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Israel Journal - Part II
by Simon
5/29/2007
Part II. Jerusalem.
On the way in to Jerusalem we had a discussion in the car about karaite judaism and the validity of rabbinic law, as well as whether the jewish tradition of discouraging converts is a good one. Perhaps I'll blog it.
Today I yet again went off on my own while my sister and mother
attended a wedding. I went to emek raphaim, which evidently is kind
of the new ben yehuda street, for the few of you who understand what
that means. Anyway, i finally got a taste of authentic israeli
shawarma. The stuff in the israeli places in the states just isn't
the same.
I got a little homesick so I found the rough israeli equivalent of a
starbucks, "Aroma," and did some math problems. After this queer
relaxation I started back and on the way found a book store, where i
picked up a book by an israeli-arab author, recommended to me by one
of the workers there. Then I went to a park with a nice big
observation deck right across from one of the sides of the old city.
While waiting for the sun to set, a group of muslim women and their
children came by, and the kids started talking to me in arabic. They
were maybe 7 years old or so. The mothers were ignoring me, and
within a few minutes there was some space between me and the group.
But I kept an occassional eye on the kids because I saw them playing
on the railing of the observation deck, and before i knew it i turned
around and saw one of them basically standing on a ledge, having
crossed the railing. I motioned to one of the mothers, who quickly
retrieved the kid, and sure enough right afterwards I heard the mother
mutter something to her friends in arabic with the word "yihood"(jew)
mentioned several times, laughing all the while. After that they
warmed to me. They had me take their kids' pictures. We exchanged
vocabulary from our respective languages with very rudimentary words
and advanced gesticulations.
They left, and then another arab family came in, a mother and her
children, one around 15-17 and the others much younger. There was
collectively less english among them than within the other group, and
it by and large was contained within the mother, who seemed pretty
suspicious of me. But her kids were having fun, watching me
photograph a bit of jerusalem and exchanging vocabulary with me
through the mother's sometimes available translations and, more often,
many gesticulations. Towards the end of our conversation i was told
that the teenage girl's "wedding" is the same as my brother's name,
yakub, which in hebrew would be yaacov. Of course they were talking
about her betrothed. They said she would probably be married in about
a year. The manner in which he was mentioned gave me the impression
that she didn't really know the guy. She seemed generally happy
though. She conveyed that she likes alot of american music, including
shakira. I'll call shakira american, since she's western. Just go
with it. Anyway, I was impressed that her mother permitted that kind
of racy music in the house. By the way, I think I managed to get the
mother to warm to me despite not at all hiding my identity. I think
the deal-sealer was when i told her that i wasn't sure if they were
sisters or mother and daughter.
Anyway, they at some point said that the father/husband was coming to
get them. I supposed, probably correctly, that this meant that I
should skedaddle. I did. A few minutes later I was taking pictures
of the city on a bridge that they happened to be crossing. The little
kids called out "dahud! dahud!" The patriarch didn't seem too happy.
Up next: Sleep.
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