Los Angeles
Strange how imprecise memory can be. Or was it too think I'd remember accurately 20 years later?
What I recalled about Ein Gedi was that the verdant water fall was only a short hike in from the entrance area. I didn't remember that the oasis includes actually several water falls, each varying height, each falling into different pools with different depths. The river drops through 4 levels, and the pool I remembered, the one Vicki and I enjoyed the most when we visited on our honeymoon, was actually the top-most pool.
Saul and I never made it to the top pool. Saul's interest in the whole excursion could be described best as tolerant, as in, he was slumming to go along with me only because I insisted. When we made it to the next-to-the last falls I found what I was looking for. The falls descended into a somewhat wide pool clearly deep enough for a swim, and there were no other people around save two women who were preparing to leave. I immediately pulled off my shirt, shoes and socks and stepped into the water. It was more than cool -- icy. But the chill only beckoned me further. I dove in.
Instantly I felt the frigid water's delicious intensity. I popped my head up and headed across the pool towards the waterfall. I was going all the way -- intent on letting the stream cascade over me. I swam back towards Saul and the mini rock beach on which he sat. I had to go back for more -- one more paddle to the waterfall, a moment with it pouring over me, and then back to the rocks. Now I pulled myself out of the water and found a rock to sit on so I could dry off.
"This made the day for me, Saul. It completed it." I felt totally revived, energized. And then Saul could not resist. He rolled his pants above his ankles, pulled off his shoes and socks, and waded in. I found intense gratification in his 'monkey see, monkey do' response.
Our hike back to our rental car proved quicker than the hike up. As we drove away, I didn't know how to articulate to Saul what it meant for me to be able to dive in as I did. It had something to do with diving in to Israel, totally submersing myself in the beauty and wonders it has to offer. It probably has something to do with the many trips Vicki and I have made to Tassajara, and particularly the fondness we've developed for the swimming holes along the creek we always hike there. We return to Tassajara each year for the refreshment and relaxation we find in our favorite, isolated spots.
Maybe it has something to do with my rowing on the Yarkon, too. Ein Gedi demonstrated another way I could plug in to Israel my way. Whether in a single scull out of the Daniele Rowing Center or under a waterfall, I found on this trip different ways I can do what I love to do in Israel. This is what, most of all, will last in my memory.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Masada
Los Angeles
Just because I'm home now doesn't mean the ripples and reflections from the trip end. Our last days consisted of Shabbat in Hashmonean, Masada and Ein Gedi, and my visits and meetings at Yad Vashem.
Saul kicked my tush at Masada. Meaning, he took one look at the cable car, a tiny bucket dangling from two threads, and remembered that his friend Harel advised him to climb the snake path, and told me that's how he wanted to get to the top. Which generally is fine with me, because my self-flattery suggests I am in good shape and can handle any challenge. Hell, maybe we should even start jogging as the commando units do on the morning of their graduations...
Cut to 10 minutes later. "Gee Dad, you're really sweating. Breath through your nose more so the air doesn't dry out your throat."
Cut to 10 minutes later, maybe a bit more than 1/2 way up. "Saul (pant, pant), it's time for a 5 minute (pant, pant) rest."
I tried to argue that I was carrying the pack, and that made me hotter... I asked Saul to carry it for the last quarter of the route. We rested another few minutes when we got to the top, but the key is we made it. And I resolved to fix my rowing machine and get back into shape the minute we got home. (Which I am doing, but that is another story.)
At the top Saul and I opted out of the audio guide. Audio Tours always make me feel guilty. They provide far more information than I can ever recall. Yet if I don't get them I feel I am missing out on the opportunity to get the inside story. We self-toured. Not until I met with Yehudit Inbar, Yad Vashem Museum Director, did I have my guilt assuaged. But that is for another posting.
As it was at Beit Shean, the self-tour was a great experience. Again, Saul and I guided each other. I shared with him what I remembered from previous visits. He asked questions that forced us to investigate the site together. Questions such as, when we looked at the rough walls of the synagogue, 'Were the walls this rough when it was in use?'
Cut to the upper palace, where we could see the remains of tiled floors and plastered walls. Or the bath houses, where we could see the creature comforts installed into the rooms.
Perhaps the most interesting exhibit was the interactive model showing how Herod installed numerous systems to trap and save water. Saul took charge, pouring water over the leaden model and watching how it was trapped in gutters and channeled to cisterns.
We moved to the northern palace, Herod's summer home, built below and in the shade of the summit. A very boisterous Israeli group overwhelmed us, both with their numbers and their noise. It reminded Saul too much of the annoying kids on the bus ride from the Malcha mall. Time to descend.
I wasn't prepared for Saul's response: let's take the cable car. Which was fine by me. I was ready for the cardio challenge of the downward climb, but knew it would be even more punishing on my knees.
As we descended quickly (3 minutes from top to bottom), I watched the fortress city recede above me. I learned that residents there even grew crops; with proper water management, the community had significant levels of self-sufficiency. Interestingly, Masada's martyred ghosts did not call out to me at any point during our visit. I thought about them, recalling how I first learned of Masada through a feature film treatment a friend of my parents' once wrote. But I wasn't affected by the tremendous self-sacrifice that occurred.
I think Sderot and Operation Cast Lead ("OCL") had something to do with it. The mood in Israel was not one of sacrifice and victimization. Maybe I couldn't dwell on sacrifice as the ultimate Jewish resistance, because Israel freed us from that trap. I guarantee that conclusion was not on the audio guide.
Just because I'm home now doesn't mean the ripples and reflections from the trip end. Our last days consisted of Shabbat in Hashmonean, Masada and Ein Gedi, and my visits and meetings at Yad Vashem.
Saul kicked my tush at Masada. Meaning, he took one look at the cable car, a tiny bucket dangling from two threads, and remembered that his friend Harel advised him to climb the snake path, and told me that's how he wanted to get to the top. Which generally is fine with me, because my self-flattery suggests I am in good shape and can handle any challenge. Hell, maybe we should even start jogging as the commando units do on the morning of their graduations...
Cut to 10 minutes later. "Gee Dad, you're really sweating. Breath through your nose more so the air doesn't dry out your throat."
Cut to 10 minutes later, maybe a bit more than 1/2 way up. "Saul (pant, pant), it's time for a 5 minute (pant, pant) rest."
I tried to argue that I was carrying the pack, and that made me hotter... I asked Saul to carry it for the last quarter of the route. We rested another few minutes when we got to the top, but the key is we made it. And I resolved to fix my rowing machine and get back into shape the minute we got home. (Which I am doing, but that is another story.)
At the top Saul and I opted out of the audio guide. Audio Tours always make me feel guilty. They provide far more information than I can ever recall. Yet if I don't get them I feel I am missing out on the opportunity to get the inside story. We self-toured. Not until I met with Yehudit Inbar, Yad Vashem Museum Director, did I have my guilt assuaged. But that is for another posting.
As it was at Beit Shean, the self-tour was a great experience. Again, Saul and I guided each other. I shared with him what I remembered from previous visits. He asked questions that forced us to investigate the site together. Questions such as, when we looked at the rough walls of the synagogue, 'Were the walls this rough when it was in use?'
Cut to the upper palace, where we could see the remains of tiled floors and plastered walls. Or the bath houses, where we could see the creature comforts installed into the rooms.
Perhaps the most interesting exhibit was the interactive model showing how Herod installed numerous systems to trap and save water. Saul took charge, pouring water over the leaden model and watching how it was trapped in gutters and channeled to cisterns.
We moved to the northern palace, Herod's summer home, built below and in the shade of the summit. A very boisterous Israeli group overwhelmed us, both with their numbers and their noise. It reminded Saul too much of the annoying kids on the bus ride from the Malcha mall. Time to descend.
I wasn't prepared for Saul's response: let's take the cable car. Which was fine by me. I was ready for the cardio challenge of the downward climb, but knew it would be even more punishing on my knees.
As we descended quickly (3 minutes from top to bottom), I watched the fortress city recede above me. I learned that residents there even grew crops; with proper water management, the community had significant levels of self-sufficiency. Interestingly, Masada's martyred ghosts did not call out to me at any point during our visit. I thought about them, recalling how I first learned of Masada through a feature film treatment a friend of my parents' once wrote. But I wasn't affected by the tremendous self-sacrifice that occurred.
I think Sderot and Operation Cast Lead ("OCL") had something to do with it. The mood in Israel was not one of sacrifice and victimization. Maybe I couldn't dwell on sacrifice as the ultimate Jewish resistance, because Israel freed us from that trap. I guarantee that conclusion was not on the audio guide.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
What I Can Say About Sderot
Jerusalem
There are a few things I can say about Sderot. Let me begin with the flags. Several places along the streets are decked out in kahol v’lavan, plastic Israeli flags. Absolutely decked out. Flags on poles, flags on pedestrian barriers, flags on virtually anything that can hold the flags. I was not surprised to learn from Noam that mental health professionals were surprised to see a collective burst of optimism when the action began, rather than an increase in sadness that professionals expect to see when fighting commences. There is probably no single group of people more supportive of Israel’s Gaza operation. Not just for the obvious reasons, such as the possibility that the operation might end the rocket attacks. But for the slightly more significant reason, that Sderot’s government is finally taking action to protect its embattled citizens.
Which gets me back to the fact that for Hamas, it’s not personal. After seeing the facts on the ground first hand, Hamas’s real targets are the news leads of the cable stations and the front pages of the newspapers. As long as Hamas can continue to project an ability to terrorize Israel it gets the world to pay attention to it.
Images that stay with me after Sderot: the asphalt scars; the numerous shelters scattered throughout the city; in the center of a plaground park, the bomb shelter painted to look like a caterpillar to make it more kid-friendly; the damaged roofs on buildings that took a direct hit; the hundreds of recovered shells stored at the police station.
An experience that stays with me after Sderot: always asking myself, ‘if the Zevah Adom (Red Color warning) goes off now, where is the nearest shelter?’
Saul and I got a free pass when we visited Sderot. By that I mean, we visited during the week in which Hamas had said publicly it would not fire more rockets in order to give the Israeli army time to get out of Gaza. But as soon as that week is up, I have no reason to believe the people of Sderot will continue to enjoy the free pass. My hope, during the Operation Cast Lead as I read about it while sitting safely at my breakfast table in Los Angeles, is that Israel would not stop until the rockets stopped. But Hamas was still launching when Israel announced its unilateral cease fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at that time Israel could return to Gaza any time. But will it? If I were living in Sderot, in addition to the constant fear and post-traumatic stress all residents endure, I would struggle with the gnawing question of whether my initial optimism that my government was protecting me has now become disappointment.
There are a few things I can say about Sderot. Let me begin with the flags. Several places along the streets are decked out in kahol v’lavan, plastic Israeli flags. Absolutely decked out. Flags on poles, flags on pedestrian barriers, flags on virtually anything that can hold the flags. I was not surprised to learn from Noam that mental health professionals were surprised to see a collective burst of optimism when the action began, rather than an increase in sadness that professionals expect to see when fighting commences. There is probably no single group of people more supportive of Israel’s Gaza operation. Not just for the obvious reasons, such as the possibility that the operation might end the rocket attacks. But for the slightly more significant reason, that Sderot’s government is finally taking action to protect its embattled citizens.
Which gets me back to the fact that for Hamas, it’s not personal. After seeing the facts on the ground first hand, Hamas’s real targets are the news leads of the cable stations and the front pages of the newspapers. As long as Hamas can continue to project an ability to terrorize Israel it gets the world to pay attention to it.
Images that stay with me after Sderot: the asphalt scars; the numerous shelters scattered throughout the city; in the center of a plaground park, the bomb shelter painted to look like a caterpillar to make it more kid-friendly; the damaged roofs on buildings that took a direct hit; the hundreds of recovered shells stored at the police station.
An experience that stays with me after Sderot: always asking myself, ‘if the Zevah Adom (Red Color warning) goes off now, where is the nearest shelter?’
Saul and I got a free pass when we visited Sderot. By that I mean, we visited during the week in which Hamas had said publicly it would not fire more rockets in order to give the Israeli army time to get out of Gaza. But as soon as that week is up, I have no reason to believe the people of Sderot will continue to enjoy the free pass. My hope, during the Operation Cast Lead as I read about it while sitting safely at my breakfast table in Los Angeles, is that Israel would not stop until the rockets stopped. But Hamas was still launching when Israel announced its unilateral cease fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at that time Israel could return to Gaza any time. But will it? If I were living in Sderot, in addition to the constant fear and post-traumatic stress all residents endure, I would struggle with the gnawing question of whether my initial optimism that my government was protecting me has now become disappointment.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Most Important Thing to Say About Sderot
Before I say anything else about Sderot, let me admit that I have no idea what is really going on there. I can be toured around by Noam Bedein, Director of the Sderot Media Center. I can see the evidence of the multiple rocket strikes throughout the city. I can drive down the street that has the bad luck to be in the wheelhouse range of your average Qassam. I can see on that street house after house, pracitcally neighbor-to-neighbor, that suffered a direct hit. And I can study the strange half-circles carved into the asphalt by a rocket, images that look like a sketch of a sunrise if you didn’t know better.
But until I hear the alarm warning and know that I will have -- if I'm lucky – a maximum of 15 seconds to find a bomb shelter, I really can’t know what’s going on there.
Thus, though visiting Sderot was one of the highlights of my trip, I really have no idea what’s going on there.
[image of Qassam scar to be inserted here - check back soon]
But until I hear the alarm warning and know that I will have -- if I'm lucky – a maximum of 15 seconds to find a bomb shelter, I really can’t know what’s going on there.
Thus, though visiting Sderot was one of the highlights of my trip, I really have no idea what’s going on there.
[image of Qassam scar to be inserted here - check back soon]
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
There's Multimedia, and Then There's Multimedia
First off, I found out the hard way that when different people keep reminding me of the same thing I should probably take note. Saul wanted to visit Museum Machon Ayalon, a.k.a. the bullet factory. I couldn’t find information about it in our guide book (Frommer’s – not recommended), so I had to ask several people about it. Only the tour guide who took us through the Golan was able to connect us directly, but every other person I talked to made sure to point out it was in Rehovot. Stupidly, I assumed Rehovot was simply an adjunct of Tel Aviv. Kind of the way Santa Monica is a mere hop from West Lost Angeles. Well, I knew I was in trouble when I called to ask which bus line to take and the train was suggested. We ended up driving, though we missed the movie at the beginning of the tour.
But as a tour experience, MMA was phenomenal. MMA presents the story of the kibbutz that operated a bullet factory underground (literally and politically) at the actual site. So visitors descend into the factory, walk through it, and learn how the operation was both critical to the fight for independence and hidden successfully until the creation of the state. Being able to tell the story on the actual site, with the actual equipment, makes MMA’s impact memorable.
As we toured it, I thought MMA was multi-media. The guide was able to turn on a recording of sounds relating to the story of the hidden factory. He pushed a button and the kibbutz laundry machine shifted on the floor to reveal the entrance to the basement. Once we were downstairs, he ran the bullet-making machines for a moment, and even was able to demonstrate the flashing lights used to warn the illegal manufacturers of danger up above.
But I didn’t know what multimedia was until we motored from there back to Tel Aviv – MMA is in Rehovot, you know. We had a noon appointment for the HaPalmach Museum tour. That museum used virtually every technique imaginable to dramatize and retell the story of the HaPalmach, one of the largest illegal, pre-state militias. A video re-creation tracked the life of a single unit, about 12 young adults, from their initiation and training to the reunion of the surviving members 1 year after the death of one of their comrades. This re-creation was told through several chapters, with each room of the Museum unspooling another installment.
Each of the Museum’s rooms are themselves movie sets. Visitors stand before a re-creation of the Allenby Bridge for the retelling of the story of the HaPalmach’s attacks on 11 bridges. At the appropriate moment lights flashed, a bomb exploded, and the bridge collapsed before us. In another room we found ourselves in the hold of a ship running illegal immigrants to Palestine. That chapter included the ship’s captain in the form of a talking mannequin. In each room, rear-projection screens alternated between showing the next chapter of our Palmach re-creation and archival footage. The piece de resistance was the final room, where the full-fledged war unfolded on three screens. Visitors sat on imitation rocks. The re-creation and archival films interacted. And life-sized diorama pieces slid in and out of view behind a scrim. Actually, the visitors were the ones doing the sliding; the room actually rotated one way or the other to view different set pieces.
Interestingly, though the experiences were dramatically different, I had great compassion for the tour guides in both museums. At MMA, the tour guide had to work with a very boisterous group: 3 American families touring together, including several rambunctious young kids and crying babies in each family and a smug Dad or two. At the end of the tour he talked about the history of the bullet factory site. It is now operated by an organization committed to education, and his good-natured sufferance of our group suggested he meant what he said. At HaPalmach, the tour guide’s only job was to guide us from room to room. Each room was dark before we entered and the lights fell, automatically, after we left. So a safety escort was mandatory. Other than that, the electronic pyrotechnics did the work. Our escort was dressed in all black, seemingly to further help her disappear.
I often wonder how the tour guides at the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust sustain the energy to retell the same story many times over. But at least one remains involved with and committed to the visitors’ experiences on each tour, no matter how many times it is given. When so much hardware has been invested in telling a story, such as at the HaPalmach museum, it does not leave much room for innovation or revision.
I wondered how the museum brings in repeat visitors. But maybe there are enough visitors who only come through once, i.e., tourists such as me and Saul. A young unit of new Israeli recruits made up most of our tour; I presume visiting the HaPalmach Museum is part of their preparation. The HaPalmach Museum is probably one of the most intense museum experiences I ever had. I felt rung out at the end. Israel’s leaders for much of its first 60 years include those who were not only there at the founding but literally fought for it and built if with their bare hands.
This museum helped me understand how that historical knowledge impacted the decisions those political leaders have made over the years. For example, when I think about what it might be like to lead LAMH after the construction is over, I realize I will know literally where every nut and conduit is laid in the place. That intimacy will confer its own power and credibility. And if this applies to my experience of building a Museum, think of how it would apply moreso to the collective experience of building and leading a nation.
But as a tour experience, MMA was phenomenal. MMA presents the story of the kibbutz that operated a bullet factory underground (literally and politically) at the actual site. So visitors descend into the factory, walk through it, and learn how the operation was both critical to the fight for independence and hidden successfully until the creation of the state. Being able to tell the story on the actual site, with the actual equipment, makes MMA’s impact memorable.
As we toured it, I thought MMA was multi-media. The guide was able to turn on a recording of sounds relating to the story of the hidden factory. He pushed a button and the kibbutz laundry machine shifted on the floor to reveal the entrance to the basement. Once we were downstairs, he ran the bullet-making machines for a moment, and even was able to demonstrate the flashing lights used to warn the illegal manufacturers of danger up above.
But I didn’t know what multimedia was until we motored from there back to Tel Aviv – MMA is in Rehovot, you know. We had a noon appointment for the HaPalmach Museum tour. That museum used virtually every technique imaginable to dramatize and retell the story of the HaPalmach, one of the largest illegal, pre-state militias. A video re-creation tracked the life of a single unit, about 12 young adults, from their initiation and training to the reunion of the surviving members 1 year after the death of one of their comrades. This re-creation was told through several chapters, with each room of the Museum unspooling another installment.
Each of the Museum’s rooms are themselves movie sets. Visitors stand before a re-creation of the Allenby Bridge for the retelling of the story of the HaPalmach’s attacks on 11 bridges. At the appropriate moment lights flashed, a bomb exploded, and the bridge collapsed before us. In another room we found ourselves in the hold of a ship running illegal immigrants to Palestine. That chapter included the ship’s captain in the form of a talking mannequin. In each room, rear-projection screens alternated between showing the next chapter of our Palmach re-creation and archival footage. The piece de resistance was the final room, where the full-fledged war unfolded on three screens. Visitors sat on imitation rocks. The re-creation and archival films interacted. And life-sized diorama pieces slid in and out of view behind a scrim. Actually, the visitors were the ones doing the sliding; the room actually rotated one way or the other to view different set pieces.
Interestingly, though the experiences were dramatically different, I had great compassion for the tour guides in both museums. At MMA, the tour guide had to work with a very boisterous group: 3 American families touring together, including several rambunctious young kids and crying babies in each family and a smug Dad or two. At the end of the tour he talked about the history of the bullet factory site. It is now operated by an organization committed to education, and his good-natured sufferance of our group suggested he meant what he said. At HaPalmach, the tour guide’s only job was to guide us from room to room. Each room was dark before we entered and the lights fell, automatically, after we left. So a safety escort was mandatory. Other than that, the electronic pyrotechnics did the work. Our escort was dressed in all black, seemingly to further help her disappear.
I often wonder how the tour guides at the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust sustain the energy to retell the same story many times over. But at least one remains involved with and committed to the visitors’ experiences on each tour, no matter how many times it is given. When so much hardware has been invested in telling a story, such as at the HaPalmach museum, it does not leave much room for innovation or revision.
I wondered how the museum brings in repeat visitors. But maybe there are enough visitors who only come through once, i.e., tourists such as me and Saul. A young unit of new Israeli recruits made up most of our tour; I presume visiting the HaPalmach Museum is part of their preparation. The HaPalmach Museum is probably one of the most intense museum experiences I ever had. I felt rung out at the end. Israel’s leaders for much of its first 60 years include those who were not only there at the founding but literally fought for it and built if with their bare hands.
This museum helped me understand how that historical knowledge impacted the decisions those political leaders have made over the years. For example, when I think about what it might be like to lead LAMH after the construction is over, I realize I will know literally where every nut and conduit is laid in the place. That intimacy will confer its own power and credibility. And if this applies to my experience of building a Museum, think of how it would apply moreso to the collective experience of building and leading a nation.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Way Things Work in Israel
Tel Aviv
This blog begins a couple of days ago. When we arrived in Tiberias Saul was exhausted and over stimulated from our long drive and sight seeing. He napped and I went out for a bowl of soup. I made friends with the proprietor, Mickey, who’s family had been in Israel for generations.
I was having a great time and eager to plan the next day. Saul nixed everything I proposed. Then he started looking at the map of Israel and grabbed the guide book. While I ran another errand (the face soap adventure – see above) he compiled a list of the things he wanted to do. Among them: visit Sderot to demonstrate our solidarity.
I told Saul that if he was serious about visiting Sderot I would leave immediately. He was serious. So I had to admit to him I was speaking slighlty hyperbolic. It made no sense to drive from Tiberias to Sderot. My immediate task was to plan our visit to the Golan.
So the truth is I didn’t work on the Sderot visit until this afternoon. But I had something up my sleeve: before I left Los Angeles, I asked Gil Artzyeli, Los Angeles Deputy Consul General of Israel, for some contacts that could help me arrange a visit. So at 5:45 pm I started with the first name on Gil’s list. By 9 p.m. I had been invited to meet with the Mayor of Sderot and to visit Barzili Hospital in Ashkelon. When I told Saul we would meet with the Mayor he was thrilled.
And in between, our architect, Hagy Belzberg, called up to let me know he’d followed up on my ask for help meeting Moshe Safdie. Safdie is a personal friend, and Hagy arranged for me to speek with Moshe Safdie, the renowned architect whose accomplishments include the Yad Vashem re-design. Did I mention Hagy is also an Israeli?
This blog begins a couple of days ago. When we arrived in Tiberias Saul was exhausted and over stimulated from our long drive and sight seeing. He napped and I went out for a bowl of soup. I made friends with the proprietor, Mickey, who’s family had been in Israel for generations.
I was having a great time and eager to plan the next day. Saul nixed everything I proposed. Then he started looking at the map of Israel and grabbed the guide book. While I ran another errand (the face soap adventure – see above) he compiled a list of the things he wanted to do. Among them: visit Sderot to demonstrate our solidarity.
I told Saul that if he was serious about visiting Sderot I would leave immediately. He was serious. So I had to admit to him I was speaking slighlty hyperbolic. It made no sense to drive from Tiberias to Sderot. My immediate task was to plan our visit to the Golan.
So the truth is I didn’t work on the Sderot visit until this afternoon. But I had something up my sleeve: before I left Los Angeles, I asked Gil Artzyeli, Los Angeles Deputy Consul General of Israel, for some contacts that could help me arrange a visit. So at 5:45 pm I started with the first name on Gil’s list. By 9 p.m. I had been invited to meet with the Mayor of Sderot and to visit Barzili Hospital in Ashkelon. When I told Saul we would meet with the Mayor he was thrilled.
And in between, our architect, Hagy Belzberg, called up to let me know he’d followed up on my ask for help meeting Moshe Safdie. Safdie is a personal friend, and Hagy arranged for me to speek with Moshe Safdie, the renowned architect whose accomplishments include the Yad Vashem re-design. Did I mention Hagy is also an Israeli?
Israel as Museum?
Is it cheating to say all of Israel is a museum? Is it over-using the term? Consider these points.
A professional tour guide lead our exploration of the Golan, just as a tour guide at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust leads our visitor groups.
The tour guide brought us to different historical locations. Each of these locations could easily be considered an exhibit that helped make real the information the tour guide imparted.
We moved through a defined physical space.
Do the obvious differences disappear? Does it matter that in a physical museum one walks, in Israel-as-a-Museum (“IAAM”) we drove and walked? Does it matter that one is well defined and contained, and the other is expansive?
Perhaps there is one truly different significance. In our museum, as in any finite museum, someone has deliberately organized the exhibits and the information presented – a curator, generally.. In IAAM there was no curatorial mind at work. The sites are the sites, literally the facts on the ground. The tour guide then serves as curator, selecting which sites to visit and editing the information presented. For this reason IAAM is truly a Museum one can visit an unlimited number of times, and have a different experience each time. At the least, IAAM’s infinite nature sets a challenge to a museum creator: can one create a finite space as infinitely renewable?
A professional tour guide lead our exploration of the Golan, just as a tour guide at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust leads our visitor groups.
The tour guide brought us to different historical locations. Each of these locations could easily be considered an exhibit that helped make real the information the tour guide imparted.
We moved through a defined physical space.
Do the obvious differences disappear? Does it matter that in a physical museum one walks, in Israel-as-a-Museum (“IAAM”) we drove and walked? Does it matter that one is well defined and contained, and the other is expansive?
Perhaps there is one truly different significance. In our museum, as in any finite museum, someone has deliberately organized the exhibits and the information presented – a curator, generally.. In IAAM there was no curatorial mind at work. The sites are the sites, literally the facts on the ground. The tour guide then serves as curator, selecting which sites to visit and editing the information presented. For this reason IAAM is truly a Museum one can visit an unlimited number of times, and have a different experience each time. At the least, IAAM’s infinite nature sets a challenge to a museum creator: can one create a finite space as infinitely renewable?
Monday, January 19, 2009
Beit Shean – An Outdoor Museum
Tiberias
My intention today was to drive from Hashmonean to Tiberias via Kibbutz Hefzibah, Beit Alfa and, Beit Shean. And until we turned off the main road toward Hefzibah, we were on track for that itinerary. But somehow we ended up on a scenic road that carried us towards the summit of Ha’Gilboa, the hills on the south eastern edge of the Jezreel valley. And boy it was scenic.
I really wanted to show Saul the plastics factory I worked in when I was a volunteer at Hefzibah, in the shadow of Ha’Gilboa. Instead our tour showed me the view I never saw all those mornings looking up at the hills.
We did manage to make it to Beit Shean, where we got out of the car and walked through the ruins. Saul helped me understand the ruins better. He speculated that if the Romans had built long rows of columns, they must have wanted them to support something. Yes, it never occurred to me. And then we found an artist’s depiction of how the main road appeared during Roman times. And sure enough. The columns supported a kind of roof over the sides of the road.
The experience raised the question: how valuable is a visit to a place like that without a guide? Our Western Wall tunnel tour experience, for example, was much deeper and meaningful because of what we learned from the guide. Had we just wandered through the tunnels alone we would have missed so much.
But not having the guide along allowed Saul and I have the experience of exploring the area together. We guided each other. He helped me understand the main road better. And when he asked whether there were gladiator fights at the amphitheatre, I was able to draw on my experience visiting the Roman coliseum to speculate about what might have gone on at the amphitheatre. The visit became less about the site and more about our relationship. And perhaps that human connection is what will help us remember our experience at the site better. How much of the details will I remember about the Western wall tunnels? But I will always remember I went there with Saul.
I’m a Museum professional who is also helping design a museum experience for the visitors to the new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. I think those of us involved in designing our new exhibits assume we are working to create relationships between visitors and information. But perhaps we should also use information to create relationships between people.
My intention today was to drive from Hashmonean to Tiberias via Kibbutz Hefzibah, Beit Alfa and, Beit Shean. And until we turned off the main road toward Hefzibah, we were on track for that itinerary. But somehow we ended up on a scenic road that carried us towards the summit of Ha’Gilboa, the hills on the south eastern edge of the Jezreel valley. And boy it was scenic.
I really wanted to show Saul the plastics factory I worked in when I was a volunteer at Hefzibah, in the shadow of Ha’Gilboa. Instead our tour showed me the view I never saw all those mornings looking up at the hills.
We did manage to make it to Beit Shean, where we got out of the car and walked through the ruins. Saul helped me understand the ruins better. He speculated that if the Romans had built long rows of columns, they must have wanted them to support something. Yes, it never occurred to me. And then we found an artist’s depiction of how the main road appeared during Roman times. And sure enough. The columns supported a kind of roof over the sides of the road.
The experience raised the question: how valuable is a visit to a place like that without a guide? Our Western Wall tunnel tour experience, for example, was much deeper and meaningful because of what we learned from the guide. Had we just wandered through the tunnels alone we would have missed so much.
But not having the guide along allowed Saul and I have the experience of exploring the area together. We guided each other. He helped me understand the main road better. And when he asked whether there were gladiator fights at the amphitheatre, I was able to draw on my experience visiting the Roman coliseum to speculate about what might have gone on at the amphitheatre. The visit became less about the site and more about our relationship. And perhaps that human connection is what will help us remember our experience at the site better. How much of the details will I remember about the Western wall tunnels? But I will always remember I went there with Saul.
I’m a Museum professional who is also helping design a museum experience for the visitors to the new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. I think those of us involved in designing our new exhibits assume we are working to create relationships between visitors and information. But perhaps we should also use information to create relationships between people.
Stranger in the Strange, Holy Land
Saul finds Israel a real challenge. He comes back to the smoking, but I think he uses that to make concrete other things he finds difficult. As we drove from Hashmonean to Tiberias, he told me, “It’s hard when everyone around me is speaking Hebrew and I don’t understand.” In that conversation I told him several times over the past few days I’ve tried to imagine how Israel looks to him. I told him I remember the first time I went to Europe, when I was 16, I was amazed at how much smaller and more crowded everything seemed. The roads were narrower and smaller, the cars were certainly smaller. I told him I have the advantage of speaking Hebrew, and of having lived here for more than a year and of having visited. So it’s easier for me to feel more comfortable. Plus, speaking Hebrew to me is a kind of a game, to see how much I can understand and express.
He’s also challenged by the tumult and intensity of the Israeli public spaces he’s seen. For instance, he left his favorite face soap at our first hotel, and he needed more. And he was intimidated by the idea of having to venture out to find a store to find a replacement. So I offered to go for him. I had a blast asking the desk clerk which store might have something, (Superpharm), and then conferring with the sales people there to find something suitable. But I get how that would be difficult for someone for whom this is their first trip abroad.
When I got back to the hotel, and then over dinner, Saul talked more about what was bothering him about Israel. He can’t understand why he doesn’t feel the same intensity he felt at the Kotel throughout the country. In my words, how could the whole country, the Jewish people’s holy land, not exist on the same spiritual level?
My first attempts to talk about Israel as a real country, or about the differences between a myth and reality worked about as well as you think they did. Our drive through Beit Shean – the town – (see below) became a good way to talk about the difference between real life and the holiest Jewish place. I told him as we were driving through I glimpsed the people walking the sidewalks and was struck by a strong kind of ‘no where-ness’ in the town. ‘No where’ in the sense that it seemed like the kind of town where many people might feel they were going no where. “What do you mean?” he asked me. “Have you ever heard of Bet Shean?” He answered he had, only because one kid at school mentioned it in a trivia game in which the winner had to name the most Israeli cities. “Exactly. Even in Israel there’s a very real and hard life.”
Saul’s challenges with Israel challenge me as well, on several levels. It’s a lot easier to bring your son here and watch him get charged up at the Kotel than it is to see him dealing with the realness – and meanness – of life. Parents like exuberance a heck of a lot more than disillusionment. There’s still that part of me that wants to protect him from every hurt and injury life offers now, as a young adult, just as I could protect him as a newborn.
I also realize we are, in essence, visiting two entirely different countries. Because of my language skills, however limited, I have a language for connection. Because my previous experience here and in general, I know how to navigate between that which is mean and that which is not. As I write this it strikes me in some ways he is having a more pure experience. He is really ‘in’ Israel, immersed in it and surrounded by it. Israel is more ‘in’ me, governed by my filters, biases and, perhaps, even a certain amount of denial.
He’s also challenged by the tumult and intensity of the Israeli public spaces he’s seen. For instance, he left his favorite face soap at our first hotel, and he needed more. And he was intimidated by the idea of having to venture out to find a store to find a replacement. So I offered to go for him. I had a blast asking the desk clerk which store might have something, (Superpharm), and then conferring with the sales people there to find something suitable. But I get how that would be difficult for someone for whom this is their first trip abroad.
When I got back to the hotel, and then over dinner, Saul talked more about what was bothering him about Israel. He can’t understand why he doesn’t feel the same intensity he felt at the Kotel throughout the country. In my words, how could the whole country, the Jewish people’s holy land, not exist on the same spiritual level?
My first attempts to talk about Israel as a real country, or about the differences between a myth and reality worked about as well as you think they did. Our drive through Beit Shean – the town – (see below) became a good way to talk about the difference between real life and the holiest Jewish place. I told him as we were driving through I glimpsed the people walking the sidewalks and was struck by a strong kind of ‘no where-ness’ in the town. ‘No where’ in the sense that it seemed like the kind of town where many people might feel they were going no where. “What do you mean?” he asked me. “Have you ever heard of Bet Shean?” He answered he had, only because one kid at school mentioned it in a trivia game in which the winner had to name the most Israeli cities. “Exactly. Even in Israel there’s a very real and hard life.”
Saul’s challenges with Israel challenge me as well, on several levels. It’s a lot easier to bring your son here and watch him get charged up at the Kotel than it is to see him dealing with the realness – and meanness – of life. Parents like exuberance a heck of a lot more than disillusionment. There’s still that part of me that wants to protect him from every hurt and injury life offers now, as a young adult, just as I could protect him as a newborn.
I also realize we are, in essence, visiting two entirely different countries. Because of my language skills, however limited, I have a language for connection. Because my previous experience here and in general, I know how to navigate between that which is mean and that which is not. As I write this it strikes me in some ways he is having a more pure experience. He is really ‘in’ Israel, immersed in it and surrounded by it. Israel is more ‘in’ me, governed by my filters, biases and, perhaps, even a certain amount of denial.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Other Wall
Petach Tivkah [Written while Saul joined David Feldman's Maccabi Israel baseball team practice] Today we saw the other wall. The one Israel erected to protect its residents living over the Green line. It appeared as we headed out of Jerusalem, our sights set on Hashmonean, where our Los Angeles friends the Feldmans moved when they made aliyah.
I hadn’t thought through the geography of where the wall ran in relation to Hashmonean. To be truthful, I hadn’t understood that the Feldmans moved to what would be considered a settlement until I copied their address from a mutual friend. She distinctly said ‘Yishuv Hashmonean’ and I wrote it down dutifully. I wanted to see our friends. Saul especially wanted to see his childhood friend, David.
In fact, the wall has not reached Hashmonean. Once we arrived in the neat little town, David’s father gave us a driving tour. We could see the bright red crease opened on the hill to the north of Hashmonean where the road would go; a yellow back hoe rumbled forward, extending the path.
We could not miss the sections of the wall that do currently separate Jew from Arab only a few miles west and north of Jerusalem. The wall, a tan line in the distance, was not as distinct as the fresh black asphalt road running at its foot. Outside of Jerusalem it did not match the severity of the images that had been broadcast to the United States. Missing were the corrogated steal rising like a shark’s spine or the triangulated cement base. In fact, where it ran directly against the highway, it looked like any of the walls along the 405 in Los Angeles. Only when I saw the top of the wall, the way it folds over to prevent anyone from climbing over it, did it look severe.
We also had to pass through two checkpoints before we finally arrived at the Feldmans. The final checkpoint was a guard both and gate at the edge of their neighborhood. The smart aleck in me thought, “Well, this is one way to live in a gated community.” But my true feeling was a sense of sadness at what it takes to make Israelis safe.
I hadn’t thought through the geography of where the wall ran in relation to Hashmonean. To be truthful, I hadn’t understood that the Feldmans moved to what would be considered a settlement until I copied their address from a mutual friend. She distinctly said ‘Yishuv Hashmonean’ and I wrote it down dutifully. I wanted to see our friends. Saul especially wanted to see his childhood friend, David.
In fact, the wall has not reached Hashmonean. Once we arrived in the neat little town, David’s father gave us a driving tour. We could see the bright red crease opened on the hill to the north of Hashmonean where the road would go; a yellow back hoe rumbled forward, extending the path.
We could not miss the sections of the wall that do currently separate Jew from Arab only a few miles west and north of Jerusalem. The wall, a tan line in the distance, was not as distinct as the fresh black asphalt road running at its foot. Outside of Jerusalem it did not match the severity of the images that had been broadcast to the United States. Missing were the corrogated steal rising like a shark’s spine or the triangulated cement base. In fact, where it ran directly against the highway, it looked like any of the walls along the 405 in Los Angeles. Only when I saw the top of the wall, the way it folds over to prevent anyone from climbing over it, did it look severe.
We also had to pass through two checkpoints before we finally arrived at the Feldmans. The final checkpoint was a guard both and gate at the edge of their neighborhood. The smart aleck in me thought, “Well, this is one way to live in a gated community.” But my true feeling was a sense of sadness at what it takes to make Israelis safe.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Cigarettes and Disillusionment…and the Wall
January 17, 2009 23:36 Jerusalem
This evening we took the 6 bus out to the Malcha Mall. The highlight of the evening: kosher lemehadrin Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I quote: “That was awesome! That was so good!”
But so far Saul’s verdict on Israel, is “I don’t like Israel.” What set him off first was his discovery Thursday night that many kids – not people but kids – his age and younger smoke. One of his first comments, made Thursday night as we walked through Ben Yehuda and Kikar Zion, was that Israel smelled like cigarette smoke with a kind of sweet fake odor.
His vehemence increased based on some of the uglier things we saw, including a pair of boys no older than his younger brother, Eitan (8th grade), smoking together proudly. One boy worked diligently on making smoke rings as they paced around the drop off area near the bus stop. Other boys, slightly older, boarded the bus with us. There were about 6 of them, and to a man they had to get the full toke out of their cigarettes before they got on. A group of girls, orbiting around them, displayed the same tobacco-ersatz sophistication.
The kids proceeded to behave abominably on the bus. But what Saul focused on as we walked back to our hotel was the cigarette smoking. “The Army is going to kill them. Once they get there they’ll have no idea what hit them. And then they’ll realize they’re wasting their lives.”
He commented further, telling me the kids are totally ungrateful for what they have. “They live here in the holy land and they have no idea how lucky they are.”
But all is not lost. “I also love schwarma. And the Wall was really awesome.” I’m pulling for lamb, American-style seasoned chicken and spirituality to win out over tobacco and its misguided sense of identity.
This evening we took the 6 bus out to the Malcha Mall. The highlight of the evening: kosher lemehadrin Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I quote: “That was awesome! That was so good!”
But so far Saul’s verdict on Israel, is “I don’t like Israel.” What set him off first was his discovery Thursday night that many kids – not people but kids – his age and younger smoke. One of his first comments, made Thursday night as we walked through Ben Yehuda and Kikar Zion, was that Israel smelled like cigarette smoke with a kind of sweet fake odor.
His vehemence increased based on some of the uglier things we saw, including a pair of boys no older than his younger brother, Eitan (8th grade), smoking together proudly. One boy worked diligently on making smoke rings as they paced around the drop off area near the bus stop. Other boys, slightly older, boarded the bus with us. There were about 6 of them, and to a man they had to get the full toke out of their cigarettes before they got on. A group of girls, orbiting around them, displayed the same tobacco-ersatz sophistication.
The kids proceeded to behave abominably on the bus. But what Saul focused on as we walked back to our hotel was the cigarette smoking. “The Army is going to kill them. Once they get there they’ll have no idea what hit them. And then they’ll realize they’re wasting their lives.”
He commented further, telling me the kids are totally ungrateful for what they have. “They live here in the holy land and they have no idea how lucky they are.”
But all is not lost. “I also love schwarma. And the Wall was really awesome.” I’m pulling for lamb, American-style seasoned chicken and spirituality to win out over tobacco and its misguided sense of identity.
At The Kotel
Jerusalem
Davened kabbalat shabbat and shachrit at the Kotel. We also went to the Kotel Thursday night, spur-of-the-moment. Max joined us for our first dinner in Israel and then we went back to the hotel room. (Underwhelming accomodations, to say the least.) Saul and Max explored Israeli TV – in particular, discovering billiards as a televised sport on EuroSport while I reviewed hotel options. And then Max: “Why don’t we go down to the Kotel.” Saul was immediately game, and I felt far more energized than I expected after our 17 hour airline journey. What better way to initiate Saul’s first experience in Israel?
We entered the Kotel from the Jewish quarter, first passing the giant menorah fashioned by the Torah Institute (more on this later). There are few views as thrilling as the first view of the Kotel from the top of the steps leading to the security check point. I get a similar thrill from the Manhattan skyline whenever I visit it. Yet I realized yesterday the breath-losing moments between Manhattan and the Kotel to be completely and obviously different.
Yet the first time I visited the Kotel, 20 years ago, I found it completely underwhelming. I felt obligated to feel something, and instead felt nothing. But the Kotel is not a hotel room one can change and thereby discard (as we will do with this one). I kept coming back and built a relationship with it.
Surprisingly, visiting the Kotel with Saul was immediately and immensely meaningful. I had resolved to let Saul have his own experience with it; I thus made no fatherly prologues or raised the issue for discussion. We simply went to it. I did have in mind to share with him my own disappointment at my first visit. But the comment was never needed. Saul approached the huge space with a kind of silence, taking it all in. We went down into the men’s area and lingered a bit, Max sharing some details about recent archaeological discoveries. And then Saul, on his own and without any comment, walked up to the Kotel and touched it. “That was so cool,” he said when he returned. He described an intense feeling, a kind of electricity, coming through his fingers and palms and up his forearm. I started crying, silently, to myself. Visiting the Kotel had never been this powerful for me before.
Then, davening today, again feeling a tremendous sense of connection as we davened, I had a chance to reflect on why I found visiting with Saul and Max so intense. I realized that on all my prevous visits to the Kotel I had been alone. When Vicki and I came on our honeymoon she obviously could not come with me; we had parallel expriences, not connected ones. During the year I lived in Israel I had no friends or framily to visit with; again, personal and isolated.
Today I visited with my family. I met Max the day I met Vicki, and Vicki and I were soon babysitting him. I bathed him, played with him, watched ET with him the first time he saw it (he cried when ET seemed to die). And Saul, well, of course, he’s my son. Saul and Max became their own conduits uniting me with the Kotel. More than conduits: continuity. This was no longer a lonely and finite experience. Now it was shared, and visiting the Kotel would continue beyond me, through Max and through Saul. I was no longer an individual visiting the Kotel. Now I was a piece in the larger puzzle of Jewish history. Saul and Max completed me.
But this realization was only a prelude to the true climax of the day. I saw Max, mensch among mensch’s, whispering with the gabbai during the Torah service. And then Max came over to where Saul and I stood and announced that Saul would be getting an aliyah. Saul asked to borrow my talit. I could not have given it to him more proudly, just as I could not have stood more joyfully watching Saul chant the blessings. I wished I were a painter, because I wanted to record this scene after shabbat so as to never forget it.
Instead I tried to burnish it in my memory. I stared intensely at the scene. Saul, standing tall next to the short ba’al koreah. And to Saul’s left, a chasid wrapped with a talit over his head, leaning down over a tenach as gabbai shenei. To the left, in the distance on top of the buildings of the Jewish quarter, the Israeli flag waved. It’s stripes could not have been more blue. Suddenly a light projected up from the torah scroll. I would have to use chiaroscuro if I were to paint this. And I noticed the clouds had just parted, dropping a ray of sunlight.
Saul handed me back my talit and I shook his hand, saying yashir koach. As I did I wondered why I had no impulse to hug him. Max shook his hand and I heard Saul say to Max, a trace of embarassment in his voice, ‘My dad was crying.’ He turned to me. ‘Weren’t you?’ ‘Of course,’ I said, and knew instantly why I didn’t move to hug him. Saul may have just had an aliyah at the holiest Jewish site in the world. But he was still my teenage son, who doesn’t do hugs. But I have my memory. And now Saul has his. Which is forever – thank you for that, Max. If Saul got forever, I didn’t need a hug.
Museum Moments
The Torah Institute dedicates itself to creating the holy objects that would be needed if a third Temple is ever built. It placed a stunning example of its work at the top of the stairs that lead from the Jewish Quarter down to the Kotel plaza: a giant menorah, somehow made from a single piece of gold. The menorah is encased it what appears to be bullet-proof plexiglass. Next to the display is a small plaque, in Hebrew and English, that explain little more than what I just did.
As has happened elsewhere on this trip (see the Atlanta airport, and the Great Synagogue), the menorah presentaed a Museum moment. And it taught me two things.
One, when I looked closely at the menorah, I noticed a few spider-web strings afixed to some of the branches. And when Max, Saul, and I started talking about the object, we came up with a few basic questions that the sparse text did not begin to address. The combination of these two limitations undercut the value of the display. The cobwebs are a simple maintenance issue. Easily fixed, and a spur to me to concentrate more on maintenance of the L.A. Museum. The plaque issue demonstrated to me how important it is to choose carefully what facts need to be presented with an object. Clearly, it would have been as limiting if the plaque over-explained all the details of the menorah. But the presenters would heighten the viewers’ experiences if they attempted to anticipate 2 or 3 basic questions. This information would help viewers digest or contextuallize what they were seeing.
Davened kabbalat shabbat and shachrit at the Kotel. We also went to the Kotel Thursday night, spur-of-the-moment. Max joined us for our first dinner in Israel and then we went back to the hotel room. (Underwhelming accomodations, to say the least.) Saul and Max explored Israeli TV – in particular, discovering billiards as a televised sport on EuroSport while I reviewed hotel options. And then Max: “Why don’t we go down to the Kotel.” Saul was immediately game, and I felt far more energized than I expected after our 17 hour airline journey. What better way to initiate Saul’s first experience in Israel?
We entered the Kotel from the Jewish quarter, first passing the giant menorah fashioned by the Torah Institute (more on this later). There are few views as thrilling as the first view of the Kotel from the top of the steps leading to the security check point. I get a similar thrill from the Manhattan skyline whenever I visit it. Yet I realized yesterday the breath-losing moments between Manhattan and the Kotel to be completely and obviously different.
Yet the first time I visited the Kotel, 20 years ago, I found it completely underwhelming. I felt obligated to feel something, and instead felt nothing. But the Kotel is not a hotel room one can change and thereby discard (as we will do with this one). I kept coming back and built a relationship with it.
Surprisingly, visiting the Kotel with Saul was immediately and immensely meaningful. I had resolved to let Saul have his own experience with it; I thus made no fatherly prologues or raised the issue for discussion. We simply went to it. I did have in mind to share with him my own disappointment at my first visit. But the comment was never needed. Saul approached the huge space with a kind of silence, taking it all in. We went down into the men’s area and lingered a bit, Max sharing some details about recent archaeological discoveries. And then Saul, on his own and without any comment, walked up to the Kotel and touched it. “That was so cool,” he said when he returned. He described an intense feeling, a kind of electricity, coming through his fingers and palms and up his forearm. I started crying, silently, to myself. Visiting the Kotel had never been this powerful for me before.
Then, davening today, again feeling a tremendous sense of connection as we davened, I had a chance to reflect on why I found visiting with Saul and Max so intense. I realized that on all my prevous visits to the Kotel I had been alone. When Vicki and I came on our honeymoon she obviously could not come with me; we had parallel expriences, not connected ones. During the year I lived in Israel I had no friends or framily to visit with; again, personal and isolated.
Today I visited with my family. I met Max the day I met Vicki, and Vicki and I were soon babysitting him. I bathed him, played with him, watched ET with him the first time he saw it (he cried when ET seemed to die). And Saul, well, of course, he’s my son. Saul and Max became their own conduits uniting me with the Kotel. More than conduits: continuity. This was no longer a lonely and finite experience. Now it was shared, and visiting the Kotel would continue beyond me, through Max and through Saul. I was no longer an individual visiting the Kotel. Now I was a piece in the larger puzzle of Jewish history. Saul and Max completed me.
But this realization was only a prelude to the true climax of the day. I saw Max, mensch among mensch’s, whispering with the gabbai during the Torah service. And then Max came over to where Saul and I stood and announced that Saul would be getting an aliyah. Saul asked to borrow my talit. I could not have given it to him more proudly, just as I could not have stood more joyfully watching Saul chant the blessings. I wished I were a painter, because I wanted to record this scene after shabbat so as to never forget it.
Instead I tried to burnish it in my memory. I stared intensely at the scene. Saul, standing tall next to the short ba’al koreah. And to Saul’s left, a chasid wrapped with a talit over his head, leaning down over a tenach as gabbai shenei. To the left, in the distance on top of the buildings of the Jewish quarter, the Israeli flag waved. It’s stripes could not have been more blue. Suddenly a light projected up from the torah scroll. I would have to use chiaroscuro if I were to paint this. And I noticed the clouds had just parted, dropping a ray of sunlight.
Saul handed me back my talit and I shook his hand, saying yashir koach. As I did I wondered why I had no impulse to hug him. Max shook his hand and I heard Saul say to Max, a trace of embarassment in his voice, ‘My dad was crying.’ He turned to me. ‘Weren’t you?’ ‘Of course,’ I said, and knew instantly why I didn’t move to hug him. Saul may have just had an aliyah at the holiest Jewish site in the world. But he was still my teenage son, who doesn’t do hugs. But I have my memory. And now Saul has his. Which is forever – thank you for that, Max. If Saul got forever, I didn’t need a hug.
Museum Moments
The Torah Institute dedicates itself to creating the holy objects that would be needed if a third Temple is ever built. It placed a stunning example of its work at the top of the stairs that lead from the Jewish Quarter down to the Kotel plaza: a giant menorah, somehow made from a single piece of gold. The menorah is encased it what appears to be bullet-proof plexiglass. Next to the display is a small plaque, in Hebrew and English, that explain little more than what I just did.
As has happened elsewhere on this trip (see the Atlanta airport, and the Great Synagogue), the menorah presentaed a Museum moment. And it taught me two things.
One, when I looked closely at the menorah, I noticed a few spider-web strings afixed to some of the branches. And when Max, Saul, and I started talking about the object, we came up with a few basic questions that the sparse text did not begin to address. The combination of these two limitations undercut the value of the display. The cobwebs are a simple maintenance issue. Easily fixed, and a spur to me to concentrate more on maintenance of the L.A. Museum. The plaque issue demonstrated to me how important it is to choose carefully what facts need to be presented with an object. Clearly, it would have been as limiting if the plaque over-explained all the details of the menorah. But the presenters would heighten the viewers’ experiences if they attempted to anticipate 2 or 3 basic questions. This information would help viewers digest or contextuallize what they were seeing.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Genesis. Really, Geneses
Aisle seat, 21 minutes into the flight. This trip has multiple beginnings. It begins with the cancellation of the Shalhevet 10th grade trip because not enough parents felt they could afford the cost, given the recent economic downturn. It begins with my need to visit Yad Vashem, in order to gain insight and inspiration from the grand daddy of all Holocaust Museums and its recent re-design.
A component of this beginning is the relative oddity that the Rothman family, extraordinarily for us, had been saving for Saul’s trip, so committed were we to sending him.
It could also begin with a powerful realization I had in the cab on the way to the airport. Several days ago, the NY Times published a man-on-the street report on the Egyptian and Jordanian mood towards Israel’s attack on Gaza. The report included virulent and incendiary anti-Jewish rhetoric from people inside a Cairo mosque. I don’t know what it was about the rhetoric, but I felt my back stiffen as I sat over my breakfast cereal. ‘They really do hate us, don’t they!’ I remarked to myself. And suddenly I understood there is a component to anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism in the Arabworld that as immutable a force as gravity or entropy.
This NY Times report forced upon me the knowledge that Jew hatred is not just misunderstanding or ignorance. Thus, it can not ever be eliminated. No amount of education or dialogue will eradicate it. At best, we may be able to reduce it.
This knowledge in turn lead me to see Jewish history as a waxing and waning of Jew hatred. When the immutable base level of hatred increased, Jews experienced similar increases in overt acts against them. As it decreased, perhaps because of the forces that can modulate it, Jews could exist more comfortably.
All this doom and gloom about the possible nature of hatred against Jews did not, however, lead me to despair. Instead, it lead me to intense gratitude. Gratitude at my good fortune to live in a golden era of Jewish history. An era not only where Jews could participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the larger society, as we can so significantly in America and so many other countries. But also a golden era in which we have a state of Israel. A state we can travel to. Not to mention a state that can combat forcefully and successfully the virulent, un-eradicable anti-Judaism.
I also saw myself less as an individual, and more as a link in a historical chain of Jewish experience. My personal experience as a Jew was suddenly less important than my role as a conduit between and amongst different periods of Jewish history.
And a last possible beginning of this father-son trip begins, of course, with my own father. As the cab cruised to the airport, I reviewed the conversation I had with my Dad last night. He commented on who meaningful it would be for me and Saul to spend this time together. “I wish we had taken more trips like that,” he said. And he reminisced about two minor adventures we did share. Once, we spent July 4th weekend in Big Bear. And in 1984 we ventured to Lake Castaic to watch some of the rowing events for the Olympics. I remember that trip well, for several reasons. We drove up the night before and simply bivouacked wherever we found an open area. We awoke the next morning to discover cars driving just passed our heads; the darkness the night before hid any signs indicating the open area was a parking lot for the competition. I also remember the excitement of seeing world-class rowing.
But I also remember my father saying as we drove up to the lake, ‘All day long I’ve had that feeling I used to have when I was a little boy the day before we were going to the country.’ (My father grew up in Brooklyn and his family owned a small cottage in the Catskills, which they called ‘the country.’ Ha-aretz of another name!) I was touched that he anticipated our brief excursion with such child-like anticipation.
As I write this I can’t help now being touched by the sense of loss in my father’s comment as well. The inevitable loss of opportunity, for one can never do enough when one has the chance, and the after-the-fact recognition, of this fundamental human vulnerability.
Yes, this trip is a phenomenal adventure for me as a father to my son, as a Jew in history, and as a Holocaust professional.
A component of this beginning is the relative oddity that the Rothman family, extraordinarily for us, had been saving for Saul’s trip, so committed were we to sending him.
It could also begin with a powerful realization I had in the cab on the way to the airport. Several days ago, the NY Times published a man-on-the street report on the Egyptian and Jordanian mood towards Israel’s attack on Gaza. The report included virulent and incendiary anti-Jewish rhetoric from people inside a Cairo mosque. I don’t know what it was about the rhetoric, but I felt my back stiffen as I sat over my breakfast cereal. ‘They really do hate us, don’t they!’ I remarked to myself. And suddenly I understood there is a component to anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism in the Arabworld that as immutable a force as gravity or entropy.
This NY Times report forced upon me the knowledge that Jew hatred is not just misunderstanding or ignorance. Thus, it can not ever be eliminated. No amount of education or dialogue will eradicate it. At best, we may be able to reduce it.
This knowledge in turn lead me to see Jewish history as a waxing and waning of Jew hatred. When the immutable base level of hatred increased, Jews experienced similar increases in overt acts against them. As it decreased, perhaps because of the forces that can modulate it, Jews could exist more comfortably.
All this doom and gloom about the possible nature of hatred against Jews did not, however, lead me to despair. Instead, it lead me to intense gratitude. Gratitude at my good fortune to live in a golden era of Jewish history. An era not only where Jews could participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the larger society, as we can so significantly in America and so many other countries. But also a golden era in which we have a state of Israel. A state we can travel to. Not to mention a state that can combat forcefully and successfully the virulent, un-eradicable anti-Judaism.
I also saw myself less as an individual, and more as a link in a historical chain of Jewish experience. My personal experience as a Jew was suddenly less important than my role as a conduit between and amongst different periods of Jewish history.
And a last possible beginning of this father-son trip begins, of course, with my own father. As the cab cruised to the airport, I reviewed the conversation I had with my Dad last night. He commented on who meaningful it would be for me and Saul to spend this time together. “I wish we had taken more trips like that,” he said. And he reminisced about two minor adventures we did share. Once, we spent July 4th weekend in Big Bear. And in 1984 we ventured to Lake Castaic to watch some of the rowing events for the Olympics. I remember that trip well, for several reasons. We drove up the night before and simply bivouacked wherever we found an open area. We awoke the next morning to discover cars driving just passed our heads; the darkness the night before hid any signs indicating the open area was a parking lot for the competition. I also remember the excitement of seeing world-class rowing.
But I also remember my father saying as we drove up to the lake, ‘All day long I’ve had that feeling I used to have when I was a little boy the day before we were going to the country.’ (My father grew up in Brooklyn and his family owned a small cottage in the Catskills, which they called ‘the country.’ Ha-aretz of another name!) I was touched that he anticipated our brief excursion with such child-like anticipation.
As I write this I can’t help now being touched by the sense of loss in my father’s comment as well. The inevitable loss of opportunity, for one can never do enough when one has the chance, and the after-the-fact recognition, of this fundamental human vulnerability.
Yes, this trip is a phenomenal adventure for me as a father to my son, as a Jew in history, and as a Holocaust professional.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
