שבועות

shavuot (שבועות) is the second of the three pilgrimage festivals in judaism. literally meaning 'weeks', it celebrates the anniversary in which god gave the ten commandments to moses on mount sinai. it marks the conclusion of counting of the omer. the date of shavuot is directly linked to pesach. beginning the second day of pesach, seven weeks are counted, leading to the conclusion that is shavuot. the counting of days and weeks expresses anticipation and desire for the giving of the torah. on pesach, the jewish people were freed. on shavuot, they were given the torah and became a nation under god. shavuot is also connected with the harvest which lasted seven weeks.

shavuot is very different from other jewish holidays because it has no prescribed observances. however there are some that are pretty unique to it. dairy products and fruit are consumed during the holiday. this is because when the jewish people received the torah, the meat they had on hand were not kosher to the laws found in the torah.

*info mostly taken from friends and wikipedia

i have to say that i love jewish holidays. not only does it commemorate family but the food is beyond amazing. examples: purim: hamentaschens; pesach: matzah and charoset; shavuot: cheesecake, blintzes, etc.; channukah: latkes, sufganiyot, etc. i didn't get a chance to celebrate pesach correctly so hopefully i will be making some amendments to that for shavuot. there are many torah readings and lectures about god in many different subject matter. it would be great to go to these events to learn. the night will culminate in the pilgrimage to the kotel for the first prayer of the day come next morning.

month countdown begins today

so in a month, i will be waiting all night at ben gurion airport for the flight back to boston. with alitalia's crappy service, i know i will be delayed for one to two hours at most. however, that's a different topic. this is my to do list before my time in israel dwindles down to nothing.

1. egypt must happen. even if it means taking a week off classes.

2. go to jordan. weekend trip, anyone?

3. west bank city hop: jericho, ramallah, nablus, and bethlehem.

4. bauhaus architecture walk around tel-aviv.

5. haifa for bahai garden hike and akko for the beautiful port and the best hummus joint in israel.

6. antique and junk shopping in jaffa.

7. shabbat service at the great synagogue.

9. church tour in mount of olives.

10. museum visiting: rockefeller museum, israel museum, museum on the seam, chagall windows.

I WILL GET TO THEM. I HAVE TO.

seriously?

seriously.

i have no opinions. first one is asking for boycott. the second one is a response to the boycott action. these are just videos i stumbled upon. take it or leave it.

hebron visit

words i repeat a lot, not counting common words

click for bigger

note to smfa

dear smfa,

i really like your photo facility. i really do. however, i think you could use some improvements in the color lab. first, it's really uncool to send out film constantly and pay for developing. it gets pretty expensive in the long run. the mini lab machine would be a wonderful addition to the color darkroom. it's simple and you can factor in the price into the tuition. it would be worth it and many people would use it. color services are nice people but it sucks having to wait the two day turnaround service and trying to get the film to the media stockroom before the time cutoff. so please, get a mini lab. it would encourage the photo students to do more color.

best,

jenny

the west bank experience (part 2)

okay, this hebron experience is different than others. lisa, sarah, stefanie, jeremie, yael, gloria, petra and i traipsed to hebron. i have to say that hebron is THE most dangerous west bank city. i know i keep mentioning it a lot but there really is a palpable sense of unease that permeates the air. i felt even more unsafe this time as yael and gloria are israeli and israeli citizens are in no circumstances allowed in hebron as it is area a, which means it is under palestinian authority and control. the fact that they blatantly ignored this was really disrespectful as there are many contestation about the area regarding jews and arabs. it wasn't fair that they jeopardized everyone else's safety by their presence. we were very lucky that no one really caught on or questioned us.

we were aimlessly wandering around the city. to be honest, there is not much to see or do in hebron besides cheap shopping and visiting the abraham mosque in the old city. this guy named ibrahaim friended us and decided to be our tour guide for the day. he showed us several watchtowers and the destroyed houses caused by the jews living in the settlement. it is really astonishing that kiryat arba is so close to the arab hebron. they're practically neighbors. the arabs (i think) had to build a ceiling fence in the shuk area because the settlers are proned to throwing random debris to harm the passerbys. i saw many water tanks riddled with gunshots as to deplete the water supply. when ibrahaim led us to a rooftop to show the settlement, i saw jewish boys walking back. they saw me looking and started to scream obscenities at me. it's really horrible, this living situation.

finally we reached the abraham mosque after many stops into shops for random trinkets and scarves and pots. here i was also put off by the rude behavior of the people i was with. first of all, we're in a holy place, a gravesite of the ancesters of the three monotheistic religions of the world. we were not allowed to take pictures inside, yet they kept whipping out cameras to discreetly take pictures. that is just so disrespectful to the people and the religion. i may be going overboard but it is something i have come to notice and it bothers me so much. just because you are an artist doesn't give you the right to ignore and belittle the social practices and laws of others. there are boundaries and it's just common courtesy to respect that, i believe. sorry, i sound so orthodox about art practices. meh.

ibrahaim had ulterior motives it seemed. he led us deliberately to shopping places and lingered for long periods of time. when we arrived at the old city, we acquired an annoying pest, who was peddling cheap goods. when we didn't want to buy his wares, he accused us of not supporting palestine and its people. right. then he proceeded to follow us around, shouting 'welcome' every few minutes and trying yet again to press his bracelets and keychains on us. at the end, he wanted baksheesh (tip) from us for being our tour guide... what?! at this point, i have had enough. i was so ready to leave.

i'm at a point in my israel stay where my cup is so full that everything else is overkill. i am enjoying and not enjoying my time. i don't know if disillusioned is the word but i just don't care. i am desensitized to all the ulterior motives of the people, the rudeness, the way of life, the violent overtones, etc. it is how they live and they cope. how come i can't do that?

the pope's visit amongst other things

in hopes for peace and reconciliation, the pope visited israel and palestine last week. i have to say that his aspirations backfired in his face. in his wake, the traffic increased much to the chagrin of commuters in jerusalem. everyone was so irritable, the bus drivers more so. there was an influx of italian tourists. what, you don't see the pope enough in italy? everyone was more than ready to feed the pope to the dogs, which they did. the newspapers in israel printed the pope's involvement in hitler youth and the general air of anti-semitism of the roman catholics. furthermore, the entire student village was on military lockdown with snipers galore because he was landing in the helipad that is located right next to the dorms. lucky us. it seems that even though the people were looking forward to the pope's visit, it was gone soon after his arrival.

last monday was my first photo crit of the semester. it was also the first one in which my photos sparked a 30 minute debate of the differences between documentary photography and well... political undertones of the photography. because i chose to do my project on the different travel modes to hebron, i guess i could have expected nothing less. however, as stated below, i'm getting tired of the underlying political aspects. sometimes, things are just what it is. it is nothing more. i also do not want to do a critique on the relations between israel and palestine. here is where i am truly an outsider. i have never lived here nor do i have any connections with the place besides my fascination of the language and culture. i will never have the deep-rooted feelings that the israelis have accumulated over time. in a way, i feel like it is not in my place to do this project but it is one that i can do because i am a foreigner. i feel i cannot do the places and people justice in my photography because even with all my research, i will still be a 'tourist', an outsider. my photos of israel will always gravitate toward the things that have political charge to them, such as a watchtower, the wall border, military personnel, etc. i don't mean to only take pictures of that, not that i do. it is just that this is what comes from the project and it is hard to separate the politicalness of the photos, but my intentions are clear. it is merely a project documenting MY journey to hebron using egged and the arab buses. documentation and nothing more. but i cannot stop an arab israeli and a jewish israeli seeing something completely different that i mean to show.

i'm still alive and this is going to be rather long

there have been a lot of things on my mind the past couple of weeks, that started during the end of my pesach break. those 'lots' of things can be condensed into two: religion and politics.

living in jerusalem is not the easiest thing to do. everything this place is, what it is not, and what it can be weighs down heavily. sure there is the jerusalem syndrome where foreigners who visit this place believe that they are the next messiah or develop psychological symptoms that they never exhibited before. this is something else entirely. it might be a combination of living in israel and jerusalem simultaneously. i'm constantly surrounding by politics, religion, history, hatred, oppression, not to mention the underlying hint of violence (which really frightens me now). if any society is a master of switching 'faces' or maintaing one so steadfastly, israel has others beat. needless to say, after being immersed completely in this environment for 3.5 months, i'm so heart and head tired. i think pretty soon, i can call myself an israeli by the way i'm "ignoring" the political troubles, even going out of my way to avoid the discussions altogether. i'm disgusted by those who use academia as a means to support their hate-filled biased statements. i'm tired of nothing GOOD happening. i've talked shop here more so than i have back in the states and i just want to throw in the towel. as childish as this sounds, israel and palestine should just hug it out. instead of showing violence and fear of one another, an extension of trust and happiness surely will fare better in the negotiations. i've started telling people here that i'm switzerland. indeed.

another thing that i've realized, being in the land of holy, i have been reflecting back on my past as a christian. i always went to church because my mother made me. but after a while, i decided that it was something that i liked doing and did so willingly. i was never a "die-hard" but it is safe to say that i had a relationship with god. at the age of thirteen/fourteen, i had a falling out with religion as i saw so much hypocrisy within the church. it was disgusting and i did want any part of it. in the meantime, i experimented with other religions such as wiccan (who doesn't), buddhism (to an extent), and even toying with atheism as i'm coming to see that god has a lot of bloodshed in his footsteps. but i have been spiritual and i don't know how to really explain that. after certain personal experiences, i felt that there was something missing in my life. i don't mean to get sentimental or religious in any fashion, i merely want to outline my progression of thought. i don't know what this missing 'thing' is but i'm starting to get the feeling that i want to return back to some form of god. i don't know if it is a christian god or a jewish god. while learning hebrew, i toyed with the idea of converting to judaism.

i'm surrounded by the culture that comes with judaism and i am very fascinated and drawn to it. judaism is such a strong community based religion. even those who say they are not religious still uphold the culture and customs of the religion such as going home for dinner with the family on shabbat, having seder on pesach, etc. it is so lovely to see that in the midst of a tumultuous globalization, that this traditionalist religion still strongly carries on. instead of celebrating the individual's connection with god, judaism focuses on the community's altogether relationship with each other and how that relates to god. it's so beautiful, really it is.

i've been to synagogue for shabbat service and it was comforting. i will hopefully accompany kimmy to her yeshua group and get my comparison going. i can't say for sure which i will eventually turn to but i see myself on a journey with god in the future.

moving

i have finally decided to move into a different suite in the כפר הסטודנתים. the past few weeks were agonizing with palpable tension that did not bode well for my well-being or my outlook on my stay in israel. i dreaded coming back to my room if i was out and when inside the suite, i didn't want to leave my room, not wanting to run into my two atrocious suitemates who made my stay in this suite living hell. i'm moving in temporarily with my friends with hopes that i will be able to move out finally into the city centre.

*fingers crossed*

i feel so much lighter and happier now that i'm moving out.