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Published: August 27th 2007
FIRST I STILL APOLOGIZE FOR THE LONG/ RUSHED SUMMARY OF THE PAST FEW WEEKS:
Sunday brought us back to classes in the mornings with afternoons spent doing homework by the pool. Monday night was our second movie night, and this time we watched a film called “Sof Ha’olam Ssmola” or “Turn Left at The End of the World” made in 2004. It is very popular film here about new immigrants to Israel in the 60’s who discover that the desert was not at all what they had expected. Furthermore, it dealt with racial divisions of those who moved to Israel during the time period. The film witnessed the divides especially between Indian Jews and Western European Jews in the Negev and two girls who formed an everlasting friendship. (Yes I know my description is cheesy~).
Our first lecture of the semester was given on Tuesday, August 7th by Dr. Jonathan Fine on Secular Terrorism. He relayed his views about the subject matter for both an academic and practical (as a government employee) viewpoint. He has experience in both realms of the subject matter but struggles to get the two sides to work together in a productive manner. This lecture
was the first of three that he will give during the Ulpan on the topic of terrorism. The following is an overview of some bullet points that he gave us during the lecture. I found his knowledge informative with an underlining tone of bias and personal opinions about the state of Israel and other ethnicities.
SUMMARY TO BE ADDED AT A LATER DATE
For our third Monday, movie night we watched the film “Walk on Water.” It provides a very interesting perspective on terrorism, those who fight against it, and those who suffer from it. I realized that while all forms of terrorism are different (religious terrorism and homophobia were the two represented in this film) most victims can find unity and understanding in their shared victimhood and feelings toward their adversary. My friend Natania is very familiar with the film and described its underlying message to me in a manner that I found very insightful as well as ideal: “I think this is a powerful tool in terms of empathizing with others and beginning to understand the attitudes that many victims take toward their oppressors. Many of us have been oppressed in some way during or throughout
our lives, whether because of our gender, sexual orientation, religion, or socio-economic status. If we can connect with others based on an understanding of what it means to be a victim, regardless of the different labels that society places upon us, we are that much closer to finding solutions to the problems that too often divide us.”
This film also encourages a lot of us on the program to discuss the racism that we have witnessed here in the Middle East. The assumptions that people make about each other based upon national origin (indicated by skin color, accent, and behavior) here are much more blatantly obvious than in the US. Unfortunately, many people are not aware of the meaning of "politically correct" here and when you attempt explain the term many Israelis that we have come into contact with do not deem the concept important or productive. For example, the use of the n-word is prevalent in Israel, particularly where I am located in Beer Sheva. It is a little disconcerting and at first frustrating that many Israelis have negative views of African Americans. I have come to realize that most of this is out of ignorance as many refer
to me as “the real black person” as I am the first African American that they have met in person. The only introduction to African Americans and African American culture that most Israeli’s have is through mass media being the entertainment industry. There are times when I constantly feel myself having to engage in conversations that can at times be frustrating in an effort to portray an entire race of people through my own actions and demeanor. I have come across many stereotypes and generalizations in Israel about African Americans that are disheartening; however, perhaps I am here for reasons other than to study Middle Eastern Politics and my being here introduces many local Israelis to a more positive view of African Americans.
• MASADA (August 10)
The weekend of August 10th we took a group trip to the Masada and the Dead Sea. It was a long weekend to say the least: Many of us went out on Thursday Night and went straight to the bus at 3 am Saturday night to hike Masada in time to see the sunrise. We took the steep but direct route up the mountain, and climbed up to the highest lookout point
Bus Stop
Waiting for the Bus with half of the group after staying up all night watching the stars.to watch the sunrise over the Dead Sea. When it was light out, Dotan (our guide) showed us around the mountain and told us stories about the history and relevance to the Israeli people. The history of Masada, as an overview, (and borrowed pretty much verbatim, from my friend Natania’s guidebook):
Masada (pronounced Matzada) is a ruined mountaintop fortress in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea. It has become a potent symbol for the state and people of Israel, and Israeli soldiers are sworn in there with the words, “Masada shall not fall again.”The small Hasmonean fort at Masada assumed its present form under Kind Herod (40-4BC) who constructed the palaces and fortifications as a desert retreat. In 66AD, the knife-bearing Sicari, or Zealots, captured Masada from the Romans at the start of the First Jewish Revolt (66-73AD). As the revolt was crushed in other parts of the country, Zealots made their way here. Eventually the Romans besieged Masada with 15,000 men, and traces of their camps can be seen at the foot of the mountain. The Zealots and their families numbered about 967. The Romans built a ramp up the western side of the mountain and breached the
Judea Plan
Hiking and playing in the trees wall on the first day of Pesach in the year 73AD. They found everyone dead, except for one woman and her children. She told them that when defeat seemed inevitable, the Zealot leader, Ben-Yair, made a rousing speech praising death above defeat and dishonor. Ten men were selected by lot to kill everyone else. Finally the 10 killed each other, one last man killing himself. She alone decided to live. (Dotan, our guide, tells this story a bit differently, so please don't quote me, or, rather, Natania’s guidebook, on this.) The Romans occupied Masada again briefly. Byzantine monks resided there in the 5th and 6th centuries, after which the site was abandoned. On the way back down the mountain, we took the snake path (shaped like a snake so that it is less steep than the direct route but much, much longer), whose gate runs through the original guardroom into the site.
• DEAD SEA
After coming down the mountain and exploring the gift shop for a few minutes, we piled back on the bus and headed toward the Dead Sea. I was struck by the gorgeous color of the water from far away, and by the unpleasant smell
of sulfur that overwhelmed us when we approached the water. As you can see in the pictures, the biggest draw to the Dead Sea is that nothing can ever live there (no fish, plants, or anything) as there is so much sulfur throughout the sea. You can literally put your hands on the floor of the sea and pick up handfuls of salt. Everyone loves to take the stereotypical tourist photo of reading a book while floating in the thick seawater.
• MITZPE RAMON METEOR SHOWER (August 13)
After class on August 13th, I received a phone call from my Israeli friend Arik says that he was thinking about traveling south to see the anticipated meteor shower and wondered if I was interested. Taking after my mother and learning for her social organization skills, I organized a trip for about 12 or so of my friends and I to travel south to Mitzpe Ramon (“Roman Viewpoint”) with Arik. We took about an hour and a half bus ride to Mitzpe Ramon and roamed around the city that night for about an hour before we were picked up in trucks by local Bedouins. We arrived at our rented Bedouin tent
late that night after spending sometime at a local restaurant. In retrospect, it was very ambitious of us to travel by bus to a place in the middle of the desert at night and just trust that these people would pick us up and take us back to civilization in the morning. Thankful we did have Arik to assist with the language barrier, as traveling is often difficult with my limited Hebrew. We were ecstatic when the tent turned out to be GORGEOUS and I found the accommodations to be nicer than our dorms. We moved three picnic tables outside of the tent and used sleeping bags to cover ourselves from the cold as we watched the shooting stars. It was beyond amazing and the sky was perfectly clear as the local town had required everything (expect the local army base) to shut off all lights so everyone could witness the shower. Around 2 in the morning we were joined but two other Israeli friends (Or and Leon) who stayed up the entire night with Ben, Kelly, and I to watch the stars. We witnessed some stars light up the entire sky until sunset came. I was surprised to find that our tent was right next to a stable with horses, turkeys, and goats, which explained many of the noises that we had heard the entire night. The only downside of the trip was that after staying up the entire night we left Mitzpe Ramon around 7 am, took a bus straight to Beer Sheva, and walked directly to class for a three-hour Hebrew lesson. To say the least we were a little tired but the trip was definitely worth our exhaustion.
• THE JUDEA PLANE (August 17)
On Friday August 17th we took a group trip to the Judea plane and Mediterranean Sea. The Judea plane hike was short and fun, and we enjoyed climbing trees to pick fresh figs. Personally I was a little disappointed that we were unable to proceed with our hike into the bat cave as it was suspected that there was a mysterious animal inside and the gate was closed. However, the scenery was beautiful and we were grateful for the light hike as many of us had been out late at a local Israeli dance club the night before and we were rather tired.
After our hike, we proceed to the Beitgemal monastery in the town of Beit Shemesh. The monastery is gorgeous, with an abundance of brightly colored flowers and beautiful architecture. They have a panoramic view of the mountainous region around them, and from one rooftop the wall between Israel and the West Bank was visible. My friend Kyle and I attempted to take pictures of the wall and carry on our own personal conversation about our political feelings about its existence but we quickly found that our sentiments were not appreciated. I must admit it was a surreal feeling to see the wall in person and to acknowledge its existence as a tangible reality. The monastery is a closed community where nuns come from all over the world to live and welcome visits in order to make money by selling their hand painted pottery, organic olive oil, and wine in their gift-shop. They say that they have thousands of visitors every Shabbat because people find peace at the monastery, where a statue of the virgin Mary stands perched atop of the buildings as a symbol of peace between Christians and Jews. The nuns believe that their duty is to pray, and that their prayers bring love and peace to those outside the monastery. They pray in Hebrew, Arabic, and French because those are the local languages.
Our mini field trip concluded with a few relaxing hours at the beach on the Mediterranean Sea. The water was the perfect temperature- warm enough that you could walk right in and still cool enough to be refreshing in the summer heat. The shades of teal in the clear water were picturesque, and most of the water was shallow enough that we could wade out to a rock formation without having to swim. It was a perfect conclusion to a beautiful, relaxing day.
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chieko
non-member comment
omg u look dark!