Tsfat

 For the first time this trip, I felt like a real traveler. Having seen and done so many things, I think I may have nonetheless just been sightseeing up until this point. The key difference, as far as I can tell, is planning. I’ve seen a lot of incredible things, but with a bed always waiting for me in Jerusalem, I haven’t been a traveler in the romantic sense I’ve carried in my mind so long.

One of the charming aspects of Israel is the phenomenon of Shabbat- from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, everything closes. In many cases, this extends into the afternoon of Friday and through Saturday night. In Jerusalem this only poses a moderate problem, as there are enough Arab stores and buses to get one through for a couple days. In a place like Tsfat, though, a small mystic Jewish town in the mountains with 99.2% Jewish population, Shabbat has pretty absolute control.

     Four of us caught the first bus to Tsfat, planning to spend the afternoon learning about Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and seeing the artists’ colony. Upon arriving, though, we found out that due to Shabbat the last bus back to Jerusalem leaves in half an hour, not in the early evening as we planned. Oops.

     As we decide to stay the night and return home the on the first bus the following evening, it begins to rain and we find that the bulk of stores and restaurants are in the process of closing for Shabbat (at 1 pm!). Another group of backpackers tells us that all the hostels they’ve checked were full, and we begin to worry. In the artists’ colony we browse the galleries and chat with the artists. One woman, who was selling Kabbalah amulets, reacted oddly to our questions- Do you know of a place we can stay? Where do you recommend we eat? What should we be sure to see? She didn’t want to answer our questions, instead vaguely shaking her head and saying “You must discover it for yourself. Follow your intuition and if God wants to show you something, he will.” Well, thanks. She did mention an old woman who takes boarders, “Lifshitz,” but in such a way we doubted her existence and any possibility of finding her.

     Maybe not consciously, and mostly because of the perplexing inaccuracy of all the road signs and our maps, we took her advice and began to wander. A few galleries and a local winery later we stumbled, to our surprise, upon ‘Lipshitz Hostel,’ located in what appeared to be a mystical garden. An older and extremely disheveled man in orthodox dress greeted us, and we proceeded to confuse one another in broken English for a few minutes until the terms were worked out. A long-term tenant, a transgendered woman from the US, appeared and showed us the hot water switch and made sure the man gave us toilet paper. Thus having shelter for the night secured, and feeling empowered by our good fortune amidst slightly bizarre circumstances, we headed back out to search down food- a major problem as between us we had 6 pieces of pita, a couple granola bars, and a bag of zaatar to hold us over until sundown the next day.

     We found food, hiked around a park (Tsfat is the highest town in Israel, on the third highest peak), explored a haunted schoolhouse, came across a flyer for a Kabbalah Shabbat service that night that welcomes visitors. Everything was a bit tinged by the strange weather, people, and our constant sense of how spooky everything was. After the service we headed back to our room, chatted with the two other travelers staying there (one German, one Colombian), and planned out the next day.

     The thought was to search out a taxi in the morning to get us from Tsfat to Capernaum, Jesus’ hangout on the Sea of Galilee. From there we would spend most the day getting around on foot to see the vicinity, ultimately finding a sherut or something to get us to Tiberias, from where we could get the bus home. The chronic pessimist of our shaky plans, I repeatedly proclaimed my doubts about getting to Tiberias by any means at all, unless we stay until sundown. To Capernaum we went, though, equipped with inadequate maps and the day to kill. At Capernaum we paid 3 shekels (~80 cents) to see the town’s ruins of houses and a synagogue, and the UFO-structure the Franciscans built over St. Peter’s house, complete with a glass floor in the middle to view the ruins.

Our next stop was the Mt. of Beatitudes about a mile away, a hill recommended for the view it provides of the sea. Finally locating the beginning of the path at the bottom of the hill, we stopped to rest, aware that we were just about out of snacks and had most the day left. We starting up the hill, though, we were invigorated by the ascent. On the right there was a vast plantation of some sort, covered by a net. “Bananas,” one friend said. Cool.  So we keep walking and further up we can see trees laden with actual bananas, in many cases exposed and ripe. Dare we? We grab one, peel it, sure enough it is a tasty edible familiar banana. We hoard a few and enjoy the unexpected godsent snack. On a hill, with a church on the top. Do bananas even grow in this climate? Why are they on this holy Mt? Thankful, we continue our ascent. The church is closed, but no matter- the view is great. We rest a bit and head back down to see what Tabgha, the adjoining town, has to offer (incidentally, almost nothing- a couple more churches with esoteric dedications).

     Now we’d really like to get to Tiberias, to walk around a couple hours before the first bus back to Jerusalem at five. Public transportation closed, taxis scarce, and at least twelve miles to traverse, we cross the street to inspect a bus stop sign and wake up a sleeping police-woman in a car to ask her advice. Defeated by the sign written in Hebrew, we stop for a moment to enjoy the shade. At that moment a bus swings around the corner, pulls toward the bus shelter, stops. Where are you going? How much? “To Tiberiah, free.” What?! Is this the Knight Bus? Why is it running? Why is it free? How did it possibly arrive just as we needed it? It says ‘Egged Tours’ on the side; it must be legitimate (Egged is the Israeli public transportation company). Giddily we board, unsure of what possible machinations are at work. Is it strange to ask why it’s free? Why are the bus driver and the police officer in the front seat laughing so much? Despite my misgivings we arrive safely in the center of Tiberias, are cheerfully pointed toward the bus station, and contentedly search out an ice cream cone.

     On one hand, we repeatedly thought of the artist-woman who had advised us simply to trust fate. On the other, maybe things have the capacity to work out, even independent of carefully laid plans. Flexibility and a sense of fun might go just as far toward a successful trip. Certainly, they made for a vastly more interesting and refreshing time. We talked to more unlikely people, explored areas that wouldn’t have warranted a specific trip, and renewed trust in our common sense. Invigorated, I returned to class today feeling significantly more well-disposed toward medieval pilgrims’ accounts of the holy land.

Speaking in Tongues

        Largely as a result of holy week, I’ve been to many many church services recently. As far as I can tell, there are about a dozen or two major churches in Jerusalem, most with a long or interesting history. Over the course of my stay here, I’ll have been to most of them. So when Easter rolls around, and I’m deciding where to attend mass, I go to my checklist and a reference of times to see which three or four I can make it to. This selection method doesn’t include, for example, the language in which the service is given.

         Partly due to my adventure the past couple days, I ended up ditching my overambitious plan to begin at five forty-five and go to four Easter masses. Instead I made it to two, one in Arabic, one in German. Upon reflection, I realize that the language of the service ultimately matters very little to me. The primary reason for this I think is that as a non-religious person, the content of what’s spoken is not my focus. In fact, I find that I have a hard time listening to what is being spoken for any length of time at most church services. Bible readings, hymns, prayers, and even sermons typically employ a sort of rhetoric that I find impenetrable without active concentration.

         Instead, I find that the major factors are the music, church building, smell, and enthusiasm of the clergy and congregation. In short- just the sensory details. For this reason, I did not much like the Arabic mass at all. This is too bad, because my limited interactions with Arab Christians leave me pretty puzzled about their place in this country, their history, their connection to Christianity as I know it. A positive impression would have been desirable. The first problem was the congregation, who were pretty uniformly uninterested and drone-like. And on Easter, furthermore. I think they must have missed the memo that Jesus is risen- you know, a good thing. Granted the average age was late fifties, everyone was slouchy and frowning and mumbling. This problem extended directly to the music, which was entirely composed of brief hymnal responses repeated weekly, I suspect. Whenever devotional music feels obligatory, I think the point is being missed. The church itself was magnificent in a way, especially considering the hidden entry down a less-used alley of the old city. Rather enormous, it felt reminiscent of architecture favored by French kings in the 18^th century- pastel with gold in nauseating detail. Alas! Mass number one was less than I had hoped.

         Second I went to the Dormition Abbey- an imposing building readily identifiable from many parts of the city by its characteristic blue dome and bell tower. I have been puzzled and amused about the name- which I was only able to gather means something pertaining to sleeping. I had hoped the monks were famous for their narcolepsy, or some such, but found upon visiting that it refers to Mary, who traditionally ‘passed into eternity’ at this spot. Died? = Fall asleep? One of those peculiar euphemisms that goes too far and obscures the original thought.

        I arrived for that one five minutes early to a church full of apparent German nationals already settled and ready to go. Is this a characteristic of Germans? I have never seen a church service start that promptly, especially those chock-full of tourists on vacation. A stern woman passed me a hymnal, though, and the organ started. This mass had everything going for it- the architecture, incense, organ, controlled but evident passion of both the clergy and the church-goers. Another German characteristic? Everyone there knew all the hymns, and sung them skillfully and passionately, but without the messy weepiness of the Italian pilgrims I went to mass with last week. Many were clearly moved by Easter mass, but incorporated it into their posture and strength of voice. I admired the service for its formality and vigor, traits lacking in probably modernized American churches that informalize and abbreviate to retain interest. The amount of incense, prominence of the organ, and right angles of the clergy marching formations impressed me immensely.

                This realization about the role language plays for me is quite liberating- I find myself looking forward to the other masses I’ll attend in various countries and languages this summer. The service I have in mind for next week will be in English; I hope at this point the words don’t distract from the set of unlikely focuses I’ve developed.

Palm Sunday Procession

 

    My impressions of Christian pilgrims thus far has been overall unfavorable. It started in the Church of the Nativity, where they mobbed and took pictures and made too much noise and encroached on my personal space. In Russian. Even I, not particularly taken with the holiness of any given location, become annoyed when I’m stepped over while sitting in pew during mass so that First Baptist Church Holy Land Tour group can take flash pictures of the mosaic over my right shoulder.

                For these reasons, I was not initially planning to attend the Palm Sunday Procession down the Mount of Olives. All sources describe it as a gathering of thousands and thousands of pilgrims. This parade takes place every year from Bethpage into Jerusalem, following the path that Jesus is said to have taken on this day. Finally getting a grip on the chronology of events and realizing what a big deal holy week is here, I decided to tag along.

                Even more than I could have thought, the procession was pure fun. More fun than I can recall having at all in recent memory. Priests, nuns, pilgrims, students, scouts marching, clapping, singing, dancing. It was particularly refreshing to see the religious figures, usually conceived as serious restrained types, beaming  clapping sweating with everyone else. The collective effervescence was palpable.

                One group, perhaps not pre-planned, included a few guitars, a horn, a violin, and several drums. They were the most infectious, attracting bystanders to join their mob and sing along. I imagine religious zeal played a significant part in the proceedings- it is inconceivable to me the height of energy maintained from beginning to end up and down that hill still singing with full force. I joined halfway, mostly clapping along at their fringes, and was exhausted by the end.

                 

As it turns out, pilgrims might not be all bad. At least for the time being, I feel quite cheerfully about them.  With any luck I’ll be able to maintain that perspective through holy week.

TEDxRamallah

“Ideas worth spreading” is the tagline of TED, an organization that sets up conferences to which it invites thinkers and doers to speak on an idea for 18 minutes. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. (Taken from my itinerary) This Saturday a group from my program went to Bethlehem to attend TEDxRamallah, a conference organized around ‘Palestine Stories.’ A day-long conference, it ran from 9:30-19:00, mostly big chunks of time spent listening, but with food and caffeine breaks.

Although the leaning of the conference was apparent (and inherent, I suppose), the talks were largely unpolitical. Instead they were focused on human rights, economic development, technology, creativity, and universal human stories. My favorites, I think, were in the last category. One woman, an architect and now author, told about how she accidentally became a writer because of Ariel Sharon and her mother-in-law. The Israeli occupation of Ramallah in 2002 left her and her mother-in-law stranded at home for ten months, driving her to keep a diary for sanity. The result, demonstrating her philosophy that hardship requires humor, was published and translated widely. I liked this sort of speaker because although her situation was completely caused and informed by the political situation, her outlook was more generalized than that.

A Brazilian filmmaker, Julia Bacha, spoke about narratives, confirmation bias, and cognitive dissonance. She had made a documentary about Budrus, a Palestinian town in which the people united to peacefully protest the building of the west bank barrier through their town. The film came about when she heard the story, and was shocked that it hadn’t received any press coverage. As was explained, the story was not told because it didn’t fit into peoples’ narratives about Palestine. At that time particularly, Palestinians were known to the world as suicide-bombers. Because of confirmation bias, the media only reported on stories that corroborated that belief. She explained her idea that the way a documentarian can make a difference is to practice cognitive dissonance- or tell the stories that go against confirmation bias. The power of this act is that even one story can change a person’s narrative, in this case for the better. Her combination of effective speaking, terminology, and idealism was extremely appealing to my friends and me.

In what seemed like a strange turn of events, Alice Walker also attended. Predictably wonderful, she gave an unfocussed talk centering around her journey to Palestine and other travels. She started out explaining the path she took to get to Bethlehem, via Jordan. This seemed odd to me, because isn’t it so much more straightforward to enter Palestine as a tourist from Israel? (like I did) But then she described the conversation she had with the young soldier who detained and questioned her for nine hours. Unbelieving of her identity and reason for entering (famous author from the US attending giving a talk about Palestine), he proceeds to look her up online. With her identity confirmed, he goes on to look up everything she has ever said about the Middle East, including a promise never to go to Israel. She responds to his accusation, “Well, I’m not in Israel, am I?” which probably enraged him but delighted the audience. She then described her grandmotherly rebuke of his behavior, saying that this job is not good for him, and not good for his people. Where she’s from, elders are respected, not herded like cattle and then cut off from food and water for hours on end. As she described his reaction, he was taken aback. Not unreceptive, though: she said, “We had a good conversation.” Having encountered border soldiers myself, I can scarcely imagine this conversation taking place.

Frankly, though, I can’t remember the specifics of any of the rest of her discussion. Gripped by her talk and person, I failed to take any notes whatsoever. Alice Walker seems to exist on another level. How can someone become Alice Walker? Can I? By what means? In a room where speakers were accepted based on how much they’ve done for the cause or how much they’ve suffered by Israel, Alice Walker had the whole audience on her side. As an audience member who had comfortably found my place that day as an outsider due to my nationality, religion, upbringing, age, occupation, her message of universality was immediate and powerful.