Saturday, October 25, 2008

Made It!

Hello One and All,

I made it to Israel! I had quite a harrowing journey, including getting to the airport on the 21st only to find I didn't actually have a ticket booked and actually leaving the 22nd. It was awful. I cried. I don't want to talk about it right now.

Now it is Shabbat, a peaceful quiet time in Israel, time when I can reflect on things that have happened over the last week. I'll take this time to reflect on some of my early observations of life here in Israel:

When I arrived, I walked through the doors of customs out to the waiting area where I knew a group of friends would be waiting to greet me with cheers and hugs and well-wishes. The first person who got to me was my Mom who gave me a big hug and a kiss to which all my friends responded with a collective, "Awww!" Then I got the rounds of hugs from friends which was so wonderful.

There were about 15 people there to greet me, which was amazing. Little did I know, had I arrived when I was supposed to (you'll recall I left a day late...) there would have perhaps more than twice that many people. One person told me it was good that I arrived late because I would have set some sort of record and made other new immigrants jealous. Still, every little while I see someone or get a call and the first thing everyone says to me is that they are sorry they couldn't make it the airport. It was a very supportive first day!

The next thing that happened was a party at my new house. It was SO fun! There were so many people there I was so happy to see! I also got to meet our partners in crime, the other Ramat Gan kvutsa, the Shbrits (Spanish and British). I knew two of them already, but meeting the other three was fantastic. They are so sweet. One of them in particular was interesting, and she is Tash. Here is the Tash story:

Around January, Habonim Dror was sent into a crazy debacle as two important parties in Israel began to fight with one another (a necessarily perfunctory explanation). In order to deal with the complex situation, we in North America decided to start colluding with our British brethren. We had many phone conversations with them and, importantly to this story, new facebook friends were made. I made friends with one girl in particular who worked there, Tash. We started messaging back and forth and inexplicably our conversations became deep and intimate very fast. We just seemed to speak the same language. It was wonderful. So for about ten months we were in regular contact and talking about our lives, love, sadness, happiness, and other intense things. I met her in person on Thursday night. It was so great to see her, but it was also clear that there was a bit of awkwardness as we both were evaluating the transition from virtual facebook friends to real life flesh friends. We chatted a bit on and off during the party, but it wasn't until the night was winding down that we found ourselves sitting in comfy chairs with each other in a relatively quiet corner. We began talking and all of a sudden it clicked and the transition happened quite fluidly. We talked about our excitements and our fears about everything in Israel (she also just moved here in August). Afterwards we verbally acknowledged how good it felt to know that it wasn't a fake fleeting facebook thing we had.

The next day I went with some of my kvutsa-mates and some of the Shbrits to the park to play some frisbee. This was awesome because it isn't cold here and we can go to the park and play frisbee! Yeah! Unfortunately, during this frisbee game, one of my kvutsa-mates met up with her boyfriend for an ominous discussion and came out of the comversation no longer in a relationship. This was very sad. We all got home and everyone was in the house getting ready for Shabbat dinner. She was clearly distressed by the break-up, and one of my kvutsa-mates prodded her with a simple, "Spill the beans." Then she did! She just opened up, and talked about what happened and we talked with her and supported her all together.

Here is why this is amazing for me: In my previous situation, if something big happened to one of us, the immediate response was not for everyone to sit together, but rather for that one person to turn to just one other kvutsa-mate. Only later, perhaps weeks later, when we had scheduled all-together time would it come out into the open, and then it was only really a report, not an opportunity for us to support that person. This had many reasons for happeneing, but all in all I think it was not so good for group dynamics, as some people were just never turned to and some people were always turned to. Now that I've experienced the alternative, a collective support network, I can confidently say that it is much more rewarding overall. If you used to live with me in Brooklyn and are looking for more information on this, contact me directly.

Now it is Shabbat. I am in a cute coffee shop in Tel-Aviv with Naomi and Nadav, and you know what?

I am happy.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Speech Therapy

Hiya Blog Fans,

Today was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. I was asked by my synagogue to deliver a speech about why I love Israel as a precursor to an appeal for people to invest in Israel Bonds. I agreed to do this speech and saw it as a great opportunity to spread my ideals of Judaism and Zionism to a very different crowd.

The past two years I have been the Mazkir Tnua of Habonim Dror North America. In those two years I had myriad opportunities to deliver speeches on Zionism to lots of different sorts of crowds. I realized, or perhaps simply this became the case from practice, that I am pretty good at it. I strike the right balance between informal jokey self-deprication and hifalutin idealism.

Over the course of about a week I crafted this speech. I was kind of nervous because this was a conservative synagogue I was talking to. This was not my movement, who shared my ideals, or a Jewish Agency Task Force, where at least we share the same goals and there is a shared vocabulary. A synagogue, a conservative one, is an institution based on religion - something I'm not so keen on - and explicitly propagates a Diaspora mentality, not to mention that Conservative Judaism is kind of...well...conservative. (Please forgive me if this post has already gone above some of my reader's heads...I'll bring it back down in a minute)

By yesterday I was satisfied with it, I ran it by my Mom and my hairdresser/friend Tommy and they both liked it a lot. I was not afraid in my speech to mention Zionism, to talk about Habonim Dror and my ideals, to be bold and idealistic.

I arrived at synagogue and I was a little nervous. I had given plenty of speeches before, but my largest audience until then was perhaps around 180 people. This sanctuary had upwards of 300 people in it, perhaps more...I suck at estimating crowd sizes, could've been 20 people for all I know. I got up on the Bima as my name was announced and began my speech. I spoke slowly and enunciated. I made eye contact with the crowd and swept my gaze across the entire room. I emoted. I was pretty happy with my delivery, frankly.

Afterwards my mouth and throat were both very dry and was nothing I could do about it because of stupid Yom Kippur and stupid fasting.

As the rest of the morning and afternoon progressed at synagogue, I did my normal routine of wandering around to while the time away. During this whiling, I was shocked to find many many people approaching me to tell me how much they liked my speech. Some of them were your garden variety, "Hey, Good Job" or "Yasher Koach" (for all my Jews out there). Some of them were pretty nice praise like "It struck just the right tone" or "It was perfectly put together". And two people went so far as to say, "It was the best speech I have ever heard delivered in synagogue!" I was humbled.

It felt good. It made me feel good about my decision - that is, my decision to move to Israel. It made me feel validated. It made me feel like I know how to talk about what I believe in a way that touches anyone and everyone. I was pretty proud of myself. It felt good.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Family Ties ft. Alex P. Keaton

Whatup,

I've been out of New York now for six days. I am currently in San Francisco. In the time I've spent away, I've mostly been with my family. That was the main goal of this trip, to visit my family all in one fell swoop. In some sense, it is strange that I would pack visiting my family into one short trip before I leave the country in a forever-ish way, but it really just speaks to the issue that I am not very close with my family.

Moving away has really made me think about this issue a lot. I've never been close to my family. I don't really have a sense of what makes my particular family important to me. I understand we share the same blood, but I don't have a strong sense of having shared experiences. I feel like my family doesn't really know me at all, actually. I've never felt like I could talk to anyone in my family, and I still don't confide in any of them for anything serious. Here is a little anecdote: the day I broke up with Lindsey (I know I said I wouldn't talk about this...), the only reason I even bothered to tell my parents - by email - was that she had a plane ticket to DC for Thanksgiving that my parents bought for her and I didn't want my parents to not be able to cancel it.

So when people ask me how my family feels about me leaving, the answer is, "I don't really know." When I told my parents about my decision they took a pretty hands off approach and just said, "OK, we support you." I, frankly, was appreciative of this, because it is better to accept that we are distant than to meddle in my affairs when they have no place in my life. That may sound harsh, but I truly feel that way. When you've spent your whole life without your parents there for you in the way you want, you kind of resent it when they think they can tell you what to do. You gotta give to get, right?

With my brothers it is a similar story. I've never been close to my brothers. One is 5 years older than me and the other nearly 10. We spent very little childhood with one another and never were in school together. It's nice that they both live out in San Francisco so I can visit them together and not have to make two separate trips. My brothers in recent years have clearly made more of an effort to try and get close to me, which I've been at times warm to and at times cold. Everything feels fake when it has taken this long for people to try and be close to me. My brothers are nice, and we have fun together, but I couldn't tell you how either of them feels in the slightest about me moving. When people ask, I usually just make something up that is sufficiently vague.

The big question is: Am I happy with things the way they are? Yes and no. I obviously realize that things could be better. This is not an ideal family situation. But frankly, I don't break down and cry when I think about it. I make it work. And I don't really need it to change. I've created my own family structures in my life, like the kvutsa I live in. And the movement in Israel is such a supportive social network. I am comfortable and happy with the structures I've intentionally created for myself.

At the dinner table with my Mom and Dad a couple days ago, my Mom started to get sad thinking about me leaving. She was worried about me. "What if he needs us? He'll be so far away!" My dad laughed and replied, "Yeah, like he's really leaned on us so much for the last two years." Which is the truth of it. I don't depend on my parents, so I'm not sad about leaving them. And frankly my Mom is in Israel almost six months out of the year. In the six years since I moved away for college, my parents have visited me less times than I can count on one hand. I'm sure I'll end up seeing my Mom MORE once I'm in the Tel-Aviv area, where she also has an apartment.

So that's my family situation. It ain't pretty, but it works. Or it doesn't. Who the hell knows?