Things that have made me smile recently

This will get updated as I see more things that make me smile.

• The happy little African refugee employed by the toy shop a few streets away to stand on the pavement and blow bubbles all day.
• That a rainbow was actually the main item on Israel's evening news the other day. (Yes, yes, the Egyptians are revolting, but look! A rainbow! That never happens!)
• The sign on Hertzl Street that mistakenly directs cars to Japan instead of Jaffa (ליפן instead of ליפו).
• The cashier at Tiv Tam taking one look at my face and my bacon and telling me the price in Russian.
• The man on BBC saying, 'China has overrun Japan... I mean, China's economy has overtaken Japan's'.
• Tel Aviv's awesome way of dealing with rain, which seems to consist of turning the city into Venice for a few days. This may have something to do with תעלה 'canal' also meaning 'drainage', but reports are unconfirmed.
• The man announcing Mubarak's departure's little 'May God help us all' at the end of the speech. I appreciated the little apocalyptic touch.
• Learning that the Hebrew word for 'newsagents' literally means 'nuts and seeds'. And 'corner shop' is 'the little place that has everything'.
• Helena Bonham Carter thanking the Royal Family for her career success.
• That there are two streets in Tel Aviv named 'Anonymous Alley' (Simta Almonit and Simta Plonit, Hebrew inexplicably having three different words for 'anonymous' but none for 'accountability'), because an ex-mayor decided in a fit of pique that people shouldn't be able to name streets after themselves. Except for the one named after him, of course.
• Just like the French will take an innocuous English word like 'tag' and make the verb 'taguer', Hebrew has managed to create not only the verb 'letayeg' but also a three-letter root in the process.
• Remembering just now that French has no word for 'shallow'. Except for the word that Loïc invented: 'plire'.
• Finding old books on the library shelves whose pages have yet to be cut open, showing just how much use TAU's library books get.

Relationships, and other assorted sweetmeats

The day-before-yesterday (an ungainly turn of phrase for which many other languages have a single word) was the Other Half and my two-year anniversary. This has been the longest relationship of my life for about 15 months now - a relatively unimpressive fact given my age but moving on... - and the first time I have really found someone I feel I could grow old with without developing homicidal tendencies. Long may it last.

In other news, the Arab world has turned over in its slumber and started to scratch that annoying itch in the small of its back it can never quite reach. Predictably, the Israeli media has made the events in Egypt all about (no prizes for guessing): Israel. Apparently the Muslim Brotherhood will rise to power and immediately send the Egyptian army into Gaza en route to invade Tel Aviv. And there's nothing one can do about it but fret, and show comments from the two lone protesters in Tahrir Square who currently give a shit about Israel over and over again.

I'm in two minds about the whole affair. A bit like the UK, whose official stance appears to be 'Her Majesty's Government isn't quite sure what to make of all this', I obviously want to see all peoples living free of dictatorship. On the other hand, I think most people would be better off free of theocracy too. While the protesters started off extremely secular, I can see Islamist organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood using the unrest and general good feeling of the populace toward them (for a terrible comparison that actually makes far too much sense; it's a bit like if the Salvation Army were also a political party) to pole-vault into government. In any case, it's all very interesting.

Funny name that, the 'Muslim Brotherhood'. In Arabic they're just the 'Muslim Brothers', but in English we prefer the slightly sinister translation 'Brotherhood'. I wonder if that's intentional.

What else has happened lately? The rains have come to Israel, despite the nice government lady on the telly telling us that 'Isra'el adayn mityabeshet', causing a lovely yet probably not lasting rise in the waters of the Sea of Galilee.* I've also been wearing shoes, which is just as rare of an occurrence. I'm doing the final writing up of my thesis, and simultaneously applying to universities (I know, a bit late to that party) so they will let me do a PhD with them, which is quite a stressful experience.

Did I ever mention my laptop died? Around the beginning of January it just gave up the ghost. According to the man at the only repair shop I could find in Tel Aviv, who very nicely didn't charge me for opening it up and pointing to various green boards with metal on them while sucking in air through his teeth, the oojamaflip responsible for displaying things on the screen wasn't put back properly three years ago when it broke after Japan, and ever since then it's been bending and bending until bam! it refuses to display anything, even on a second monitor. The bastard thing. So, due to my ongoing hatred of Windows, and all PC manufacturers' refusal to sell a laptop I actually want without an OS (switched to Ubuntu a while ago and will never go back) - and therefore a discount because I'm not purchasing that stupid Microsoft shit - I have ordered a Macbook Pro and had it delivered to the lovely Michael, who will be bringing it when he comes to wax knowledgeable about the Ghurid empire later this month, the US price being about half the Israel price. In the meantime I have commandeered the Other Half's, in order to continue my work. Good thing I save everything to about twenty different back-up locations.

Talking of work, if by fortunate happenstance you know of a francophone living in Tel Aviv, Wix is translating its entire site into French and doing it alone is quite a lot of work. Good pay, lenient boss (i.e. moi), copious amounts of free tea and alcohol, flexible hours, really nice people (i.e. everyone apart from moi).

*Incidentally, I've just realised that the Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee - the Kinneret - is identical to the word for 'female violinist' - kaneret - when written: כנרת

Customer Support

As you may have gathered from Facebook, I have gone and got meself a job so that I can feed myself while writing this thesis. It's basically just customer support for an internet start-up company, nothing glamorous. But they wanted me for my Frenchness so perhaps I get classiness points for that. If you go here you can see the kind of thing I do, and even catch a glimpse of a terrible photo of me as it cycles through mugshots of my colleagues and I.

Some things what I have learnt from this job (note: this is just my thoughts from one shift):

• People seem to think punctuation is optional. It isn't.
• Telepathy can be learnt. If I get a message saying, "OMG IM SO CONFUSED HELP ME MY DOMAIN IS MADE OF CHEESE AND THAT CHEESE IS MELTING!!!" I know exactly what they mean and how to fix it.
• Common sense is as rare as pork on a restaurant menu in Jerusalem.
• I have a surprising inventiveness for coming up with ways to say "You are a fucking idiot" politely.
• There are people out there who do not know that one does not write in ALLCAPS to another human being.
• Thr r pipl wat rite liek thiss. In French too.
• People from California actually, like, write like and put, like, question marks at the end of, like, every sentence? And not just Californians, but their voice instantly has a Californian accent in my head when I read it.
• 'Stream of consciousness' has become an acceptable style for correspondence without my noticing.
• If I thought I was useless with technology, I had absolutely no idea.
• The best and most creative sites are always porn.
• People cannot follow simple instructions. Or think for themselves.
• Europeans are just as thick as Americans. Canadians are slightly better, except for the Québecois.
• English-speakers are the most likely to be vulgar.
• The language of Voltaire does not lend itself well to technical terms. 'Largeur de bande' for example is so ungainly compared to 'bandwidth'.
• People think that mentioning 'I plan on upgrading to Premium as soon as I get this fixed' will actually make us care about their problem.
• People see a WYSIWYG Flash editor and go absolutely crazy with the effects and animations. The sheer tackiness has been known to make me cringe.
• Stop putting music on your site that blares out at me and scares me witless when I go and try to fix your problem.
• The people whose sites declare the glory of Jesus Christ our saviour who died for your sins please please please send us money are the most likely to a) be aggressive, b) not have a clue, and c) write like a 3-year-old.
• Lots of Israelis yell at us for not supporting Hebrew and then are very surprised when we tell them exactly how to do it. Or that we've heard of Hebrew.
• When customers are clearly bullshitting I go 'mmhm' like a black American lady to myself without realising it.
• All companies should have a monthly all-you-can-drink-and-eat-on-us gathering in a Tel Aviv bar.
• Multiple exclamation marks are no longer the sign of a diseased mind. They are now merely the sign of a disgruntled consumer.
• When you are the only person who speaks a certain language in a company, you are going to get a lot of emails from random people asking for things to be translated.
• Only one in every 20 emails actually merits being sent. The rest are things that people really should be able to deal with themselves.
• The majority of the answers I send to people are copied and pasted from our help pages, why can't they just go and search on their own?
• People don't need to put 'Help me' at the end of their email. That's more or less what I'm paid to do.
• Nor do I care about all your extenuating circumstances. Give me your email address, your URL, and a clear description of your problem. I'm not going to read your sob story anyway.
• People need to stop opening multiple tickets and repeating the same drivel in all of them. One will do. We'll get to you.
• Don't claim to be so destitute that our upgrade prices (£3 a month) are so extortionately expensive that you'll be forced to live on grass if you have a signature that says 'Sent from my Blackberry'.
• Sometimes I think this should be used as an IQ test. If you are too thick to create a Wix site, you will be shot in the face.

I'm actually not as angry or bitter as it sounds! A little disappointed in the stupidity of our species, but otherwise it's all good. To cheer you up, I present to you Pini. Start at 1 פרק and enjoy. I really hope this is not how Sean will be in the UK. Warning: may only be funny to speakers of Hebrew, who understand the idioms.

Thoughts on Zionism

I've previously mentioned in passing on this here blog that I consider myself a Zionist, but I've never really gone into what I mean by that. Recent events in this country have got me thinking a lot about the nature of Zionism, so forgive me as I blogasm (in copious amounts) all over your screen.

Let's start with what I don't believe. Many of those who call themselves Zionists believe in the absolute historicity of the Torah. As an originally secular movement, Zionism didn't identify with the religious law set down in the Talmud, but they considered the stories of the Torah - Abraham leaving Ur, Jacob settling in Canaan, the Hebrews' subsequent enslavement in Egypt, the Exodus, wandering through the Sinai, the conquest of the 'land flowing with milk and honey', Kings Solomon and David building a kingdom that nowadays would have included land belonging to both Israel and Jordan (known to these people as 'Greater Israel'), the splitting into Judah and Israel, Babylonian conquest and enslavement, the story of Esther, reconstruction of the temple, Greek and subsequent Roman conquest, etc. - to be historical fact. They assert that the Jews maintained their identity for two thousand years in exile and now were returning to their land.

I believe quite the opposite; that the Israelites were never one monolithic people that moved from Ur to Canaan to Egypt to the Sinai back to Canaan off to Babylon back to Canaan and then DISPERSAL! Not at all. I believe rather that thousands of years ago a prominent family in Canaan, via military and economic means, created the kingdom of Israel. This kingdom was full of different peoples from all over who for whatever reason came to think of themselves as a single people, with all of their different myths and stories merging into one version that survived as the Torah. The version of the Torah that has survived is almost certainly not the only one.

As an example of what I mean by myths merging into one, let's look at the Exodus. With all that we know about ancient Egypt there is absolutely no evidence supporting the legend of Moses. There is some evidence of a small group of Semitic people being used as labourers in the lower Nile delta within 500 years of the time the Hebrews' enslavement is supposed to have taken place, but that is all. But, that small group integrated into the people living in Canaan and their story became to be believed in by almost everyone. The same thing presumably happened with Babylon, Noah's Ark, etc.

The much-vaunted kingdom of David - a supposed Jewish regional power that inspires the Greater Israel idea is almost certainly a fallacy. In reality the Israelite kingdom probably covered much the same territory as Yehuda and Shomron (Hebrew names for the two areas that make up the West Bank - Yehuda=Judah whence 'Jew' and Shomron is where Samaritans come from) do/does today, which makes it little bigger than the Powys region of Wales. Hardly a regional power, considering the size of Egypt, Babylon and Persia.

After being conquered by the Romans 'Iudea' was their most annoying province, constantly revolting and generally being uppity. So they crushed it, kicked out all the Iudeans, and renamed it after what they considered to be the Jews' worst enemies - the Philistines. The Jews, whose religion had by this time had several thousand years to coagulate, went and lived in other countries, but retaining their religion and therefore their culture. This is the time of the bizarre rise of Christianity and the invention of Islam.

Skipping ahead a bit, Jews in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries underwent the Enlightenment and suddenly thought 'Oh my stars (of David)! We can be secular! Emancipation!' and the idea of self-determination of the Jewish people was born.

I'm not going to bang on too much about the founders of Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel, but basically they reckoned that the Jews suffered the horrendous discrimination they did because they didn't have a nation-state backing them up (see: Nationalism), and so they wanted to found a state of the Jews (note that I do not say 'Jewish state', more on that in my next post). So they started looking around for somewhere to put this state of theirs. Uganda was suggested by the British and seriously considered, but the Zionist Movement decided that they only real Jewish home was in Palestine.

As is known, new immigrants to Palestine generally believed that they were a people without a land moving to a land without a people. Close, but not quite. Palestine was not, at the time, called Palestine. It was part of the Ottoman Empire, divided into various vilayets and sancaks (basically just 'areas'). If anything, it was a bunch of city-states centred around Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus and perhaps Nablus that fell under the authority of Istanbul. The people living in Nablus, Ramallah and Jerusalem weren't 'Palestinian', they were Nablusite, Ramallan or Jerusalemite. And their families had been since the 7th century. Ironically it was Zionism that forced the creation of Palestinianism as a reaction to what many of the people in the region thought of as an invasion.

Where does all this leave me? Well, let's save that for the next post. If I've not been clear on anything I can clarify in the comments.

An Actual Miracle

The title of this blog, for those of you who haven't noticed, is 'Believing in Miracles'. Originally it was a somewhat optimistic take on the regional conflict, but yesterday I realised its true application.

If you have spoken to me or read this blog at any point in the last six months, you will be aware that I have been in the process of applying for a settlement visa in Israel, giving my humble non-Jewish self the unrestricted right to work in this country. This visa, as is common in many countries, is granted on the basis of one's relationship (married or no) with an Israeli citizen. For more excruciating details on what this entails see my rant post on it from earlier this year.

Yesterday was our interview. Or inquisition. Or interrogation. Interestingly, Palestinian Arabic slang would have referred to it as a sin wa jim, or a 'Q&A session', which is how they refer to the little tea parties they have every now and then with the IDF. But I digress. Our interviewer was, to my initial horror, a religious woman. You could tell this, by the way (cultural tip!) from the way her hair was covered - a mitzvah in the Torah specifies that married women should cover their hair. But I digress. Religious people aren't known for their great love of the 'mos with a capital H.

This is the miraculous part. She just did her job! She obeyed the law! I was shocked. I expected her to grill us mercilessly and then invent some non-existent document that she could say was 'missing' from our file to give her an excuse to refuse our application. Far worse things have been done in this country in the name of HaShem (='the name', epithet used for God by religious Jews seeking to avoid breaking the third commandment. See what I did there?), but it seems the gods of my people were smiling on us, and Jehovah's attention was elsewhere, as she approved the visa!

In further miraculous news, not only has our friend and (now) flatmate Judd returned from his journeys in the upside-down half of the earth, but it rained today in the holy land! In October! It's been an amazing few days. Now to get a job (should be done and dusted by Sunday), and start thinking about Sean's UK visa.

Oop Norf

Just spent a few days visiting my sister at uni in Preston. She's just moved into a new house with 6 other people for her final year, and invited me to join them there for a taste of Freshers' week. Having gone gallivanting abroad to study, I never experienced this cultural phenomenon, so it was an enticing opportunity.

The house is a very nice three-storey terrace, with 1.5 kitchens, a lounge, and 3 bathrooms. Her house-mates are all people she knows from previous years, all thoroughly nice people whose only apparent flaw was not keeping up with me in tea consumption.

Living with Nicole necessitates getting used to two things: 1) her nocturnal schedule, and 2) the sheer amount of alcohol she and her friends consume. Highlights of my stay include:

- Being genuinely surprised that the sun actually shines on occasion in Preston.
- Downing the four bottles of wine we got for a tenner with Heather.
- Meeting two fresh-off-the-boat French girls from Metz, forced to struggle indomitably with the impenetrable Northern accent. Their happiness at finding someone who could translate was heartwarming.
- Being begged to stay oop norf by said Frenchies.
- Sitting around pissed until dawn talking with Nicole's house-mate about nothing and everything.
- Laughing with Heather at her unbridled northernness.
- Drinking games at Mark's place.
- Re-arranging Nicole's room to look pretty.
- The cheap booze. And food.

The only negative aspect of the whole trip was the last night, when it was cold and raining outside, yet horrendously hot in the club we were in. Could have done without that, but the shwarma pizza I got afterwards was pretty damn amazing.

In summary, thank you very much to Nicole and everyone at Glenda, I hope you have a great year in your new house!

Flying back to Israel tomorrow, exciting stuff!

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau

...or indeed not. I'm not actually Welsh at all,* but I think Wales is wonderful. Curiously, I often receive sceptical looks when I say that, which (with a similar regularity) merely demonstrates whether or not my interlocutor has ever visited the lovely little country in question.

Welsh people are the cheeriest, most down-to-earth, funniest people I have yet come across in my travels. They have a rich literary heritage, breathtaking mountainous landscapes, stunning historic sites, and their own beautiful language. And dragons.

As I sound not entirely dissimilar to a tourist brochure, here's a quick run-through of Wales' cons: it rains a lot, many people have difficulty pronouncing the place-names (Sean quickly replaced 'Llandudno' with 'chl-you know', and when navigating managed to read 'Llanelli' as 'lllllllll'), apparently they hate the English, it is by no means free of the strange 'yoof' culture that's invaded the UK since I last lived here, and did I mention the rain? I've wanted to drag the other half there for quite some time now, and he finally gave in.

Helpfully enough, what with his having grown up in Israel, cold and rain are apparently desired things on a holiday, so off we went. We flew to London (skilfully bankrupting ourselves in the process), stopped off in Bucks for a day to say hello to friends and family, grabbed my little Peugeot and drove off. We stayed at Ye Olde Ferrie Inne in Symond's Yat for a night on the way down (which despite the superfluous 'e'-filled name was surprisingly comfortable), then the second day drove through the Brecon Beacons to Dolgellau and thence to Eglwysbach, a tiny village where we had rented a cottage.

The cottage itself - Derwenfa, oak-something? - was tiny yet adorable, just right for two people. It even had a hearth, which has always been a little dream for us both. From Eglwysbach we were fairly central for North Wales; visiting the small Victorian town of Llandudno (and even dipping our toes in its night-life, for want of a better word), tramping round innumerable castles, fantasising about buying a house in any one of the little villages, driving through beautiful mountain passes not mentioned on any of our maps (those of you who know me well are aware of my love of getting lost), sheep-spotting, and of course forcing Sean to climb Snowdon.

I've always wanted to climb yr Wyddfa, and this was a great opportunity. I was cursed the entire ascent in a language no-one else understood (except perhaps the Hasidic family we passed in shock at the halfway point where I made a fool of myself pointing and saying 'תסתכל, אמרתי לך שיהיו יהודים בויילס!' loudly), but he shut up at the summit. There's a reason they once put a plaque there upon which it was written: 'Grwydryn, aros ennyd; ystyra ryfeddol waith Duw a'th daith fer ar y ddaear hon' (Wanderer, hold ye a moment; consider God's wondrous work and your short journey on this earth). It truly is awesome, in the original sense of the word.

Sean had never before visited any part of the UK outside of London and its immediate vicinity, but this trip seems to have soothed any worries he may have had about our upping sticks and moving Albion-wards. He was full of wonder for the politeness of strangers, especially the very pleasant rural custom of greeting anyone you happen to meet (which I had clean forgotten about; in Israel you're having a particularly good day if you get a reply to your cheery 'Shalom!' as you enter an establishment, let alone in the street). I feel that I can worry less now about his potential struggle to adapt to life in the UK, and concentrate on worrying about more temporally urgent issues such as my thesis, the work visa, and getting a job. Which is a good thing.

*One Cornish and one Scottish grandmother are the closest I can get, to my profound chagrin.

Anti-semitism?

An interview in which Israeli President Shimon Peres called the British anti-semites hit the news today. I'm not entirely sure what brought this about, but I'd rather he hadn't.

I'm sort of sick of Israelis screaming anti-semitism every time someone criticises them. I love Israel, despite all my complaining, but for fuck's sake you people can be so bloody infantile. No, Mr. Peres, Britain is not 'inherently anti-semitic', and she does not 'pander to Muslims'.

Can you even imagine the uproar if someone had dared to say that politicians somewhere 'pandered to the Jews'?

This bizarre confusion between legitimate criticism of the actions of the State of Israel and real, horrifying anti-semitism is quite frankly just irritating. Would you really prefer the world sycophantically agreed with everything you do and say? Disagreement is healthy, and hopefully will eventually lead to everyone agreeing on some sort of compromise. Do stop crying wolf, Israel, it doesn't distract anyone from the real issues, and just makes you look like a nonce.

Summertide

The yearly period of flux and uncertainty, that so many others name Summer, is almost upon us, in a dazzling cacophony of confusion, and unlike many people I feel little love for this season.

For half a decade now it has heralded vast, earth-shattering, yet utterly lethargic changes in my life. Not a summer has passed since 2005 in which I have not either moved apartments, or indeed country, and this year will be no different. If you would care to cast your minds back a year, you will remember that at one point I inhabited three homes, not including my official residence chez the parents. This year is slightly better, as I have only two apartments to my name. Actually, this year is a lot better, as the leases in no way overlap, but as I'm moving in with a friend I will be able to store my accoutrements in the new place before my month-long dalliance with the UK, and rent out the current place to some stranger from the internet. This is something I have much experience in doing - which reminds me I have yet to write accounts about any of them and their crazy ways - so should theoretically pass with little mishap. For those naysayers and doom-bringers among you, please see above under Lawyer, My.

Those of you who thought that was a link, sorry, but you are a muppet.

I'm looking forward to this forthcoming sojourn back in the Old Country. Anyone in North Wales mid-August is more than welcome to come and join Sean and I at our nice little cottage for tea and biscuits. Then I'm off with the family from 20/08 to 04/09, so I probably won't see anyone in August, but in September with any luck I'll get a chance to meet up with you dirty people who read this rubbish, and hopefully a lot more who don't.

Arnona

I'm in a good mood today, so rejoice, O ye peoples of the world! Why might that be? you ask. Because today I battled Israeli bureaucracy and it wasn't entirely useless and incompetent, hurrah!

Je m'explique (apparently I slip into French when I'm happy, that's interesting). Israel has this tax called arnona, which basically translates as council tax (pour les grenouilles, ça se traduit par taxe d'habitation). It's not much, about £40 a month, but godsdammit I don't care. There's a student rate, but that only applies if you're Israeli. If you are foreign (for once this applies to both Jews and non-Jews!), you need to get a letter from your university saying you are a student there, another one saying you have paid all your fees and the Israeli government isn't giving you money, and another one from the university lawyer with a declaration that you don't work in Israel. Great, except a) it says on the student visa where you're studying, b) as a government office, they have access to information on whether or not you're getting money from the state, and c) it also says on the student visa that you're not permitted to work. Do you really think, if I were working illegally, that I would tell the lawyer that?

Did I mention it takes a long time to get all this shit?

So finally today we got all the documents, went to the Iriya (City Hall), and sat there for an hour Heebing the Brew with the, admittedly nice, girl behind the desk, who had us filling in forms, writing letters, and a whole host of other paraphernalia. In the end, not only did I get her to concede that the whole thing was a load of balls, but she also gave us an 80% discount on the arnona without any fuss, which was lovely.

In other news, Michael is leaving us at the end of the month (pause for a collective moment of utter despair). He's renting out his room for August to a nice Russian fellow named Vladimir (no, really), who speaks English perfectly, studies at St. Andrew's in Scotland, likes tea, and has a boyfriend coming to stay soon. We need to rent my room out for a month too, as I will be back in the UK on the 12th of August! Put it in your diaries. Although I will be buggering off to Llandudno with the Sean for a week upon my arrival, so you'll have to wait, you clawing bastards. As a side note, ask Sean to pronounce Llandudno at some point. Or Llanelli. It's hilarious.

When I get back mid-September, we will be moving in to a lovely flat with our Australian friend Judd in the Florentine area of Tel Aviv (just the name, it has nothing to do with the Italian city), where I shall be writing my thesis, awaiting such a time as the Misrad haPanim should so deign to call me forth and interview me for the privilege of remaining in this... place. People who want to come visit in September/October are more than welcome. The weather isn't ridiculously hot at that time of year, and I will be all yours.


Alright, enough wittering, back to the grindstone. Love you all.

Israeli Logic

So after jumping through multitudinous administrative hoops, including sending perfectly good documents back to the UK in order to receive a fancy piece of paper saying they were ultra-legal rather than just boring old legal, we have finally got a date for our interview.

October. Yes, that's right, 3 months from now. Because the Israeli Interior Ministry are so busy, they can't fit us in for a 15 minute interview for over 60 days. What am I supposed to do for money until then? I hear you ask. Go fuck yourself is their eloquent reply.

All this because I'm not Jewish, and so can't get a work visa. So, they would prefer I get a residency visa that in about 5 years would get me citizenship (and I'm certainly not planning on popping out any little Jewish babies any time soon), rather than just give me a work visa which would let me stay here temporarily. Nice logic there.

If I were still sane, I'd probably be quite annoyed right now. Thankfully two years of Israel have just sharpened my pessimistic cynical nerve, and as I knew something like this would happen, it's not much of a surprise. I'm going to go have a cup of tea now, and watch my flatmates nervously hide all the sharp objects.

Wheeeeeeeee!!!

This is why Germany is so cool:

A Gay Old Time

Today was ye olde pride parade in Tel Aviv, (not) the jewel of the Mediterranean. It was hopelessly hot, causing a surprising number of young men to wear barely anything at all (see picture). Well, I say surprising, but we gays apparently need no excuse to flaunt our perfect, gym-sculpted bodies... Or something. I need to get me one of those, they look fun.

There were more Israeli flags this year, perhaps something to do with people trying to show their pride in their country as well as in themselves and their community. I of course marched along obliviously, martini glass clutched aloft, taking in the... view. I'm sure I got terribly sunburnt at the beach (once we got there, the parade was longer this year), so I will probably be complaining about that for the next few days. Bear with me.

In other news, Sean's becoming-a-lawyer ceremony was yesterday. Yes, yes, we're all very proud. Ooh, that reminds me, I was invited for dinner last weekend with the mother of the Sean, it was lovely, despite her lack of English and my apparently crippling nerves. Anyway, the ceremony thing was possibly one of the only times ever that I will get to see him in a tie (bloody Israelis and their dress-down culture), so here it is preserved for eternity <3

Sorry for all the dreariness!

Dearie me, I have been a grumpy old git the last few posts. Anyone would think I despair for the fate of humanity...

In an effort to be more up-beat, let's catch you up with stuff what I 'ave been up to (stuff up to which I have been?). Errrrrm after spending most of this degree attempting to ignore the fact that I have nine 6,000-ish-word seminar papers to research and write, I went crazy in May and cracked two of them out. Now today I drew up a bibliography and wrote half the first chapter of another. It's quite terrifying what you can do when you realise the end is nigh.

What else? Twas Shavuot, better know to you as the Festival of Cheese about a fortnight ago, for which we visited the Italian deli a few streets over, purchased some lovely Italian cheeses and cured meats to enjoy with some tasty tasty wine, which all together was quite divine.

On the 15th of June I will be trekking off to Misrad HaPanim (that's Interior Ministry to you 'orrible lot, or Office of the Face if you looked it up in the dictionary word for word) with the wonderful boyfriend in order to get a pretty little piece of paper allowing me to work in Israel (note that the UK has the same thing for the gays, isn't the modern world fun?). This will involve interviews, expensive pieces of paper saying I'm not married, a police statement saying I'm not a criminal, letters from friends and family attesting our relationship, photos and mobile phone bills for the same reason, birth certificates, passports, ooh and I have to sign a thing saying I've never committed a crime against the Jewish people, which is actually quite cute. So wish us luck.

Tonight I'm off to La Perla in Florentine, where my friend Andrea works, to enjoy some fine company, decent wine, and the 2 for 1 special you get if you're on her little list. Le'Chaim!

Death by Missile

My flatmate and I just had a strange conversation in which he confessed his fear that the current Israeli hoohah will spark another regional war in which hundreds, if not thousands, of missiles will fall on Tel Aviv, and he expressed a desire to leave the country as soon as possible.

My only reaction was 'Oh, alright then'. I can't explain it, but I just can't bring myself to worry too much about the possibility. I'm not a worrier by nature, that's what my mother is for. But he seemed shocked that I didn't seem to care a great deal about what he is sure is my impending doom if I stay in this country.

Is he overreacting to a bunch of activists letting off steam? Am I putting too much faith in diplomacy, or indeed in the capabilities of the IDF? Should I be more worried? Meh, the kettle just boiled, weeee!

People Are Stupid

Imagine you're the commander of the so-called 'Freedom Flotilla', allegedly taking aid to Gaza. A message comes over the radio. It's an IDF transmission; "Do not attempt to approach Gaza by sea or we will take all measures necessary to stop you. Proceed to the port of Ashdod and the humanitarian aid will be allowed to enter Gaza by land." What do you do?

a) Turn the fuck away from the Israeli Navy missile boats and go to Ashdod, because the most important thing is that the Gazans get the aid, right?

b) Tell your 'peace activist' army to grab a bunch of knives and clubs and prepare to be boarded, shot at, and have your cargo confiscated by an army legitimately defending its sovereignty.

Reasonable people would probably choose option (a). I hope. Crazy fucktards go for (b) and choose to disregard the IDF broadcast as a joke, disregard their purported aim of peace, and attack the navy of one of the most militarily advanced nations on the planet with knives and clubs. Why? I genuinely want to know why.

Did they calculate that by purposefully taking on the IDF they would inevitably suffer casualties and thereby cause a massive public relations disaster for Israel (because firing on armed civilians in boats heading menacingly toward your coastline is illegal, apparently) and simultaneously rob the Gazans of the humanitarian aid they purport to want to bring them?

Did they decide to emulate their heroes, Hamas, by achieving martyrdom in combat against the nefarious Jew?

Did they think that they could break through the heavily-armed blockade, that the soldiers wouldn't do their duty, or that somehow the IDF was bluffing?

I quite literally do not know what utter failure of reasoning caused them to attack the IDF and doom their cargo to confiscation, thereby thwarting their ultimate goal. These activists clearly believe that the collective punishment to which Israel has sentenced the people of Gaza for electing (insert doubts as to the fairness of the elections here) an evil, anti-semitic, crazy religionist, violent organisation to rule them with a iron theocratic fist needs to end. I agree. However, Israel cannot and should not end its restriction on which goods can and cannot enter Gaza until the people of Gaza renounce violence and agree to recognise Israel. And no ragtag flotilla of armed 'peace activists' is going to change that.

Before people misunderstand me, I should probably add on to the end of this that I do not in any way commend the IDF's disproportionate use of force when dealing with the flotilla, resulting in deaths. This should have been dealt with in a way that did not involve killing people, despite the flotilla being armed and dangerous. This is what the IDF is trained to do, and I am very disappointed with the way they handled the problem.

The Free Gaza Flotilla

Now I'm not saying anything against the idea of helping the people living in Gaza, but this video makes a good point:

Palestinians

You know how I always complain (well, perhaps not online) about how the the Palestinian élite do nothing but whine about how mean the Israelis are, and how powerless they are, but how they never actually do anything? Well this man is my new favourite person. Ignore those bloody settlers, ignore the wall, ignore the roadblocks, forget those outrageous claims to sovereignty over all the land between the Meditteranean and the Jordan, forget all that anti-semitic blather, and just build a state. The Israelis can hardly claim you're not ready for statehood if you have an organised police force, education system, economy, infrastructure, etc., if you don't plan to unilaterally claim statehood, and most importantly if you reject all forms of violence. Against that, those crazy religious settlers will look like what they are: crazy religious fundamentalists, and you will get your state! If crazy settlers want to live in 'Judea and Samaria' then they can live in your state. And if Arabs want to live in Jaffa, they can live in the Jewish state, just as Arabs live in the Norwegian state without feeling a need for murder.

Is it any surprise that Hamas and Fatah don't support this guy? They both benefit from the occupation. Without it, Hamas would even be bereft of any raison d'être other than the total annihilation of the Jews, which even the the Liberal Democrats can't support.

Anyone reckon I'm approaching this wrong?

Britishness

This morning I was queuing for the ATM, behind a man in uniform that kept wandering around. Eventually he was standing just behind my right shoulder, looking the other way, when one of the machines became free. I turned around, tapped him on the shoulder, gesticulated to the ATM, and said (in Hebrew), 'You were here before me'. He gave me this look of pure astonishment, that I hadn't simply jumped in front of him, muttered a hesitant 'thanks...', and then gingerly took his money out - all the while giving me funny looks, as if I was up to something.

Someone asked me recently what it means to be British, and at the time I admit I was slightly taken aback, but upon further thought other than the obvious 'being from Britain' answer, there are so many things that define the average Brit, and I think this is one of them. I know it's become passé to say so, but we are a polite people, and we really are very good at queuing.

What other values are quintissentially British? Allow to take a stab at this question, emphasising that I am aware that this is a massive generalisation.

I feel the importance of tea is often overlooked by people. Yes, I know, can you say 'stereotype'? But really, what is the most common phrase you will hear coming out of a British person's mouth during a lull in the conversation? It won't be 'so... how much do you pay in rent?' (as in Israel), but rather 'so... shall I put the kettle on?'. It is one of the few unifying factors in British society - everyone drinks tea; from the labourers working on your extension to the Queen to the chavs hanging about on that bad estate down the road.

What else? Well, obviously we're obsessed with mentioning the weather (although I feel this is connected with the sheer idiosyncracy of British weather). I speak with my family once a week on the phone, and at least 15 minutes of that will be a description of the weather, followed by a brief 'how's the weather there? still sunny? thought so'. This is obviously not uniquely British, but along with the Japanese we are perhaps the only people for whom 'cold today, isn't it?' is an acceptable greeting.

We've mentioned politeness and queuing, but so far haven't brought up that old chestnut: 'fair play'. I wish we still believed in this, but our electoral system clearly shows how much we've let that one fall by the wayside... Fine, so some people still play by the rules, but the majority of people have been taken over by that horrible continental habit of trying to take advantage of everyone else. *le sigh*

Anyway, what do you think is British?

Eurovision

Excuse me for being a massive gay, but I really love Greece's entry this year. The song starts at 1:28ish after lots of 'artistic' posing. Look out for the dancers, for they are FINE.

Also, Israel's entry (version with English transmogrifilation) gets inexplicably stuck in my head.

Polish President dies in horrific plane crash

I don't want to speak ill of the recently-deceased, or to belittle the tragedy, but the way I see it is 'one less homophobic bastard in power, several thousand to go'.

HRH The Queen

Looks like a brilliant party. Sorry for the image quality, phone camera...

Dearie me... [Rant Warning]

1. An Israeli diplomat is expelled from the United Kingdom in response to Israel's alleged forgery of UK passports and their use in international subterfuge by the Mossad.

2. Several members of the Israeli Knesset react by calling the British 'dogs', and claiming that this is pure anti-semitism disguised as anti-Zionism.

3. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu criticised for allowing building in East Jerusalem despite having declared a 'settlement building freeze'.
4. United States President Barack Obama consents to meeting with Mr. Netanyahu to discuss Israel-U.S. relations in an attempt to 'mend fences'. Washington makes it clear that the meetings were unsuccessful, and the two states continue to disagree.

Those are the facts, with the first pair being largely unrelated to the latter pair. Make of them what you will, however the following is my opinion.

Firstly, if any other country had been caught misusing fake British passports for espionage and assassination, I believe the UK would have comported itself exactly as it has vis-à-vis Israel. I fail to understand how the actions of the UK government were even anti-Zionist, let alone anti-semitic, and I believe it to be beyond contempt for a certain section of Israeli society to immediately label any move made by a foreign power that is not resolutely pro-Israel as anti-semitic. It is utterly ridiculous to my mind, reduces the state of Israel to the level of absurdity, and only serves to undermine legitimate concerns over true anti-semitism, such as that espoused by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Also, can you imagine the uproar if Foreign Secretary David Miliband had had the temerity to call Israelis 'dogs'? I cannot stand the hypocritical double standard in this country where it's considered acceptable for Israelis to be horrendously racist and insulting, but the same actions made by gentiles of other nationalities are blatantly anti-semitic and will only lead to death camps and genocide (insert multiple exclamation marks here). It's disgusting.

As for the current row between Israel and the U.S., I fail to understand exactly how construction, which has been in public planning stages for years, in a Jewish neighbourhood of the capital of the state of Israel, has provoked such a furore. I deplore settlement construction as much as the next sane man (if 'god' really wanted you to settle that land he'd have left it empty) but this is not the West Bank, this is barely even East Jerusalem.
What really infuriates me is the fact that the BBC, in every article about this issue, has referred to the construction as 'illegal under international law'. At the risk of sounding horrendously Zionist, no it isn't! Building in Judea and Samaria is (probably) illegal under international law, building in Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem is (slightly less probably) illegal under international law, but not in Jewish neighbourhoods! I put the 'probably' there because this is actually a grey area in international law, and anything to do with Jerusalem is an even greyer shade of grey.
As for Mr. Obama's treatment of the democratically elected leader of an allied state, that man is rapidly losing my respect. If his actions do actually lead to some progress in the peace process, he will be forgiven, but otherwise he's just being a dick.

Sorry about the rant! Happy sunshine rainbows unicorns and fluffy bunnies!

Some people...

...give me homicidal tendencies. I mean that in the nicest way. Especially when they basically say that the Palestinian people don't exist and should be paid to go away. And some of the talkbacks are frankly disgusting, on both sides.

Sometimes I can't help thinking that these stubborn racists deserve each other. Then I remember the normal people who don't waste their time polluting cyberspace with their poisonous rhetoric but just live here.

Soto and Uchi, Israel-style

As most people know, I spent some years studying Japanese language, culture and history, before changing (losing?!) focus somewhat and moving to the Middle East. Conventional wisdom posits that Israelis and Japanese are polar opposites; one is a polite and quiet people with infamously inflexible rules and norms of society, whereas the other is a rude and noisy people who appear to believe that anything goes.

As a general rule, I subscribe whole-heartedly to this viewpoint. I often feel that in Japan I learnt manners, only to come to Israel in order to learn rudeness. (As an aside, the number of times Israelis tell me I need to shout more often is a shockingly high statistic.) However, there is one point I have noticed whereupon both peoples appear to have a similar attitude.

Anyone who has read any scholarly attempt at a study of Japanese culture and society will be familiar with the terms soto (外) and uchi (内), meaning outside and inside respectively. This is a theory describing the Japanese belief that everyone has an inner circle, or circles, consisting of family and friends, and then there is everyone else. This is reflected in their use of language, such as the fact that Japanese is a language conjugated according to politeness rather than person. A more in-depth discussion of this custom can be found here.

Most other societies, I find, lack such a hard distinction. However, I have often noticed that part of what I have hitherto taken to be typical Israeli brutish rudeness could in fact be interpreted as their estimation of me as being soto, an outsider. Not because I am a foreigner, but because they don't know me. Some people who were previously as brusque and impolite as they could possibly be, have instantly transformed into smiling, effusive, even garrulent opposites of their former selves as soon as I have been introduced by an acquaintance of theirs, suddenly placing me in their uchi circle. As soon as you know someone in Israel, doors that had remained resolutely closed magically open and contrive to act as if they were never, in fact, closed at all.

Far from me the idea of suggesting that both peoples are even vaguely similar. The Japanese deal with the outside group with the utmost politeness, whereas the Israelis reserve all their amicability for people they know. I merely wish to raise the issue, what do you think?

Sharav

Well, it appears Winter is over. Israel is currently experiencing chamsin - an Arabic word meaning "fifty", because they apparently have fifty of these days a year. The Hebrew word sharav just means "heat-wave", but let me attempt to put the actual experience into English words:

Hot-wind-hot-sand-in-your-face-oh-so-much-sweat-heat-sand-everywhere-hazy-choking-hotness.

Not currently looking forward to Summer, but it's better than rain, right? >_>

Final Semester

So, with any luck, this will be my final semester at TAU. True to form, I have left pretty much all the work to the end, which means I am basically stuck in one long AAAAAAAAAAARRGH until about July. Again, with any luck. If I don't finish this semester I do have another 3 years, but that involves more money so I can use the library, and I don't want to give myself the feeling that I have more time.

So, my most excellent friend Jimmy came a-visiting during February, which was fabulous. You can read his thoughts on Israel here, where he also maintains a superb blog about his year in Vienna. I learnt more than I ever expected to know about the geology of Israel while he was here (especially during a very long walk around the Sea of Galilee in flip-flops that my feet have only just recovered from), which was educational. It's nice to not be focused on all the historical paraphernalia of a place for once. Instead of thinking "Hmm yes crusader armies, horns of Hittin, Jewish revival of Tiberias, some bloke walking on water, Kabbalah, Salah al-Din, Mamluks, Ottomans, blah dee blah..." the conversation went more "Ooh look pretty rocks, on top of different rocks because of something, the same as the rocks up there but they're down here because of something else, volcano-y something in Syria San Andreas fault Red Sea shnebbity rocks twisting like this (hand movement)..." Except less stream-of-consciousness-y, and more, you know, English and geological. I can't pretend I understood it all, but it was phenomenally interesting.

I don't have much else to report. Sean and I are applying for a dependency visa for me to stay and work in Israel for a little while after I finish uni. It's a complicated process and I'll write more about that when it's over. I should also post about my wonderful boyfriend, who is currently studying like a crazy person for the bar exam. I would complain about never seeing him at the moment but he's so bloody cute when he's stressed that more than makes up for it.

Anyhow, toodle-oo, drop by and say hi here if you want sometime, that would be nice.

Happy Thursday, and other arbitrary times of well-wishing.

The winter 'holiday' period is over, thankfully, which means we can finally all get back to the relentless daily tedium of our unimportant monotonous little lives ... I mean, yes, Happy New Year. My family were over in Israel over Christmas, so we had quite a cosy little celebration amidst their whirlwind tour of the land-that-some-call-holy.

I simultaneously adore and loath having guests. I suppose most people are the same. As much as I want them to experience the place I live in, and hope to demonstrate to them just why I love it so much that I currently refuse to return to that bedgraggled, rain-soaked isle that in my more romantic moments I call home, there remains that constant nagging fear that I'm just not doing it right.

Do they like the food? Is the weather ok? Are they bored? Can they smell that dreadfully foul stink that just wafted malodourously past me? What do they think of the place? Should I take them somewhere else? Quick, think of something interesting to say about that thing over there!
The kaleidoscope of multitudinous frustratingly inane questions swirls through my head as if Gollum has taken up residence in my cranium and decided to tap-dance.

Please don't misunderstand me; I very much enjoyed having them here, but I would be lying were I to say that it was not without a sense of relief that I dropped them off at the airport for the flight home.

I hope everyone's various solstice and New Year celebrations went as expected. I am led to believe that while we were basking in sunshine the U.K. was enjoying a gorgeous white Christmas (which it apparently is still enjoying now), and I hope that was as special as it sounds. The most important part of the holidays for me was the new experience of having my family in the same place as my wonderful boyfriend for an extended period of time, and just watching them together I couldn't help entertaining the sort of hopelessly romantic daydreams about an impossibly blissful future that I normally dispell with ease.

Anyway, I am now the thrilled owner of lots of Christmas cake, the gods bless my mother, so I shall now go and have myself a piece while savouring a lovely cup of tea. In shorts and a t-shirt. In Winter.

Just had to rub it in. Happy 2010, and may this year be your year.

Kettle Pasta, Blue People and Explosions

Due to the general silliness in the way the gas works in the building I live in, we are currently bereft of gas with which to cook.

So I boiled pasta in the kettle. Badass.

One an entirely unrelated note, last night I went with my flatmate and the other half to see Avatar. I wanted to see this film for the simple reason that it included floating mountains, blue people and explosions. I was not disappointed. Flipping brilliant film, go see it if you haven't yet experienced its gorgeousness.

Yes, I am a tree-hugging hippy, and I'm proud of it. Yes, the film was full of obvious Gaia references, and not-so-subtle hints that, obviously, humans are a bunch of violent bastards that aren't satisfied with destroying their own planet, they want to destroy others too. But come on! Fucking. Blue. People! Flying! Amazing. More films need blue people in them. Plus, their language sounded cool. Can we get someone to flesh it out a bit and then institute it as the official international language? That would be fantastic.

Fantastic Music

My friend works in a bar called La Perla, in Florentine, which is an area of Tel Aviv. Last night was the bar's 4th birthday, so we went down to celebrate. There was belly dancing on the bar, strange games to be played, and buy-one-get-one-free beer. Among all this revelry, I was mildly surprised and tremendously overjoyed when the theme tune to Nellie the Elephant came on. Nellie the Elephant! At a bar! Amazing. The Israelis still belly-danced to it, which was also quite impressive.

Just thought you might like to know.

University

Since coming to Tel Aviv I've been enjoying the classes, but the seminars weren't quite the forums for discussion or thought-provoking sessions I had expected them to be. They were generally interesting, often given by world-famous historians in their respective fields, but my overall impression was that so long as I wrote a decent final paper, it wouldn't matter what I said or did in the class.

This was until this semester, when I took a seminar on Tribalism and Tribal Politics in the Middle East. The professor is young, engaging, and really wants us to think. After years of university, and indeed school, classes in which I have simply had to regurgitate whatever the professor said, regardless of what I thought about it (to be fair, most of my classes have been language learning, but still), it is so refreshing to finally have a lecturer who wants me to actually use any analytical skills I might have, and argue with him. This is why I went to uni in the first place; I like to think, and I quite enjoy arguing.

What stopped me from arguing before? To be quite honest, I'm not sure. I don't like being wrong, and I like being wrong in front of a bunch of other people even less. Most teachers don't really encourage you to challenge what they are saying (probably for exactly the same reasons!) and will often shoot you down in flames, which thankfully this one does not.

Anyway, thank you, Professor Alon, for at least trying to make me think.

Thoughts from the Bus

Yesterday on the way back from uni I was seated at the back of the bus, totally ignoring the world around me. I was vaguely aware that I was surrounded by other students but in all honesty they could have been yellow parrots in top hats for all I noticed.

I gradually became conscious that the students in my immediate vicinity weren't speaking Hebrew, English or Russian (the three most common languages to hear on the bus) but Arabic. I started to pay attention, as the discussion sounded heated and I wanted to be sure I got out of there before trouble started.

I immediately felt deeply ashamed at my own blatant racism, as it swiftly became clear that they were arguing over something to do with physics. Yes, physics. I was briefly worried about physical violence from a bunch of physics students just because of the language they were speaking. How and when did I start subscribing to the stupid Israeli worldview?

Arabs have never done anything to harm me. Quite the contrary. There are always Arab kids on the bus in the mornings, on their way to school. One day it was raining and I was standing next to this one little kid who was discussing swine flu in Arabic (my Arabic is awful, but I understand things that have been in the news) with his friend, but took a moment out to warn me that the wall of the bus was dripping on me. From that point on I have had a soft spot for the little Arab kids.

Often, I see the middle-aged Jewish Israelis getting nervous when they hear these little kids speaking Arabic. Sometimes they even shout at them to shut the fuck up, as the only answer Israelis have to many things is to shout at them. When I see this happening, I shake my head at their ignorance and racism towards a section of Israeli society. It's like people being scared of people speaking Irish Gaelic on the bus in the UK. Ridiculous. And now apparently I'm doing it too. Sickening.

I wonder what it's like to grow up as an Israeli Arab, even in Tel Aviv, the 'most liberal city in the Middle East'. Surely it can't be worth the casual racism on the bus, the looks in the street, the lower job prospects, etc.?

Remembrance Day

This Wednesday at 11 o'clock GMT I quietly excused myself from our Arabic class and went and stood outside the classroom for a few minutes.

No siren blew like it did on Israel's Remembrance Day, no cars stopped in the streets, and no-one noticed the solitary Englishman standing in the corridor, silently remembering.

I thought I'd just share with you my favourite war poem today, which is called 'In Flanders Fields', by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. You can listen to it being sung here. Enjoy.

Philosemitism

I am a self-confessed Zionist; I believe that the Jews as a people have the right to self-determination.

I am a pragmatist; I believe that given the current state of affairs, the state of the Jews may as well be geographically situated where it already is: Israel.

This is normally where I should start talking about the Palestinians, however they are not directly relevant to what I want to talk about today.

As stated above, I believe in a Jewish state for the Jews, just as I believe in a Danish state for the Danes, an Australian state for the Australians, and a Polish state for the Poles. What I do not believe in is discrimination based on religion or ethnicity.

The current situation in Israel is that if one is Jewish, regardless of whether or not one is a citizen of the state of Israel, one can apply for a work permit cheaply and easily, and receive it in a week.

If, chas veshalom, you are a (dare I say it?) Goy, and are not applying for a job in either a) construction or b) old people care work, this process will take over 6 months, cost hundreds of pounds (not including lawyers' fees), and you have to be applying for an 'expert' position in a full-time capacity.

I am not Jewish.

I found a company that would employ me, in a position that required mastery of several different languages. Nevertheless the state of Israel placed so many obstacles in their way that they were (quite understandably) forced to decide that the cost of hiring me was not worth the benefits having me in the company would provide.

The British government clearly states that holders of a UK student visa are permitted to work 20 hours a week during term-time and full-time during holidays. No preferential treatment is given to Christians, or indeed members of the Church of England. I specifically emailed them to ask.

There are those who will point to my first sentence and say that for Israel to be a Jewish state it has to be careful of whom it allows access. They can't just let any old riffraff in, or Israel would lose its Jewishness. I accept this argument, purely because I am not talking about immigration. I am talking about working, temporarily, and then going home afterwards.

How many other first-world, developed countries have different standards for non-nationals, based on their ethnicity or religion?

The Israeli government is no stranger to being charged with hypocrisy, however henceforth I shall greet its astonished cries of "Anti-semitism!" at any and every comment or perceived injustice against it with my eyebrows raised in cynicism.

I apologise for any impotent rage and frustration that may have found their way from my head into this blogpost.

Oscar

This post is named after my plant, who asked to be recognised in some way. I would also like to thank Roger for cooling down my PC, who otherwise is prone to swooning in a Blue Screen of Death-inspired fit, and Theodore for preventing me from sweating all over the sofa.

Next time I name an inanimate object perhaps I'll put it up here in the form of a poll.

I don't know how many people bother to read the rants which I scrawl all over my little corner of the internet, but thank you. I know at least two people read it, which I suppose is worth the little typing black-outs I have every now and then to pollute the cyberverse.

I hope you enjoy it. I promise I won't always be quite as angry as I was when I wrote the last post. Next Monday I head Englandwards, I shall of course recount my wonderful adventures in line for security at Ben Gurion airport to you.

Flibble

A lot has been said recently about the attack on the gay community centre in Nachmani Street and the murder of a teenage girl and a young counselor. The attack, defined as a hate crime even by the President of Israel Shimon Peres, may indeed have been ideologically-motivated. The killer may have been inspired by hate-filled vitriol spouted by religious leaders, however I would like to stress one thing: we have no proof.

Is there a direct correlation between the religious condemnation of gays and murder? Is there a direct correlation between the rising incidence of hurricanes over the past centuries and the decreasing number of pirates in the world? Not until it has been proven.

The attack was shocking, harrowing, and angered many people. It also scared us. For years Tel Aviv has been a bubble, sheltered from the rest of the world. We thought we were safe.

We are not.

Let us address the issue of incitement. The leaders of the gay community and the Israeli government have tried to reassure us of our safety, but they know, as we do, that unlike the rest of the world, certain sections of Israeli society are become more, not less, tolerant, especially of LGBT people. Would this incident have taken place without members of a particular community quoting verses of the Bible which call for our deaths?

These are the same people who assault the police over car parks opening on Saturdays, who rally to support mentally unstable women who starve their children, who do not work, who do not serve in the army to protect the State of Israel. Some of them don't even believe Israel should exist.

What use are they? They produce little Jewish babies, great but so what? They educate them in hatred and their primitive superstitions. The gay community, on the other hand, serve in the army, work to make money to support themselves, devote time to helping those less fortunate they are (with no regard to their race, sex, age, religion, and sexual orientation), and basically contribute to society.

Which group is more useless? If you were in a hot air balloon, which one would you get rid of?

I say to the religious: we are not like you. We don't hate, we don't incite, we don't attempt to dictate how you live. We don't care what you do in your lives.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people are different, but we are not abnormal.

Pride

I know I said I'd write about this ages ago, but you know how life has that habit of getting in the way of things? Voilà.

The Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade was fun. Started off as a kind of festival in this park in central Tel Aviv, then we all wandered off into the streets in a wonderful kaleidoscope of colour before ending up at some kind of beach party thing. It wasn't life-changing, but it was nice. Some of my friends turned up for various parts, and my boyfriend was also there for most of it.

It was extremely warm, and there were lots of men with their shirts off. I mention those two together, but knowing this was a gathering of gay people there's no reason to suspect there was any correlation between the two.

The dancers on the floats were also quite yummy. Not that the young soldiers in the crowd weren't. This flag caught my eye for being quite nice >>>

In other news, I'm in an intensive Arabic course for a month, which is going well. Summer here is amazing, you people should come and enjoy it with me!

Iranians, YouTube, and other musings

That title sounds a little post-modern and avant-gardist, doesn't it? The post itself is probably neither of those things. Meh.

So tomorrow Iranians go to the polls to decide whether they want to keep the slightly unhinged Ahmadinejad in power, or if they want to go for someone a smidgeon less radical. One good thing about President Crazy is he has made all the other crazies look less... crazy -_-'

Interesting thing about Iran, as one of my professors has said countless times (bless him, I think he's a little absent-minded), is that unlike the other stable Middle Eastern states that even bother to hold elections, no-one knows who is going to win in tomorrow's election. If it were Syria, apparently, he could tell you a week before the election who is going to win, and even the guess the margin of victory (whether it's 99.4% or 99.7% - cue muffled sniggers and surreptitious looks at your neighbours to see if they've noticed that he told that one again). In fact, the winner of the last two elections has been a total surprise, even to the Iranian political elite, which would be an impressive feat for Egypt.

In other news, Don Pedro Ramón Valázquez de Santiago de la Compostela (otherwise known as Twinkle) introduced me to this fellow the other day via the medium of tea (and facebook). His channel is quite amusing, so check him out.

Tomorrow is the Tel Aviv Gay Pride, which should be a lot of fun. I'll be pretending to be Japanese and taking lots of photos.

I just noticed that the Pride parade is on the same day as the Iranian elections. How... Iranic. (Ok, you can shoot me now.)

Lastly, two interesting statements to (hopefully) make you think:
Iran will fight Israel until the last Palestinian.
AIPAC will fight the Arabs until the last Israeli.

It appears that I lied. I found out two minutes ago while writing this that someone I love dearly is very ill with what may turn out to be a terminal illness. Please join me in praying for their recovery.

Festival of Cheese

I know, I know, it sounds like something from the Royal Republic of Shmoo right? But I kid you not. The other day was the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which is supposed to be the day God gave Moses the 10 commandments, but somehow it has become a festival of all things dairy, including cheese! If you don't believe me, believe wikipedia.

It was also the birthday of one of the girls on my course, the English one, so much silly dancing and other such fun was had by all. Much cheese was also consumed =)

I know I haven't been updating much; schoolwork and my attempts at a social life have been taking up most of my time.

The Japanese Ambassador to Israel came to uni the other day to talk about Japan's 'rise from the ashes', from 1950 to the present day. It was fairly interesting, and he was really un-Japanese - relatively unawkward and quite forthright - which made it all the more novel.

Yesterday was spent on the beach with Charlie (see the post about C.U.N.T. for more info on her, she's lovely), as it was her birthday too (craziness!), her awesome boyfriend Steve, the incomparable Dawoud, and Marisa, who is the sister of my ex-flatmate here to visit for a while. It was really nice lying there chatting, then Steve broke out the guitar and some random Israelis joined us with bongo drums and shakers while we sang. It was a lot of fun, very bohemian, and lots of people with children stopped to watch, which was amusing.

In the evening Marisa, my boyfriend Sean and I joined Andrea (possibly the person on the course I get along with best) and her sister at a delightful restaurant in Neve Tzedek, the pretty part of Tel Aviv, after which we went and hung at the Hoodna for a little while.

Holocaust Memorial Day

I was on my way to the Hebrew office today to do an exam for which I had been absent, when the wailing tones of a siren cut through the warm morning air.

People froze in their tracks at the sound of the siren, cars stopped in the roads, yet this was no air-raid. Those in vehicles exited them and joined us pedestrians in standing to attention for one full minute, in remembrance of those killed in the Holocaust.

After 60 seconds, the siren's peals died away, and people went about their business.

The dignity of this people impresses me.

IT according to the Beeb

All my life I had gone with only the vaguest knowledge as to what these mysterious 'internet cookie' things are. Thankfully the BBC has come to my aid in a recent article, with a tremendous explanation:

"a cookie - a small piece of text that lives inside a web browser"

Upon reading that sentence, does anyone else imagine a feral snippet of Shakespeare inhabiting a little room in cyberworld (most probably somewhere on the blogosphere, below the swirling tag clouds), cooking an omelette?

Spot's First Purim

Let's see how many of you get that reference.

So I've never experienced Purim before. For those of you who don't know what it is, Wikipedia is your friend. It's actually tomorrow, but as I've probably explained before, Jewish holidays actually start at sunset the evening before the actual holiday. Odd, I know.

Anyway, there's a saying that all Jewish holidays have the same theme: "Someone tried to kill us, they didn't, let's eat!" which is an excellent basis for a culture, but on Purim there is an extra layer of amusement added. For the children (that's a lie) it's a lot of fun because they get to dress up and be silly (a little like Halloween) and for the adults it's a lot of fun because there is a religious decree that they should get drunk. Conversions to Judaism, over here please. No shoving.

No but seriously, they have to get drunk enough to not be able to tell the difference between arur Haman (ארור המן "Cursed is Haman") and baruch Mordechai (ברוך מרדכי "Blessed is Mordecai"). I don't know about you, but the two sound very different to me, I think we may be regretting this tomorrow...

Ah well, I'll let you know how it goes!

Phew

It's been an interesting fortnight, I can tell you that. Vienna was beautiful, and snowboarding in Schladming (see above, also in Austria) was fantastic. It snowed every day, and we had a splendid time. The last day I lost all reason and traded my board in for a pair of blades. Bearing in mind that I haven't skied since I was about 14, and these things are quite crazy, I think I did quite well getting the hang of them. I would put up a photo of myself on them, but somehow no-one quite managed to get a snap of my frozen rictus of terror as I sped past them on skis barely longer than my boots.

Eek.

So after a lovely holiday, on the way to the airport the next day guess what happened? We stupidly consented and went the way Mum wanted to go, because apparently the "motorway is faster". Mistake. There was an accident, we queued for about an hour, and missed our plane. There wasn't another one for three days.

Argh.

It was thus that we ended up getting a coach to Bratislava where?, which for those of you who don't know ooh! ooh! pick me! is the capital of Slovakia. ohhhhhhhh! We spent the night in the Old Town, which seems to be the only decent part of the city and then managed to fly home the next day. I missed my flight to Tel Aviv by about two hours, and ended up having to book another one for two days later, which explains why I've only just got back.

I got a nice surprise at the airport though, as coincidentally Maja was on the same flight home yes I said home as me. It was lovely to see her again after about a month, as she's been back in Denmark for the holidays.

I was also pleasantly surprised later that evening by a special unexpected visitor, who conducted a brief but entertaining visit.

Up and Away

Flying home today, will be in the UK for about 24 hours before flying to Austria with the family (minus Nicole, who doesn't have holidays) for a week of snowboarding in the Alps.

The recent elections here really did go out with a whimper. There was very little campaigning that I could see, other than the various posters with their generic slogans. The only one that really stuck in my head was the Shas (one of the biggest religious parties) one that said:


Which means "Yes. We can!" (ken. anakhnu yakholim!) and is the most blatant rip-off of Obama ever. Made me giggle to myself as it went past on a bus while I was waiting at a zebra crossing.

However, in the actual elections, what did we get? The party that got the most seats in the Knesset, Kadima (led by Tzipi Livni), is too centrist and will never get enough seats in a coalition to form a majority government, as almost all the other parties that won seats in the election are much further right on the political spectrum and will prefer to be part of a Likud-led government. So will Shimon Peres (the President) choose Livni or Netanyahu to be Prime Minister?

It looks like we're in for another Bibi era, which wasn't too great last time, so I'm not expecting much this time either.

Anyway, enough ranting from me, need to pack!

The Casbah

A Kasbah, according to wikipedia, is an Islamic citadel, or walled keep; a sanctuary or haven separate and protected from the crazy world around.

It's also the name of the café I will be working in from tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock sharp! We had training today, and I had to learn how to work a coffee machine (aaargh nooo! heresy!!). The other people who work there all seem nice, and luckily I already sort of  vaguely know the owners and the head chef. One of the waitresses is also Andrea, who is wonderful. We also serve English Tea, so I may yet be saved from the darkest pits of Hell. Hurrah.

And the cake is bloody marvellous.

So anyone who's in Tel Aviv and feels like coming down to Casbah, Florentine 3 tomorrow, go for it! It's been done up really nicely, and tomorrow is the official opening, so I will be working the first official shift (eeek!).

Ooh and in other news, I bought a bike today! It's red! I feel like a little kid XD My legs ache though...

Oh and for all you Misbourne peeps out there, know that their version of Sea Scouts are so much cooler than ours.

Spring Break

Yup, that's how you know the majority of people on your course are American; you start giving holidays silly names.

Not to say that I mind having a month off between semesters 1 and 2, I just can't think of a better name for this 'February Holiday', which is a little frustrating. Back home it's hardly spring (snoooooooow!) but here if I were to go out into the sun at the moment I would soon be sweating, hence what they're calling it.

Unfortunately it's not all lazing around in the sun, as not only do I have to write papers for my seminars, but I have also managed to land a job at a café and I've been seeing a certain special someone for about a week now. All of which put together conspire to rob me of any spare time I thought I'd have. Especially as I've forgotten how to write papers...

On that subject, could someone please go back in time to the Renaissance and teach the French to spell? The English too, for that matter. This whole long f instead of s thing has a terrible habit of getting on my tits. And tell them all to stop using Latin. Thank you.

Road Trip 6: The Negev and the Red Sea

I promise this is the last road trip entry, and then I will try to get back to regular updates ok?


So from the Dead Sea we drove south to Mitzpe Ramon, which is in the middle of the Negev Desert. Mitzpe is Hebrew for 'look-out', and it's a good name for a little settlement hanging off the edge of a huge crater called Makhtesh Ramon, the biggest crater in the Middle East (or so I'm told...) It's VERY pretty, and we stayed overnight in a Bedouin camp in the crater so that we could spend the next day hiking before moving on to Eilat. The hikes were excellent, if a little warm, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being in the desert, although we did spend an inordinate amount of time deciding upon which mountainous outcrop we would build our capital city if we were Saracen warlords...


We then made our way to Eilat, that little town on the Red Sea at the southernmost tip of Israel, about which I have previously written briefly in this blog. While on the beach enjoying the sun, we randomly started talking to a slightly odd young lady from the U.S. who decided to adopt us as her family away from home for the remainder of her time in Israel. I say us, luckily she was intelligent enough to realise that Jonas was the only one of us susceptible to her devious wiles, and turned the full force of her charm on him for the rest of the night, while I merely sat back and giggled helplessly. The evening ended with me pretty much having to carry Jonas back to the hostel, a journey which had taken us 5 minutes one way, and took us 2 hours the other...

The next day we finally drove home to Tel Aviv, accompanied by the aforementioned young madam, who shockingly enough hadn't managed to pay for a single journey she had yet to make in the country. The sheer surprise of this realisation silenced me for at least two hours.


We felt a certain amount of sadness brought on by the end of our trip when we arrived back in 'our' city, mixed with the sense of elation one feels when returning home and from afar one happens to glimpse the Azrieli Towers on the horizon. A magical feeling indeed.

Road Trip 5: Masada and the Dead Sea

My tardiness in finishing this trip really is execrable. My humblest apologies, and I hope you'll bear with me.

After Jerusalem we drove south-east towards the Dead Sea, but stopped just before we got there to camp just off the road next to this little place known as Masada. If you haven't heard of it, Wikipedia is a better teacher than I, but I can tell you that is was the site of the last stand of the Jewish people against the Romans a few hundred years after the beginning of an arbitrary dating system based on the year some bloke called Jesus was born. Designed by King Herod (yes, the very same one you hear about every year at primary school when the teachers try and drum the nativity into your little brains), it was an impregnable fortress and royal winter palace perched on the top of a huge mesa in the middle of the desert. I say impregnable, what I mean of course is almost impregnable, if your besiegers aren't the Romans, who have the slavepower to build a ma-hu-ssive ramp all the way up to the top of the mountain and poke you in the eye with a big stick.

Seeing their imminent demise, the besieged set about killing each other to avoid capture, drawing lots to decide who would be the last person, who would have to kill himself (suicide is a sin in Judaism, so they couldn't all just kill themselves could they? I suppose they hoped that whoever it was would be forgiven for slaughtering thousands of other people plus himself if it was in a good cause?).

Anyway, history aside, at the crack of dawn we roused ourselves and set off up the 'Snake Trail', which is the only way up by foot. Reaching the top, we sat for an hour watching the sun rise, then set about exploring the ruins. Wikipedia might have already told you this, but Masada had an ingenius system of water collection, which was really interesting to examine, not to mention the breath-taking view from the top.


We then wandered back down and drove to Ein Gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea, booked into the hostel and sauntered beachwards to laze in its stupidly salty waters. Seriously, Jonas had a cut on his foot, and it stung for days. I got some on my lips and felt like I'd accidentally eaten Nicole's plate of chips. Eurk.


After covering ourselves in (apparently) very healthy Dead Sea mud, we ended up chatting to the (very gay) guy manning the beach kiosk, and 1000 ice-creams later we ended up getting invited back to his kibbutz at Ein Gedi for an evening of drinks and fabulous vistas to celebrate my birthday. It was a lovely atmosphere, and his bubbly personality more than made up for the splendiferous amounts of weed he induced Jonas to smoke as we watched desert antelope wander past up a ravine and chatted. A very relaxed birthday.

Road Trip 4: Jerusalem

After our escapades at the Kinneret, we drove southwards to Jerusalem. Interestingly, the West Bank wasn't marked on the map. Even more interestingly, we had to drive through it to get to Jerusalem, or else go on a 3-hour detour... Bugger.

Surprisingly enough, it's actually quite a nice place. Don't believe all the shiznik you hear about the Palestinians not having jobs and all that; there were loads of farms and cafés and stuff, and the people looked just like they do everywhere else in Israel.

Don't get me wrong, I know Gaza is hell on earth, but the picture the international media paints of the West Bank, or "the world beyond the Wall", is just a leeetle bit off.

Anyway, Jerusalem. We found a lovely hostel in the Old City that was also ridiculously cheap, wandered round taking pictures of anything Jonas found interesting (he's a bit like Bill Bailey on LSD sometimes). We explored the German Colony (which he found very un-German), got lost in the Old City obviously, went drinking in the New City (and had my first nargilé, which was actually a lot nicer than I'd expected), and also went to explore Mea Shearim; the ultra-orthodox neighbourhood, which was a little freaky, to be blunt. Mea Shearim is the abode of the crazies, as I like to call them; the people who still dress for Poland in the winter of 1701, who believe that everything in the Torah is literally the Divine Word of God, and who think that the State of Israel shouldn't have been founded until the coming of the Messiah.

...yeees...

Whatever, so on Simchat Torah (the day the Jews believe they received the Torah at Mt. Sinai), which was while we were in Jerusalem, we were looking for a synagogue in which to experience this holiday (yes, we're tourists, so shoot us). We asked everyone in the Old City how to get to a synagogue, and no-one knew exactly where one was, until eventually some old man directed us to what turned out to be the Aish haTorah meeting house. For those who don't know about Aish, let's just say they want every Jew in the world to be orthodox.

So, they were overjoyed to see two (apparently) stray sheep who had stumbled back to the fold. They were pretty much all American, and a lot of them were about our age. We fumbled our way through all the praying (I can do the weird bowing thing now) for about an hour, and then after some wine and cake (which almost had me converting on the spot), we got to the (unexpected) high point of Simchat Torah: dancing. Around the Torah. While the women watch from above and heckle. It was... an experience. I would show you pictures but we decided that would be insensitive.

Did I mention this dancing goes on for hours? We didn't stay too long...