Pizza and Wine Suits Me Just Fine

So after three days of playing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" next to Gaza I returned to Netanya via awful public transportation yesterday for the Sunday kick off of my work week. It's 6 days a week here so I'm not sure why Americans feel we work the hardest in the world - right about now I'd say it's the Thai's in Israel.

But tonight I had an interesting cross cultural experience :) Idan, my family's oldest son had a water polo match in the recreation area of Bet Yitzkah. It was just like an American sports competition in that there were crazy parents, standing on edge ready to fight for their children, cheerleaders shouting (in hebrew) "Hey other team, go home!", and even a band that came from Haifa (an hour away) to support the away team.

The sports complex here is supposedly one of the nicest in the entire country and because our team won (even though our player is smaller than everyone else and sat the whole match out on the bench) our whole family got pizza for dinner! Forget Dominoes this time we tried a place in the next town over and it came with the same amazing pizza seasoning that's prevalent with the italian treat everywhere.

So it's pretty funny to see a water polo match amongest 13 year old boys in Israel and the pizza you get to eat to celebrate a victory is top notch : )

You think you're better than me, you're not better than me.. I'm better than you

Last night speaking with one of Oran's friends about politics he spoke to me about how he is upset how Israel waits to hear from America before they take action and try to lift themselves up as a country. He said back in the 70s, the Israeli army was working on building the best planes in the world and selling them to China. America didn't like this and forbid the research and instead gave Israel a lot of F16 planes instead. The boy sited this as only one example of America butting in where they have no business. I don't think he was saying he doesn't think Israel doesn't need America as an ally - he just wants people to be informed that sometimes Americans don't know what we're talking about, we don't know what dealing with 50-70 terrorist attacks every day feels like, to have national tragedies occur all the time - and to basically just butt out. This goes back to me thinking Israel will preemptively strike Iran sooner than later to stop their nuclear program. It's an issue of when and not if.

The Great King of Israel

Last night one of Oran's friends told me about the Israeli musician Zohar Argov.
She called him the "Great King of Israel" and told me how he was very popular in the 1960s and had a unique story of coming from nothing to achieving popular culture status and then blew it all and died young of a cocaine addiction. Now she says his son is a great musician too but also into drugs and following in the same foot steps. Oran agrees that the son is only using the father's name for money.

Here is a link to one of Argov's songs.

South by Gaza - A weekend at the spa

So this weekend I'm visiting with the armed guard from my birthright program Oran. Besides being only slightly exaggerated- the sexiest man I've ever met- he's a traveler and such a laid back guy. He invited me to his house for shavuot and he lives very close to the gaza strip and the border of Egypt.

I thought to myself - ok i'm going to visit Oran to see how he lives. He spoke of missiles flying over head constantly and I thought - prepare yourself Jessica for a war zone. Well, like everything in this country - his neighborhood and home are full of contradictions. For 8 years these missiles fly from Gaza everyday - to the point where there is a bomb shelter next to the soccer field here in case mid game the players need to escape the field - but next to his house his mother runs her own spa. There's a hot tub, massages, facials and waxing in the most serene environment. The sunset here is the most beautiful I've seen so far in Israel. They have a veranda behind their house and it's filled with hammocks and cushions where I could spend weeks of my life reading and napping and drinking tea with fresh mint and lemon. There are pomegranate, mango and orange trees.

The neighborhood is filled with young people Oran's age that gather outside without calling each other to smoke nagilla and talk for hours while drinking nestea or coca cola.

But last night was very interesting. We went to the house of one of Oran's friends and it was a gathering of hippie travelers. Everyone looked like they'd been to India and back yesterday and we drank wine, smoked and ate sweets and talked about music and politics.

Oran told me one night they were in the exact same situation- chilling out and enjoying themselves - when 15 different missiles flew over them. I still today can't process what that must have felt like but again it's the case where I'm sitting right there picturing it happening that night to me.

Party in NYC like you were here w/ me in Israel

There's a big festival on June 21, 2009 in Central Park. An artificial beach - set up to look like the shores of Tel Aviv will be placed near the Naumberg Bandshell. This event is to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Israeli city. Click here for the link for full event details!

God bless my ipod

I told a few of you that i regretted impulsively purchasing the Ipod touch about two days before leaving for Israel. This very expensive item had me feeling buyers remorse almost immediately - especially since I should have been in a thrifty mind set setting off for two months of travel.

Well, I take all of that back. My Ipod is my most prized possesion right now and here's why: at the farm here from Sunday - Thursday I'm alone working in the fields with the thai men who don't speak a word of English. They may be happy working in silence but without my ipod I'd be bored out of my mind. Bored is the wrong work - this picking and plucking and farming in general is hard work and really who doesn't like to exercise to music? My music is probably the only thing getting me through.

Plus the men hate me. Well, they don't hate me but let's say it's obvious I have no idea what I'm doing and after hours and hours of work I get tired and they don't. The only words they seem to know are "come on, come on" which is to encourage me to cut lettuce faster, pick bigger beets or sort zuchinni with more accuracy.

I don't know what these two little guys are eating but let me say as laborers i think they should be paid a LOT! They have boundless energy and when I almost passed out today in a field picking weeds from the strawberry patch they stepped in and continued for almost an hour finishing the work I could not. Amir says with the money they make here they can take care of 2 families back in Thailand but then he told me one of the guys ran up a phone bill of 2,000 sheckels and that was a months salary. But when I calcuate that's only about 300-400 dollars.

My math is bad but I bet they're not being paid enough. I'm here as a volunteer and I feel taken advantage of I can't imagine how they feel. Sucks that I don't get to ask them either because i'm so curious about their lives back home but they don't even understand when I say "i'm sorry for being so bad at this work. I'm a middle class jewish girl from long island."

Anti-semitism abroad

So I wasn't aware that in summer and even year round a huge majority of french jews own property mainly in Tel Aviv and also throughout Israel. Time Out says if you don't speak hebrew you can get by just fine with french. I remember that anti-semitism in France was and is bad with people going into jewish cemeteries and defacing grave sites all the time but I didn't realize the french jews are safeguarding themselves for a day when they may be expelled from their homes.

I also heard a crazy story about jews in Peru being forced to leave their homes by the local government. People traveling in South America- did you feel or see any of this in Peru???