H o n e y and O n i o n s

Wonder No Longer (Part 1?)

2011-04-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

It was so much fun having my cousin, her husband, and their amazingly adorable 3-year old visit Jerusalem. Evidence:

these folks ask good questions, including the little one. ("...why?")

Besides providing lots of laughs and good family time, they had a lot of interesting questions about the political situation, religion, culture, food, etc. Around here, "why" questions are often stubbornly answered with, "Just because" or "Because they want" or "Because they can." But there are some questions, however superficial they may be, that ARE easily answerable. And interesting the answers are!

For your education and reading pleasure, here are 3 such questions with their answers, thanks to the ol' Interwebs:

Q: How do they make pita bread with a pocket?

LOOK AT THAT POCKET

A: According to wisegeek.com: "This pocket occurs because of the extremely high temperatures at which the bread is baked. Pita bread must be baked in special ovens that can reach over 700°F, (370°C). At these high temperatures, the dough expands very quickly, separating in the middle and creating a large bubble of air inside. When the bread has finished baking and cools, it flattens out but maintains its internal pocket."

Perfect for sticking stuff inside, like falafel, olive oil & zaatar, spam and pickles (yes, really), and Susanne's famous tunas salad.

Q: Why do most of the homes in Israeli settlements have red roofs?

A: In this interview with Cabinet Magazine, Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, co-author of A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture, explains: "It functions in the settlements as a sign. Many times, settlement building codes require that anyone building their own home must build with this red roof because it's a sign that differentiates the 'us' from the 'them.' And I have heard of a residents' meeting where settlers tried to resist the red roof – saying it's a misplaced European element, etc. – while people from Gush Emunim, the main settler body, forced them to build them if only to show Jewish presence."

Red roofs at Pisgat Zeev settlement in East Jerusalem

While searching for the answer, I stumbled upon this super interesting project called Decolonizing Architecture, which inspired another super-interesting project called Manual of Decolonization. These projects look at how Israeli settlements in the West Bank can (could) be adapted or transformed when (if) the West Bank is returned to Palestine.

One of the steps in the Manual of Decolonization to reclaiming the settlements would be "de-roofing" them - removing this ubiquitous symbol of colonization from the landscape - and reconstructing happy roofs that blend with the landscape, while possibly providing other architectural advantages explained in Italian here.

Q: What happens to all of the prayers that get put in the Western Wall?

Prayers awaiting imminent removal and burial.

A: Twice a year (once before Yom Kippur, once before Passover), all of the weathered wads of paper are scraped out, swept up, and buried on the Mount of Olives. According to an article in VosIzneas.com:

The purpose is to make room so that people can “insert their prayer notes at the Wall without fear that the notes will fall out and be trampled upon,” Rabbi Rabinovich explained.

The notes, many of which contain the full names of family members, as well as requests for health, sustenance, a spouse, solutions for personal problems, and more, are treated with great respect by the workers. The workers even immerse themselves in a mikveh (ritual bath) before beginning the holy work of removing the notes.

The notes are removed without the use of metal bars or utensils – which stand for warfare and the taking of life (see Exodus 20,22) - but rather with wooden rods. Following their removal, the notes are taken to the nearby ancient Mt. of Olives cemetery for burial.

"Honey and Onions" Rededication

2010-09-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

...Not that this blog was ever dedicated in the first place.

But, never mind that.

In this second year of life in Jerusalem, I'm going to try something a little bit different with this blog. Most notably, I might be posting on it.

Cling cling-- a toast to the coming year!

Starched dreams

2010-08-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

So, I awoke at 3am last night, sweating and horrified by the nightmare I was having. It was the kind of nightmare where you have to beg yourself to wake up, and all the while you're aware it's a dream, but your eyes just won't open and so the dream continues. Thankfully, just as I was being attacked in the dream, my eyes flipped open. Funny how that happens.

Still, when I was awake, I was genuinely freaked out. I logged onto Skype to see if there was anyone to chat with -- nope. I considered getting dressed and going down to chat with the guards on duty, but instead, I settled on loading the happiest, most care-free TV show I could think of to calm my mind and help me return to a sleep full of rainbows and smiles: "The Brady Bunch."

Wow, what does it say about me that the stale Wonder-Bread feeling of this family was the most comforting thing I could think of?

I watched the episode where Greg gets mad at Marcia when she starts dating his rival football player, Warren Mulaney. Then, Greg tries to make Marcia mad by going out with her rival Kathy, who beat her in cheerleading tryouts.

Seriously?

*Hair flip* - Thanks, Bradys.

Potato chips or poker chips?

2010-07-31T14:13:00.000-07:00

Remember the global food emergency in late 2006 and through 2007? Soaring food prices, communities rioting, children suffering from malnutrition, families on the verge of starvation? I was in Ecuador during the worst of it, and I bet you remember my musings on the topic.

Well. A new explanation for what caused the crisis is now on the table: food speculation.

See this commentary from The Independent, "How Goldman gambled on starvation."

"So it has come to this. The world's wealthiest speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of hundreds of millions of innocent people. They gambled on increasing starvation, and won. Their Wasteland moment created a real wasteland. What does it say about our political and economic system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?"

This is the world we live in.

Grieving a stranger

2010-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

I have only been to three funerals in my lifetime. The third was last Monday. The brother-in-law of a colleague here passed away Monday morning, after a long and painful battle against cancer. He was 51. A husband, father of two, a schoolteacher and a basketball coach, Basel was a man loved by everyone in the Bethlehem/Beit Jala community.

Basel passed away early Monday morning. During work on Monday, we heard this sad news and learned that the funeral would be that afternoon at 4pm. I was hesitant to attend, since I did not know Basel, his family, or the community. But I was encouraged by my coworkers to go to support our grieving colleague. The experience is one I will never forget.

The funeral was held in the Beit Jala Greek Orthodox cathedral, where Basel attended church. A group of us from work arrived there to find the ceremony underway, and the cathedral - a large nave with high ceilings and white movable benches for pews - was full. Finding the side door, seemingly the main entrance, blocked with people, we walked around and entered through the back. The ceremony was taking place at the front of the cathedral, where priests were singing prayers in Arabic. I couldn't see exactly what was going on, due to the large pillar in front of us, and also because a huge group of people - presumably all of Basel's family and close friends - were crowded at the front as well. As the ceremony progressed, it became clear that they were standing around the alter and around the open casket, packed in as tightly as fans at a pop concert. During the ceremony, we all stood, save some older ladies who sat until the prayers reached a climax, and then they would pull themselves up to sing alleluias and mark the crucifix on their foreheads and chests.

The ceremony shifted, and different voices began to speak into the microphone. They were eulogies, spoken by friends and family members. Everyone wept when a man read a letter written by Basel's mother, who now mournfully had outlived her son. His young students comforted each other as they mourned the loss of their teacher, mentor and friend.

There were more prayers, and then the ceremony finished. The casket was carried out of the cathedral, lifted high above the heads of the men who carried it. Basel's body lay peacefully inside, and as they carried him away, I caught glimpses of his face - pale and emotionless, yet somehow serene - as he bobbed atop the crowd.

We exited the cathedral and, led by a youth drum corps, marched down the street to the cemetery. The drums went first, followed by the casket, in which Basel still bobbed in the sea of his closest kin, and the rest of us followed behind. We were hundreds, marching in this rhythmic procession of death, accompanying Basel's body to its final place of rest. I looked to my right and left, suddenly realizing that I was the only woman in sight. Somewhere along the way, the women had filtered out, and I now marched among a homogeneous crowd of stoic men. We arrived at the cemetery, and without a hesitation or pause, the drummers moved to one side and the casket moved forward, turning into the cemetery and disappearing up a few steps and into the dusk. Some men followed behind, but I hung outside. A short ten minutes later, the priests - bearded men dressed in long black robes and topped with tall cylindrical hats - emerged from the cemetery, followed by the men. I waited as my male colleagues went forward to greet and kiss our coworker and the men in his family, who had lined up near the cemetery entrance.

We packed into a car and drove to the school where Basel had worked. Here, two large rooms were set with chairs for the men and women to sit in separate places and grieve with the family. I followed my two female coworkers into the women's room, which was already full of ladies and girls who sat in silence or chatted quietly. The female family members sat in a line at the front of the room, and every now and then someone would get up to kiss each one of them before exiting the room. A lady came around and served us a small plastic cup of Arabic coffee. It is customary to serve food during this time, but with so many people sitting with Basel's family, coffee had replaced the meal. I could not stop myself from watching Basel's daughter, a young woman about my age, who sat in a frozen, grief-stricken daze. She didn't bat an eyelash as ladies stooped to kiss each of her cheeks and perhaps whisper a consolation in a soft voice before moving on to the remaining cheeks.

I sat with the family for about 20 or 30 minutes. Then, at the cue of my coworkers, we rose and moved to the front to kiss each woman. I nervously shuffled down the line, awkardly placing my hands on each woman's shoulders as I leaned in and placed a dry kiss on each of their cheeks. "I'm sorry," I whispered to Basel's wife, before moving on to embrace her frozen daughter who could have just as well been me. I wondered if the women asked themselves who I was. I hope they only concluded that the impact of Basel reached farther than they will ever know.

How odd it is to never know a man, but to grieve alongside his family over the loss of him, and in doing so to come to know the very man you never knew, and to grieve as if you knew him.

Different place, same caca

2009-11-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

Anyone who followed me through my blog in Ecuador will certainly remember this post, when I explained the joy of eating Ecuadorian caca.

Well, I've just discovered that I love eating Palestinian caca too! (Mom and Dad, aren't you proud?)

In the Palestinian dialect of Arabic, caca is the name for a fruit called persimmon in English. It looks like this:

I'm not sure if it's a very commonplace fruit in North America. I had never seen, let alone eaten, one of these guys before. In fact, I only knew the word persimmon from a very nice Wendell Berry poem.

But let me tell ya, caca is delicious! It is about the size of the average tomato. It has a thick orange peel, which you can eat or pull away to reveal the light orange flesh inside. The fruit tastes like a mild mango, softly sweet. Very yummy.

So, tell me, have any of you eaten caca -- err, persimmon?

The Two-State Clock

2009-09-27T08:03:00.001-07:00

Daylight Saving Time wasn't as simple as "Fall Back" this year. For the past three weeks, the land of Israel/Palestine, which normally falls within one time zone, was running on two separate clocks.

About three weeks ago, in an act demonstrative of self-governance, Palestinians turned back their watches for fall daylight savings time. It wasn't until today that Israel did the same.

The two territories are so forcefully segregated that for the many Israelis and Palestinians, the disparity was inconsequential. But for some, including our office and office staff, the past three weeks have been a littttle confusing. West Bank Palestinians who have been "afforded" permits to travel into Jerusalem for work must coordinate their travel to two different clocks.

Our office is located in East Jerusalem (the Palestinian side of the city, which is under Israeli occupation). The office, which depends on Israeli services like banks and the post office, ran on Israeli time. Our hospital, however, located just across the street from the office, ran on on Palestinian time, as the majority of patients travel in from the West Bank. Meetings and events occurring in the past week have all carried the disclaimer, "8 p.m. SUMMER TIME," or "10 a.m. WINTER TIME."

Confusing, yes. But, let's get serious, it's kinda the the least of worries.