Blogs from Israel, Middle East - page 144

Classes started last week. I'm taking Hebrew plus four other classes: Israeli Drama, the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, After Auschwitz: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Culture, and Jewish Education. The Israeli Drama class is really fun, I miss all the drama I used to do in high school. Last night we had to read a play and analyze one character in it, and then today in class we read parts of it, playing the character we had analyzed. It was really nice to read a play aloud again. The class about the Arab-Israeli conflict is good; it's very lecture-based and the professor is kind of dry, but the material is interesting. The Holocaust class is really interesting; it's about analyzing literature and films and artwork about the Holocaust, so it's not just an English ... read more

Shalom y'all. For most of you who are thoroughly confused by the title of this entry, let me update you are some recent developments in the Middle East, courtesy of the BBC. First, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, declared that Israel would disappear, and that this is inevitable. This was, of course, in response to the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior commander of Hezbollah. This sounds like quite the magic trick, and as much as I am enjoying Israel, I would like to hear how he intends to pull this off. Next, in probably unrelated news, Shlomo Benizri, an Israeli Parliament member from the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) political party Shas, blamed recent earthquakes in Jerusalem on legal tolerance of gays. Now, Shlomo, I am sure you have your reasons for speaking out, but if ... read more

My pilgrimage… I’ve written updates along the way, however for most of my pilgrimage all I did was concentrate on my time there and therefore have not really shared the overall experience. For those of you who would like more information I’m putting together this account for you all as well as for myself. Overall, it was the most amazing time of my life, I feel so refreshed, so rejuvenated, so fulfilled, so awakened, so quickened and so excited for what comes next in life. At the moment I’m still looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, however the day in a half that I have been home is bringing me back down to earth quickly. I am really trying to keep that ethereal feeling however it’s not the easiest thing to do. But every morning ... read more

We’ve had some time between research flowering seasons. The rains have been sparse, and we had a couple of bouts of unseasonably cold weather, both of which have set back the spring flush of flowering. This delay and the break between the end of the last Hebrew class and the start of the next have given me some time off to just enjoy the weeks of warm weather and the flowers that are starting to bloom. Kaitlin, my former Puget Sound research student, has arrived, and we have started to explore the “natural” areas in and around Haifa. It is hard to say “natural” here because everywhere here has been occupied for thousands of years, and there isn’t really anywhere that is devoid of human traces. Nevertheless, there are places that have stayed more or less ... read more

Istanbul is absolutely gorgeous. The whole city is dotted with beautiful mosques and the whole city seems to pulse to the call to prayer five times a day. From the plane, the minarets spiral upwards, away from the city. The first full day we were there, Hilary, Jodi, Nataly, Emily, and I wandered a little bit with the help (kind of) of my new map before we finally asked directions to Sultanehmet Square. We somehow managed to take the tramvay to Sultanehmet and we walked to the Blue Mosque but got there just as they were closing to visitors for prayer. Haghia Sophia is just across from the Blue Mosque, so we went there first. Haghia Sophia was first a church, built by Justinian in the 6th century, and it was later turned into a mosque. ... read more