ACC Israel Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and back again

ACC  II Tel Aviv to Jerusalem 

Beautiful Israeli breakfast....more food than imaginable and greener cucumbers than ever... a breakfast with Rabbi Rick Jacobs, talking about what at the time, was the biggest thing going on in the Jewish world, which was the Presbyterian Church's move for Boycott and Divestment, what a statement. We went back to the roof of Mishkanot Ruth for a breezy and beautiful musical morning Shacharit with Rabbi Esteban Gottfried and Beit T'filah Yisraeli with a powerful d'var Torah on Parashat Balaak by  Rick Jacobs. The challenges that seemed to prominent in our minds and consciousness was so different--who knew that just a few days later everything would change. We would be waking from such a crazy dream.

We loaded up for a morning at Bina, which means understanding--my middle name, a social justice organization in an at-risk neighborhood of Tel Aviv, doing wonderful work on the ground with their population. They have a 'secular' yeshiva where students come from all over to study and understand their own tradition's text in an open atmosphere. Followed by a flash mob of Kol Haneshama and Lewandowski's Halleluya right on Rothschild Street! Even the Israeli's loved it. We toured Bima, the Israeli Opera house and prepared to hear an evening Maariv concert at the large Reform Congregation in Tel Aviv, Beit Daniel...and dinner with friends in what might be the Soho of Tel Aviv, Neve Tzedek.

More connections with friends as Thursday brought us North to Oranim Teacher's College and to the Leo Beck School and Congregation Ohel Avraham in Haifa--looking out at the amazing sunset, connecting with the incredible Rabbis Gabby Dagan and Naama there...and a concert by Heartbeat, Arab and Jewish Israeli teenagers who find their way to understanding by composing and performing their own 'world' music.  As the news of the 3 Israeli boys, and then the Palestinian boy was still the biggest thing in the news, they held tears back on stage, trying to express that for them, this was their only way to try to make meaning in a world that seemed to challenge the natural order or things.

It was a moving evening, capped off by late night drinks at the Shook of Old Jaffo with Shanni, Nir and Shanni's brother who was one of our guides !!!

And Shabbat on the pier in Tel Aviv....a breezy Israeli experience, one which I wasn't able to have while in Jerusalem. While on the Shirut to Tel Aviv, who calls but Rabbi Michael Resnick who is here studying at the Hartman Institute...and having his own kind of Shabbat in Jerusalem. But this was a musical, fun, outdoor way to feel a different kind of Shabbat--and again the reunions with Rabbi Yael Ridberg from Shabbaba. Dinner with good friends and lots of laughs right on the waterfront with the biggest fish ever to share. Shabbat morning was very HUC...back on the top of the world looking at the old city hearing Shacharit davened, seeing classmates, and those returning for alumni programs, as well as the 'new kids' in the incoming class. 4 cantors in this class, all women. We wonder what this says about the movement, the cantorate, institutional Jewish life in the states....

While we are taking pictures of ourselves with the magnificent skyline of the old city behind us, tourists are being advised maybe to not got to the old city... of course this week saw Israeli's kidnap a Palestinian boy and now riots have intermittently begun in the Arab quarters as well as the Temple Mount. Nerves are a bit more taught, something is brewing, no one is really making connections between the endless (yet ineffective) rocket fire in the southern towns where Randi lives and the tensions from all the recent deaths. So when I take a quick Shabbat run to see my niece Rebecca on her own BBYO trip, they are sequestered in the Caesar Hotel near the bus station--their Old City plans are under constant revision as they reshape the final days of their trip to assure safety to their families at home, as well as deal with the reality of what is happening here. The hotel is teeming with flirty over-heated teenagers--BBYO, Birthright, not an adult in sight except for the security guard at the door not letting anyone out. We hugged and processed her trip together--she would be on a plane home in 26 hours, newly in love with Israel. I wandered back through the streets of Jerusalem in the quiet of Shabbat, severely underdressed for the daati neighborhoods I walked through. But slowly I was able to quietly reabsorb the Jerusalem I missed. The shops were closed, no cars were on the streets here, and I began to feel the dusty in my toes and on the sweat of my shoulders that seems so right here-- it feels so good to be home... even if I sweat just looking at what the women are wearing. Long sleeves AND a coat? AND a scarf?

Shabbat ends with learning and I study the poetry of Leah Goldberg and see my old teachers, Rabbi Levi Kelman, who taught me how to pray and how to teach prayer through his wonderful awe for Judaism, hebrew, and creating atmosphere. Dave Mendelsohn who constantly couched

and contextualized our Israeli experience for us amidst Operation Cast Lead in 2009, Cantor Eliyahu Schleifer--you are with us every day of school and every day in our cantorates...we piled our dusty tired bodies back on the top of the world in Blaustein Hall, overlooking Jaffa Gate and sang with Effie Netzer, until the sun completely set and we stuffed ourselves at Cafe Rimon in the Memilla Mall. This city reinvents itself every day--more hotels, more buildings, fountains exist where it used to be dry, it is a beautiful city. 

Shavua Tov!