My Mogan David masterpiece

Out of Ashkelon

I’m told Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey, with a population of 6 million (excluding occupied territories). Ashkelon, where I spent most of my time, has about 100,000 inhabitants. Roughly the size of Manchester, NH, or about half the size of my hometown of Jackson, MS. Something like half of her people are first generation Israelis, the majority being from FSU (former soviet union) origin. Other large groups are north Africans, Ethiopians as well as people from many middle eastern countries. It seems virtually anyone over 40 is from another country.

Growing up in Mississippi, one tends to fit into either of two cultural groups; black or white. This has as much to do with which party you go to after the high school football game as it does with race. When I was a kid I always thought of my Jewish friends as just being white people who happen to go to “church” on Saturday. Spending time in the Jewish homeland showed me how distinct and diverse Judaism really is. It seems every skin tone and every accent is united for the Jewish state.

The Hebrew language is another uniting force. Its hard to believe that less than a hundred years ago, this language was virtually extinct. Like Latin, it was only used for religious services. I don’t know the exact history, but it was decidedly brought back to be the official language of Israel. This was not with out some resistance from ultra religious Jews, who felt it was only to be used for holy purposes. They still speak only Yiddish.

But Hebrew won out, big time. Everyone learns it, all the signs display it, and it has produced a variety of new words such as those for technology and slang. It has become a living, breathing, evolving tongue. There are Hebrew news channels, sitcoms and even an equivalent to MTV, complete with screaming teenagers. After Hebrew, school children are taught Arabic(20% of Israeli citizens are Arab) and English (the “international language“). You can basically assume anyone under 30 speaks decent English.

All of these things make Israel an excellent vacation destination. Its exotic, but familiar. Its western, but in the middle east. You can read the road signs. Driving is like the US, except with more honking. Necessities are affordable. People are generally very welcoming, once you meet them. They seem to really like Americans, and I think this could be the only country on the globe where most people really like President Bush. Besides, where else in the middle east would you go?

It also seems to be a very safe country. Many of my friends and family asked about safety. While they have plenty of petty crime, I understand violent crime is virtually unheard of. That is of course not including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Ashkelon is quite close to the Gaza Strip, and people do worry about the Quassam rockets, that have come out of Gaza, though they also joke about it a lot. But they almost never make it as far as Ashkelon, and fortunately, I never heard anything unusual during my visit, even though someone scared the crap out of me by shooting of fireworks on the beach one night.

There is more security than American’s are used to. Any crowded place will have an armed guard checking bags. Still I felt completely safe the whole time. I think your odds of getting iced in Jackson over $20 are much greater than anything happening to you in Israel.

Its hard to sum up Israeli culture, because it is such a melting pot. And considering I only saw the south of the country I shouldn’t make generalizations, but I’m going to anyway. People here have a directness that some would consider rude, combined with a heart warming hospitality. Its almost like a combination of Northern and Southern US. People don’t great each other or smile on the street, but they welcome you into there homes once they know you are a guest.

On the playground site a lady from the neighborhood came out and told us that she was “very upset” the playground was going up close to her home, and she was “very angry” about the noise. Then she made us herbal tea from her garden and welcomed us to come to her house if we needed anything. That really summed up a lot for me.

Every continent is represented in the IDF.

Mount of Olives

Jerusalem is kind of a blur now, but I can tell you that 1 day is not nearly enough time. You really need 3 or 4.

For some reason I thought the city was divided in half by some sort of monstrous wall that separated the Arab side from the Jewish side. This is not the case. The wall does exist, but its visible to the east of the city, carving Jerusalem out of the west bank. The Arabs in the city are generally citizens of Jerusalem, but not Israel. I think they are free to go where ever, just as we were free to walk through their areas. The city in general is pretty dirty, but the east side is especially filthy, as most Arabs boycott Israeli government services, such as trash removal.

Many of the Christian sites are in Arab areas. They revear these sites, and are glad to have Christian tourists. In fact, because it was Christmas, they would have been closed had they not been under Muslin jurisdiction.

We did a walking tour of the "12 stations of Christ's suffering", which are places throughout the city where legend has it that different events in the crucifixion took place. Many seemed to be in random places, for instance the middle of a crowded market a sign in arabic would mark were Jesus collapsed under the cross.

The one location they know to be accurate is the crucifixion site, The Church of the Holy Sepulcture. Four different churchs bicker for control of this shrine; Greek, Catholic, Ethiopian, and Armenian, and have basically marked off different areas they control. The styles between these areas varies tremendously.

The original monument is impressive, built around 300 AD by Constantine's mom. The Crusaders built an even larger monument around that, so that what is there today is a church within a church.

Christmas in the holy land

There is nothing here to indicate that it is Christmas. From what I gather, even the small percentage of the population that is Christian celebrates sometime in January, and it looks nothing like our Christmas.

We are headed to Jerusalem this morning for our only guided tour. We will only be there a day, which we are told is not enough time, even for Israelis.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

If you want to see jobsite pictures:

www.learningstructures.com and follow the links about Israel.

Sabbath in Israel

You may have heard Sabbath in Israel is a big deal. It is. There is a wide spectrum of how serious people are about their religion, but it seems that virtually everyone from ultra orthodox Jews to the very secular (which there are tons of) recognize Sabbath by at least knocking off work at noon on Friday. The whole country seems to relax and unwind. People within sight of the playground come out on their porch to unwind and have tea, and to watch the crazy Americans continue to work like a bunch of suckers.

Friday night the city engineer, Nissim, invites the five of us to his house for Sabbath (Shabbat) dinner. I want to mention this engineer was a huge pain in Learning Structures’ butt when planning the project, because the last thing he wanted was for an American company to get the project, but he could not have been more hospitable once we were here. He, his wife, Betty, who is a doctor, and there 3 beautiful daughters went to the ends of the earth to prepare an amazing meal for us. Also, as I’ve never been for a traditional Shabbat dinner, it was quite an experience. Let me give you the “Play by Play”:

1. We are welcomed to their home along with an Israeli designer. We get a tour of the house while the women and girls are rushing around the kitchen. They are joyfully singing in Hebrew and having a great time. The men mill about the house with drinks. This is a happy place.

2. We gather around the long table. The gentiles and the local designer are all presented with Yamakas to cover our heads. This is a first for me. We stand for prayers and singing by everyone, which unfortunately I can’t interpret.

3. Nissim pours a tall glass of red wine, then pours the red wine into the very ornate silver devise that evenly distribute the wine into 10 smaller cups. He says a quick prayer (I think) and drinks his and then hands a cup to his wife. There is a prayer for bread, of which he takes a piece, then one for his wife, then the guests.

4. Then the meal begins. First tons of appetizers. Hummus, baked eggplant, fried soy beans, and several other things I didn’t get the name of. I’m already getting full. The plates are cleared and then we are brought an excellent fish fillet which we all agree is an excellent main course, except that it is actually just another appetizer! We’ve been tricked. The real main course arrives, a lamb dish, a chicken dish, and something else I didn’t have room to try. Meanwhile wine is flowing and the Israelis are telling jokes in English (which is funny on several levels). The daughters also tell some interesting stories, and their English is quite good compared to the adults. They seemed to be quite excite about having guests, and have each prepared a desert dish for us. We also learn their oldest daughter is leaving for the army soon.

5. For a post desert snack, a huge bowl of fruit is place on the table. Israel has an amazing variety of produce. Nissim tries to get his daughters to sing some closing hymns for Shabbat, but they act embarrassed and insist “not in front of company” in that universal teenager kind of way. They clear the table and start doing dishes in the kitchen, once again singing Israeli pop songs.

While the ritual of Shabbat was fascinating, several things really struck me. Because this was a single “random sample” of an Israeli family, I’m not sure if I can make assumptions about the whole culture, but I was moved by how warm and welcoming they were. Also they had a very affectionate and agreeable family. I don’t know many families in the US that could have 3 kids in college/high school that get along so well.

Also, with the exception of the Americans, their was an amazing amount of diversity around the table. Nissim immigrated from Morocco, his wife from Algeria. Their designer and good friend is from Russia, another family friend is from Iraq. Another friend who didn't make it is from Denmark. The are all very close. Hebrew is a second language for them all. I’m not sure if its religion or nationality that connects them, or a combination of both, but even in our “melting pot” I would be surprised to see such a diverse group of friends.

It's difficult to make time for a blog when you work 10 hour days and go out to eat every night, but I have to tell you about Israel. It's incredible.

First of all, I don't think I would have picked this as a place to visit. Now that I've been here I would totally recommend it, and I've pretty much only seen one city. It's very Mediteranean. Palms and olive trees are everywhere. Nobody is in a hurry about anything, which is kinda a problem if your trying to build something with local labor, but for a vacation it would be perfect. The area we are in seems to not be discovered by tourists yet.

And the food is really good. Its true what they say about Americans being overweight. Israelis are thin, generally. But its not because they don't eat a lot. They just eat healthier. Their meals are entirely fresh vegetables, hummus, bread, eggs and fish. I haven't seen beef anywhere yet, and other meat is rare. You couldn't avoid olives if you tried. They come on and with everything.

I was not able to obey this rule in any language.

Me on the Mediterranean Sea. My oddly shaped hotel in the background.

So after narrowly avoiding a New England ice storm, we board an El Al 777 and are finally crossing over the Atlantic. We are somewhere 37,000 ft above the border between Spain and France. I know this because there are these really cool monitors that keep you updated on the planes location and vital stats. I also can tell you that the outside air temp is -79F but for some reason its ferociously hot on the plane.

El Al seems like a pretty good airline. The in-flight meal was excellent. And as I heard they take security very seriously, but the preflight interview was not nearly as rough as I thought it would be. I was totally planning on having my civil rights violated with questions about my religious and political affiliations, but because some important Israelis vouched for us, we flew through it…at least at first.

A few minutes before boarding, I was relaxing in the terminal, trying to tune out the lady on the intercom droning on in Hebrew (which of course I know exactly four words of): blah blah blah blah Philip Hilton blah blah.

I sat up in my chair. “What is this?, I’ve never been paged.” I hurried over to the desk to discover that I had be randomly selected for further screening. I took my carry ons and myself to the specified room behind a black curtain, certain I was about to be “water boarded.” A man with an Israeli accent greeted me and observed, “we saw that you had a jacket, you must bring it here as well”. It was true I had left it in my chair. Interesting that they had seen me, because I had definitely not seen them. In the end, I think it was a mind game or something, because they barely searched me or my stuff. They just made me run around the terminal to different people and offices like I was on a scavenger hunt or something, which might have been fun if the plane wasn’t boarding during the game.

So in the end I made it on the plane with my coworkers, and now I type. I suppose I actually appreciate the extra security, though I think its odd they picked me. I thought being a blonde haired Methodist (the most moderate organization on the planet) from Mississippi would be enough for them to leave me alone.

I remember reading a couple of years ago that one of these planes was taking off somewhere in Africa, and someone shot a missile at it, and the plane shot something at the missile and destroyed it. Of course El Al would not “confirm or deny” if their planes are actually equipped to do something like that, but clearly they are. How cool is that? That’s like Airforce One technology.

Bet Delta can’t do that.

Expectations

Before I go to Ashkelon I thought I'd make a note of what I know, and what I think I know about the area.

History
Ashkelon is one of the oldest cities in the world. Despite being well inside the boundaries of modern day Israel, it was a Philistine city through most of history. It is only mentioned in the bible a couple of times, usually with disdain as enemy territory. Most notably, this is where Sampson is said to have kicked some Philistine ass, with the jaw bone of a, well, ass. It is also where Herod was born.

Since ancient times the city has been conquered and reconquered by basically every major power on the Mediterranean, and a few even more distant.

Despite the rich history, its namesake is the onions that were produced there, known today as "Scallions".

Modern Times
From what I've read Ashkelon was re-settled by South African Jews. More recently it has be a new home to two groups of new comers: Russians and Ethiopians.

The Russians, have come in several waves since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each wave has had its own characteristics. The first waves were people interested in moving to the Holy Land, but more recent waves were people trying to escaped the difficulties of post-Soviet life by cashing in on being like 1/16th Jewish.

The Ethiopians I find really fascinating. Their history is a bit of a mystery. Some historians think they are "The Lost Tribe". Others say that they escaped to Africa during the Diaspora cause by the Romans. Either way they have been separated long enough that their culture and "version" of Judaism are quite different than that of other Jews in Israel. They were abruptly reunited with Israel in the 1980's when the Israel government stage a daring raid to save them from Ethiopia's civil war. This has caused them to have a tough time integrating, with some Israelis claiming that they are not Jewish. According to a show I saw on the discovery channel, their Jewish roots have been proven with genetic testing.

I'm sure I'll have more about both of these groups after some personal experience.

Hello friends!

This blog is to share my experiences with friends and family while working in Ashkelon, Israel.