Tanks, Kubeh, Bourekas and Babies: A Personal History of Immigration to Israel
It turns out that Israel takes on different appearances depending on whose eyes it’s viewed through. An early twenty-something steps off the plane and sees through wide eyes a sun-kissed land filled to brimming with young olive skinned honeys filling out olive-toned uniforms in all the right places, deliciously greasy buckets of shwarma meat seductively rotating on their spits, glistening bottles of Goldstar and milky glasses of arak, and idyllic kibbutzim whose apparent main agricultural product isn’t exactly found in the SuperSol, all set to the exotic high-velocity throat music of modern Hebrew. A thirty-something longtime resident of Israel sees exactly the same thing, except it’s through the windshield of a somewhat sensible sedan as he drives his toddler to daycare. It’s all about perspective, and to understand how one perspective slowly but surely evolves into another, you have to understand how one falls in love in Israel and stays there.
• 1974. Was born.
• 1982. The son of my chazzan (cantor) visited my synagogue while on leave from the IDF. I was somewhat in awe.
• 1984. When I was ten a friend returned from a summer trip to Israel. I recall asking if there were any amusement parks there. She asked her father, and he said there was one called “Ferris Wheel” in Rishon Leztion. Israel had suddenly become an appealing place for me to visit. I enjoyed Dollywood, so I figured I’d enjoy Israel too.
• 1986. Mrs. Osmon, my Israeli Hebrew teacher at Hebrew school, had it in for me and became one of my childhood enemies. She did not endear me to Israel.
• 1987. Two Israeli students visited my Hebrew school and brought with them a cassette tape of Israeli rap. I ran like DMC.
• 1986 - 1990. Through my involvement in USY, my connection to and knowledge of Israel grew. Fought incessantly with leftist teachers at my high school about Israel. Digested every book possible about Israel to use as ammunition, Exodus included. Saw movie. Had crush on Karen Hansen Clement. Worried about Israel and was glued to CNN during the Gulf War. The chazzan from my synagogue went to volunteer. Was in awe.
• 1991. Visited for the first time as a participant on USY Poland Seminar/Israel Pilgrimage. Holocaust bad. Israel good. Refused to wear sandals. Drank a lot of Kinley. Was in awe of the IDF.
• 1994. Ms. Carmel, my Israeli Hebrew teacher in college, had it in for me and became one of my adulthood enemies.
• 1994 - 1997. Became heavily involved in pro-Israel activism on the campus of SUNY Albany. Many debates with Anti-Zionists and Israel-haters. By the time I left they were still Anti-Zionists and Israel-haters. Started to hate myself. Was in awe of all of friends who made aliyah and served in the IDF. Decided that I too want to serve in the IDF.
• 1997 -1998. Made Aliyah. Got drunk a lot. Ate kubbe soup for the first time. Rejoiced. Enjoyed hummus as a meal. Naomi, my Hebrew teacher at ulpan, did not have it in for me. Left ulpan early to be drafted into the IDF. Served in the Armored Corps. Learned to love, then hate and finally respect tanks. Got dirty. Wasn’t as a good shot as I thought I was. Spent Israel’s 50th anniversary on guard duty. Thought that was cool. Lost 30 pounds. Began a life long relationship with baby wipes. Gained perspective. Listened to Berry. Met my future wife.
• 1999 - 2007. Bourekas, majadra, meorav yerushalmi. Cremshnitz, za’atar, Golan apples. Lahmajun, sabich, samboosak. Hummus. Worked at a myriad of start-ups. All failed. Not my fault. Got married. Strong relationship. Worked in print journalism and then ISRAEL21c. Learned that Israel is hi-tech and cures diseases. Started business. Business succeeds. Had baby. Was in awe. Baby succeeds. Named her Tzofia after my favorite line of Hatikvah. Am in awe.
• 2008. Hate the politicians. Left and Right. Secular and Religious. Frustrated with the leadership. Demand change. Understand why they don’t but wishing our greatest minds would run this country. Love my family. Love my friends. Love my country. Want to help fix it. Hummus still delicious.
The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.
This ain’t viral marketing!
The good folks of funnyordie.com have put up a nice little promo for Walk Hard. It features a nice fight between Judd Apatow and Craig Robinson. Take a look at Craig Robinson’s shirt. Guess he picked it up earlier this year on his visit. As you see the shenanigans unfold in this video you’ll see how it becomes an ironic t-shirt.
via slashfilm.com
Tales of the Golan: Harry vs. The Wild Boar
I couldn’t help but laugh while reading Shmuel’s near splattering of a wild boar on the Golan Heights while driving home from work. It reminded me of one of the funniest experiences of my army service.
We were somewhere in the middle of a military zone on the Golan Heights. Even though our base was only a few kilometers away it was way too expensive (the fuel) to drive the tanks back and forth from the field too our base just for a few days while everyone went home for the weekend, so a few of us were spending Shabbat in the field. The guard duty rotation was two hours on, six hours off. Not that bad considering I once did two hours on, two hours off for three days. Is that even legal? Anyway, It must have been two or three in the morning. I was just finishing a two hour shift guarding the tanks and all of our equipment. My fellow soldiers were sleeping in a large tent, while I stood on top of one of the tanks manning the radio. (Quick aside. I would often tune to the United Nations radio frequency and say “UN out of Palestine” and “Long Live Mao!” for no apparent reason.) Anyway, my shift was up in ten minutes so I had to go wake up Nuriel, who would relieve me. Nuriel, the driver of my tank crew, was a humorous and warm religious Yemenite kid. A bit of a wise ass, but a reliable soldier and a terrific driver. He actually drove while sleeping on more than one occasion. Trust me, that is a very impressive feat. If he didn’t respond to orders because of his slumbering, I would fake that I hurt my hand or something and scream “SHIT” really loud into the radio in order to rouse him. Thanks would be given later during our wind down time after a long day in the form of “Cafe Lavon” or “white coffee.” A delicious spiced hot drink I only had prepared for me by Nuriel and have not heard of or seen since.
So, my shift is ending and I hop down to go wake Nuriel up. I wake him and tells me he’ll be out in ten. I go back to the tanks and suddenly I hear snorting. Snorthing was new to me. I’d heard Jackals before. They are quite loud on the Golan. However, I never quite got used to the cackling of the Jackals. I find it unsettling. Damn Joker.
I shine the spotlight (in Hebrew “projector”) to the source of the sound and see a huge mother fucking wild boar about ten meters away from where I stand. Now, as long as I stay on the tank I’ll be ok. There’s obviously no way it can get to me but Nuriel is on his way out. Should I be concerned? I couldn’t exactly call out his name because I didn’t want to wake everyone else up. I keep my eye on the tent and fruitlessly (and retardedly I might add) attempt to blind the boar with the spotlight. That didn’t work. I figure I’ll just wait for Nuriel to come out. 15 minutes pass, no Nuriel. Must have fallen asleep while putting his shoes on. The damn pig is still running around, mocking me with his snorts.
Now, my options are limited. I can’t run anywhere and I certainly can’t shoot it. I can however, throw stuff at it! The question is, what do I throw? Bullets of course! I start with the standard 5.56 mm, and quickly go through almost an entire magazine and hit him only twice. The bastard shrugged off the bullets as if someone was throwing them at him. I upgraded to the 7.62 mm from one of the MAG machine guns, but those too weren’t affective enough. Nuriel finally emerges about an hour after he was supposed to, sees the boar, screams some obscenity in Arabic slang and runs back into the tent. I then grab the carrot sized 50 caliber bullets from the mounted M2 Browning machine gun and throw them with a hell of a lot of force at the Boar. Good thing that that did the trick. I wasn’t prepared to lob a tank shell at it. One big squeal and the non-kosher beast ran. Right towards the tent where everyone was sleeping. Luckily, he took a quick left and ran into the darkness. I waited a few minutes to be sure he was gone and finally jumped down and headed towards the tent. Nuriel of course had gone back to bed. I woke him by kicking his cot, then affectionately cursed at him, told him the pig was gone and I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. so I had enough time to clean up all those damn bullets.
Harry vs. Zombies
I’ve been feeling quite crappy lately. The drugs help the physical aspect of my pain of course, but don’t do much for the spirit. In fact, narcotic hazes can get quite depressing. I’m actually dumbfounded as to how people actually get addicted to this stuff. I haven’t taken a decent shit in over a week. Anyway, the drugs don’t lift the spirits, but when a good friend (Michael of Kosher Eucharist and that Jew blog) gives me a kick ass drawing of me blowing the head off a decayed Zombie with a Desert Eagle while holding off a freshly bit Zombie with a katana, well, let’s just say it makes me feel super awesome. Like a super awesome Zombie destroyer! Bring on the undead!
Escaping and a metal song for you
Spent the day with a few college friends visiting from America. Took them for some awesome Kurdish Kube soup and some juice laced with narcotic qat leaves in the Mahane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem. Ran into someone completely unexpected that I haven’t seen in years. Good times. Later in the day, we celebrated the engagement of two dear friends. I managed to escape the news all day but obviously the war going on such a short ways away was the main topic of conversation.
Anyway, thanks to all who donated to the Jewish Agency program to relocate children from the north and setting them up in summer camps. Ziva tells me that they already moved five hundred and will be moving more in the coming days.
I decided to take all my nervous energy yesterday and put it into this one minute and forty second gem of metal. Not for the faint-hearted. I hit notes that I didn’t even know existed. Enjoy.
Stones (MP3)
Hating on the J-Blogosphere
Michael, resident Jewlicious badboy (though he would prefer to be referred to as enfant terrible), takes issue with the prevalent aura of self-importance in the “Jewish Blogosphere.”
His entry reminds me of the three year old question, “Are you a Jewish blogger or a blogger who is Jewish?”
Me? I couldn’t give two shits.
I can’t wait to read the comments on this one.
David Broza and Wyclef share hummous
Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported today that Israeli guitarist/schlockmeister/perpetual cheese machine David Broza laid down a few tracks with Wyclef Jean for the upcoming Fugees album.
“The connection between myself and Wyclef is very musical” said Broza. “We first came together to compose music for movies. It then evolved into working on the Fugees reunion album. We were working in the studio and suddenly Wyclef said to me ‘Come on up and play a few tracks!’. So I played all sorts of guitar licks. We worked on two tracks and afterwards we all left the studio and listened to the tracks on high volume outside in the street.”
Just last night Ziva and I were sitting on the couch in deep discussion about who is David Broza’s American equivalent.
The conversation went something like this:
Ziva: Billy Joel is the American David Broza.
Harry: No way. Billy Joel may be cheesy but he has written some great songs.
Ziva: When people go to Billy Joel concerts they’re not going because they think it’s cheesy, they are going because they wholeheartedly think he’s good.
Harry: Not in a nostalogic kind of way? Because I think today’s David Broza fans go because of nostalgia.
Ziva: No Harry. They don’t see cheese. They think he’s really good in 2005 as a contemporary artist, not that he had a few hits in the eighties and nineties and is still popular today.
Harry: I believe that Joel is one day going to have a comeback album that is going to blow us all away. Need I remind you of our wedding song “Just the Way you Are?”
Ziva: Harry, that wasn’t our wedding song.
Harry: You’re right. It was David Broza.
Perhaps he was fleeing”The Others”
A man builds a car-powered raft and sets off from Bat Yam in an attempt to flee Israel.
The Marine Policing Unit of the Tel Aviv District searched the Mediterranean coast in the area of the rumored launch and found that there was such a raft sailing west of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. The raft was assembled of two canoe-like boats serving as pontoons, supporting an old Citroen-made vehicle.The man, a Holon resident in his 40s, was trying to flee Israel and was seated inside the vehicle.
Upon further inspection, police found food and extensive equipment that was meant to support the man for a long period of time. The police suspect that the man was, in fact, trying to flee from Israel, but did not indicate why he might be interested in such an action.
Tel Aviv Signage
I see a lot of things around here that warrant a chuckle.
I always say to myself, “Damn Harry, you should carry your digital camera with you wherever you go.” Luckily, this time I did.
I think I’ll pass on living on what I call “Take My Money” street and shopping at “Shams.”
It’s shame that my battery was dead by the time I got to the “Launbry Place.”
Timewarp: Harry chats with Shaul Mofaz
Yet another chapter of the Harry’s army chronicles…
1998. My advanced tank training was held on the southern Golan Heights. We spent about 90 percent of our time out in the shetach (field). Upon returning to the base on Sunday we would drive our tanks through military only areas of the Golan, passing decimated and rusted Syrian tanks that are now used as target practice. Advanced tank training consists of obstacle courses spread over several kilometers. Each week, we would ship out to a different part of the Golan, training on different types of terrain. This week we happened to be near the city of Katzrin, the only city on the Golan Heights, sitting about 12 kilometers northeast of the Sea of Galilee. It was a good place to be, because we knew the chances of recieving an “after,” (free time) in the city was fairly high. Now, Katrzin isn’t a city per se, but it had a couple of cafes, mini-markets and shwarma joints. More than we had on the volcanic rock of the Golan where we spent most of our time.
On Wednesday morning we woke up shivering as usual, anxiously waiting for the sun to rise to rewarm our bodies. Our morning rituals of cold water shaving, eating crappy food, putting away our sleeping gear and preparing the tank for the days activities was done in silence. Everyone too tired from the previous night’s events. After breakfast we were told by our commanders that we’ll be having a special guest today - the new IDF Chief of Staff, Shaul Mofaz. It was his first week in his position and he was going around to random units to meet with the troops. He would be arriving at 11:30, so we’ll need to straighten up the area, put up some new flags and choose a representitive to tell him about our unit.
Mofaz and his entourage of advisors, security and photographer arrived promptly. Eitan, a born leader who we chose earlier to speak about our unit spoke elequently and intelligently about who we were and what we were doing. Mofaz then spoke briefly to our unit about the importance of the armored corp and upon completing his short speech asked if there were any questions. A few of the guys had some questions - though nothing too serious. Mofaz then said “Anyone else?”
I happen to be sitting dead center in the group and foolishly looked to my right and my left to see if anyone had their hands up. No one did. And that was my downfall.
Mofaz looks directly at me and says, “You there! The one looking around, please stand up.” I was so nervious that I thought my heart was going to explode through my chest and I immediately broke out in a heavy sweat.
There was a collective “Oh shit” among my commanders and the officers. The guys in my unit all tried to mask their smirks because they knew this conversation was going to be awesome.
I was a good soldier, but as you can imagine, a bit of a jokester. Now, this is the chief of staff of the IDF, so I wasn’t planning on fucking around. But sometimes, things just happen. My Hebrew wasn’t all that great. Good enough to understand orders and converse with the boys but I couldn’t have a intellectual conversation about Kant’s categorical imperative. all my answers below are translated in English directly from the Hebrew I used.
I stood up and saluted the highest ranking officer in Israel.
“What is your name?” Mofaz asked.
“Harry Rubenstein” I answered with an intentionally strong accent.
“Ah a new immigrant? Where are you from Harry?” said Mofaz.
“Port Jefferson, New York”
“When did you come to Israel?”
“About eight months ago”
“How are you finding the army?”
“It’s difficult, but it’s going OK.”
“How old are you?”
“23″
Did you go to college?
“Yes, I studied at SUNY Albany.”
“What did you study?”
“History.”
“What kind of History?”
“Middle Eastern.”
“What do your parents do?”
“My father teaches Physics and mother helps people with speaking problems.” (I didn’t know how to say “Speech Therapist.)
“Are they happy with your decision?”
“Yes, they are very proud.”
“How did you end up in tanks?”
“I read Avigdor Kahalani’s book OZ 77 and wanted to be part of a unit with such a big history. Kahalani is a hero.”
“Yes, he is a hero.”
“Are you a lone soldier?”
“Yes”
“Where do you live?”
“Jerusalem”
“Do you receive invitations to any of the guys for Shabbat?”
“Yes, but I never go. I see them enough during the week, I like quiet on Shabbat.”
“Me too,” Mofaz says laughing.
Now there were other questions as well. We went back and forth for a good ten minutes or so. He was really into me for some reason and I just wanted it to end. Finally I heard the words that brought me relief.
“Good luck Harry” the Chief of Staff said effectively ending the conversation.
“Thank you. Good luck to you too in your new job” I said, not believing I just said GOOD LUCK IN YOUR NEW JOB to the fucking chief of staff of the army.
And with that I saluted and sat down relieved that the most high pressure conversation of military career was over. Mofaz and his entourage left and and all the hoopla died down. Many of my fellow soldiers came up to me and gave me praise and a few pats on the back, with a few telling me that I represented the unit with respect.
Now, we were still in training so at this point our Platoon commander has not spoken to anyone of us on an individual basis. He only addressed us as a group. He was totally intimidating and I avoided him at all costs. Interaction with him was just plain uncomfortable and unnecessary. He was one bad dude.
As I chatted with my friend Shachar, my Platoon commander barrels our way at top speed and stops short a few inches from my face, cracks a big smile and says, “Harry, is there anything else you’d like to share with the Chief of Staff?”
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