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Published: March 7th 2010
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Apparently, it often rains during Purim, the carnival-esque Jewish holiday, and this year was certainly no exception to the rule. A week ago it rained so hard that on my 15 minute walk to Mandel I got so wet, despite my long coat, my rain pants and my (utterly useless) umbrella, the librarian took pity on me and brought over a portable heater so I could dry out my pants before heading back out into the deluge. But now even on the thin rocky hills of the Judean desert beyond my balcony, the land is "shouting with grass," as John Steinbeck wrote. It is beautiful!
Living For those of you unfamiliar with Purim, it is an upside-down holiday of irreverence, costumes, drunkenness, and lots of food, based on the story of Esther from the Bible. There is a joke that most Jewish holidays are organized around the theme of "They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat." And Purim certainly fits that description! But Purim in Israel can be a little confusing. In most places, it is celebrated on the 14th of the month of Adar, but in cities that had walls around them back in the days
Best Costume Award
That pink dress is made entirely of balloons! of Joshua, it is celebrated a day later. Jerusalem is one of those walled cities, so while most of Israel celebrated on Sunday, Jerusalem celebrated on Monday. The real party people spent Sunday in Tel Aviv and Monday in Jerusalem and celebrated twice! (One day was enough for me!)
It was so fun walking down the streets of Jerusalem watching kids and adults in costume. The most creative costume I saw was the woman who works as a balloon distributor and who made herself a 20's style flapper dress made entirely of balloons. Some of the customs of Purim include hearing the story of Esther, giving each other gifts of food, and hosting parties with skits, alcohol and yes, more food. The Fellows had meal together where we enjoyed "traif" (non-kosher) cheeseburgers (with fake meat) and did an impromptu skit making fun of our program, much to the bewilderment and bemusement of the family members and friends who came along. I also went to my friend Esther's house for another festive meal with lots of cava. Tuesday was back to class as usual and I wondered why I felt jetlagged until I realized, oh, that's not jetlag. That's post-Purim!
One of the other highlights of the week was being invited to an Ethiopian wedding. It was held at a hall called the Opera in Petach Tikvah, not so far from Tel Aviv. (There were different sections - the Opera Mozart and the Opera Beethovan.) It was really a community event. I was told later that over 900 guests attended at various parts of the evening! It was a very different aesthetic than what I am used to, although I think that was more of an Israeli sensibility than an Ethiopian one. For example, when the bride and groom went up to the chuppah (the wedding canopy), huge sparklers shot off sparks and fire, and when the groom stepped on the glass at the end of the ceremony, confetti was tossed out over the crowd. The party was also full of sparklers and fog machines and all kinds of special effects, including a camera on a huge boom that moved around the dance floor. I enjoyed watching the dancing; Ethiopian dancing is largely expressed in the shoulders. It looks really fun! One thing that made me a little sad is that the kisim, the Ethiopian "priests" aren't recognized by
Rabbi Amsalem
He has written a new book urging greater leniency in matters of conversion. the rabbinate and so they were not authorized to officiate at the wedding. Instead, they stood to the side and a young Sefardic rabbi did the officiating with a karaoke-like machine that provided background music to his chanting of the blessings. He did have a nice voice.
Learning I think I've mentioned the round table on Jewish values and Israeli policy that I've been observing. This week we heard from a member of Knesset named Rabbi Chaim Amsalem. He was born in Algeria and is a member of Shas, which is an ultra-Orthodox Sefardic party. He told us a little about his background and how he came to be aware of the huge number of people who are not considered to be Jews according to Jewish law because their fathers are Jewish, but their mothers are not. The rabbinic courts in Israel make it very difficult for these people to go through a formal conversion process. This is a huge issue; there are around 300,000 people in Israel who have at least one Jewish grandparent but are not Jewish according to Jewish law and they are not allowed to marry or be buried by Jewish law. Rabbi Amsalem has written a new book, arguing that there is no reason for the rabbinate to be stricter than Jewish law requires and in this case, Jewish law requires much less than the rabbinate. He believes that the rabbinate's rigidity is very dangerous to Israel's future and is strongly advocating for a relaxing of the requirements for conversion. This is a highly controversial stance in Israeli politics and particularly from someone coming from an ultra-Orthodox party. I was impressed; although I personally do not attach much importance at all to the question of who is a Jew and I reject the implied biological aspect to Jewish peoplehood, I thought that it was unusual and remarkable that someone who does hold those things seriously would do so with such openness and compassion. It will be interesting to see what happens with this new book.
The other interesting conversation at Mandel this week was in the Israeli-American dialogue group. A couple of weeks ago we began discussing our relationship to Israel and it was quickly apparent that there is a huge range of views among the 10 of us, from those who are staunchly supportive of all Israeli policy to those who question whether a Jewish state is good for the Jews. The interesting part of the conversation was trying to figure out how to have the conversation. It was very easy for people to begin using the usual arguments that we all know and have heard a million times. But as we know, it is difficult to have a real conversation around those arguments; no one is really listening to each other. I think at our next meeting we will try to bring the conversation back to the personal and away from the ideological, possibly exploring how we each came to hold the views we have. I am very interested in this discussion because I think that the kind of "conversation" we have on campus is not a conversation at all. It is a shouting of slogans. I am interested in different kinds of models for how we might approach heart-felt differences in a respectful, productive way.
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Marjory Kaplan
non-member comment
So Many Adventures
Lisa, it's always great fun reading your reports. This one was so full of contrast -- from Purim madness to serious discussion with your fellow students. Israel is getting a lot of rain and so is San Diego! So we both get to experience a beautiful spring. Shalom, Marjory