beauty of the season! up during lunch to catch the festive mood as things were winding down. There were hundreds of teenagers, members of the Israeli scout movement and groups of school kids who came in from all over the country. Further down were small groups of older women in traditional dress and below were booths with information about the Sigd and resources for the Ethiopian community. It is interesting that part of the Zionist vision is understanding that one purpose of a Jewish state is to normalize and preserve Jewish culture. And within Israel itself, each segment of the Jewish community still has to take responsibility to preserve its own culture and its own traditions from the various corners of the world from which we came!
This month the Jerusalem Cinemateque, the premiere film center in the city, is showcasing the films of Wim Wenders, the German director who made movies such as "Buena Vista Social Club," "Wings of Desire," and "Paris, Texas." This week Mr. Wenders came to town to talk about his films. He first showed two short films he made for Doctors Without Borders. Doctors Without Borders asked five directors to make a short film about one of ten
Wim Wenders
The German film maker (on the right), at the Jerusalem Cinemateque, discussed why place is so important to his films, his interest in photography and the terrible implications of violence in film. "invisible" health issues they face. Wenders chose violence against women. He spent a month in a small town in the Democratic Republic of Congo and interviewed women who had been raped by soldiers during the war. As the women told their stories with unbelievable stoicism, they faded in and out of view, sometimes shimmering see-through and sometimes completely invisible. He included shots of the town itself where the women were carrying water from a distance and you could see right through them. He told us that he wondered where the men were and he discovered that despite the fact that there is no electricity in the town, the men set up a generator to create a cinema. That's where they spend their days, watching war movies. Wenders made a three minute, completely devastating film of the men and little boys glued to the violence on the screen and the juxtaposition of that with what their wives, sisters and mothers had experienced during the war was so painful. There was a discussion with Wenders and then they screened a full feature film of his called Palermo Shooting, which is about a German photographer and death. I have always admired Wenders' films
Shiba
My flat-mate for the next 2 months or so! and hearing him speak about them was such a wonderful treat!
Many of you know that in San Diego I had a cat named Sojee who died just before I left to come to Israel. Jerusalem is a city full of feral cats, prowling through the garbage cans and yowling in the alleys. In the best circumstances, it is difficult for a cat person! Well, my friend Tamar has a friend whose daughter needed a long-term cat-sitter. Long story short, Shiba arrived this week. She is a funny cat, with wide, astonished eyes and a skittish nature. She is adjusting well to her new temporary home and I am happy to have feline company again!
Learning One of our classes is called "How to Observe" and the goal is to teach us from an ethnographical anthropological perspective how to tell what is really going on in an educational (or any) setting. The theory behind the class is that you can tell more by noticing the ordinary than the special case and the more you pay attention to what is happening (as opposed to your theory of what is happening), the more you can know. This week we got to practice. We split up and spent two days at various institutions of learning around Jerusalem. Our assignment was to write down as much detail as we could about our own observations, conduct at least one interview and gather as much other contextual information as possible.
In some ways the experience was a little like a reflective jury duty: highly time intensive, an exercise in suspending all judgment until the evidence has been concluded, and ultimately a fascinating opportunity for insight into a different slice of life. The institution I visited, Pardes, (which is a yeshiva for men and women to immerse themselves in traditional texts in an open and egalitarian environment) is an excellent one and they are well-known for their accomplishment in teaching text skills and fostering a commitment to Jewish peoplehood and Israel. I had visited Pardes before and have always been impressed with their programs. But this was a different methodology for understanding how we learn - paying attention to the small details of how people interact, exactly how we speak, body language, physical settings, etc.
Now to organize all those pages of notes!!
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Howard
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Good to hear from you...
Lisa, I always look forward to your posts. Your writing is superb. H