What a Country

So we have but one week left in Israel. Which means Katie and I had to pare down what we had left to do and create a Bucket-List-schedule which uses every minute of our remaining time. On tap for the week is Yad Vashem--the Holocaust museum, one more trip to the Old City, the Mount of Olives, the Dead Sea, and Tel-Aviv. That's right folks. We're finally going to leave Jerusalem.

This weekend's Shabbat was fairly quiet. Katie and I made fried rice (with curry powder, our only spice, and one we have grown quite fond of. It is amazing how many things you can put curry powder on.) and watched a movie. Before that, we went to the opening day showing of Dark Knight Rises with a good chunk of our class. Aleph 1 seems to appreciate their Chris Nolan films.

That thursday, we didn't really feel like clubbing, so we went shopping from 4 to 8pm, joined two of our classmates, bought many souvenirs (highlight: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Hebrew. You shall be conquered.), ate delicious cheap falafel, and haggled haggled haggled. I will not miss the haggling. At all. I'm really awful at it, and I admit I had to have Katie do it for me once. She's a professional, after all.

Ramadan began last week, so there have been fireworks and banging all night, every night. Once again, I speak without hyperbole. By 1 am, you start to wonder who's even watching the fireworks.

But one of the things that's struck me most about my time in Jerusalem is some of the subtler differences to America. Yes, of course, being in a different country always poses it's challenges. But living in America, and furthermore going to a liberal women's college in that country, has made it easy to forget that there are still places where the standard of behavior is treated women unequally. I am not speaking of religious garb or practices--the rules of Orthodoxy may seem antiquated or sexist to an outside eye, but speaking to people has taught me a lot about why the follow the practices in the first place. No, I'm actually speaking about me and the other students.

Mt. Scopus campus of the Hebrew University is just above Jerusalem, technically in the heart of an Arab village. In fact, most of our views include the large steel wall separating Palestine. And in Jerusalem, codes of dress vary depending on where you are. Going into the Old City or a Jewish neighborhood, I would cover my knees and elbows. Around campus, everyone dresses like your average American college student, so I wear shorts in the 98 degree weather freely. And every time, particularly in the evenings, I or Katie, or even other students we see walking in front of us, have left my dorm with my elbows uncovered, I am honked and/or shouted at by young men in cars. It's never threatening or invasive. Just honking. I talked to some locals and frequent students who said that that's just the norm here. That is simply how they are taught to regard women. One woman simply rolled her eyes and muttered, "Those Arab boys."

Was she right? Would it be different in a Jewish neighborhood? It's possible. Religious codes of behavior are a huge divide in this city, among others. Sometimes, behavior like this is used to separate themselves further from each other. I hadn't learned a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before I came here. After all, when you do, it's always one side, and America is officially pro-Israel. But just being here, seeing it all, and listening to people has taught me more about this conflict that I ever could have learned. All you have to do is listen. The same woman who made the marginally-racist comment about the sexist boys in the village gave us a full explanation of her very pro-Israel stance one night. Once again, marginally-racist described it well, but I just listened, even encouraged with questions. Because that's the only way to understand. Meanwhile, I read the museum pamphlets my Palestinian flatmate left on the table, directly citing the Palestinians as "the last victims of the holocaust" for having been ousted by the Jews. I take classes in a building where I look left to see the steel dividing wall and look right to see the golden dome of the mosque built on the Temple Mount. I am completely fascinated by this country. I want to come back. Because I want to see a peaceful end to this conflict. And because all of this sits on top of some of the greatest history in our world. And these weeks of experiencing all of that has taught me more than I ever thought I would learn.