Hip-Hip-Hooray for Christmas Vacation

I will be in Seattle from the 20th until the 31st. Happy Holidays!

Plates

Cool, rainy and windy in Nof Yam today -- just the way I like it.

I'm short on interesting content today, so here are what the vehicle license plates look like over here:

First, the generic Israeli plate. Black on yellow, and the "IL" designation on the left:


Next, the Palestinian plate. You won't see one of these unless you're in the West Bank. Green on white with the "P" designation on the right below an Arabic script:


Finally, the very interesting and rare diplomat plate. This one gets you "God Mode" on parking spots and probably other goodies we don't know about. You must be operating in a documented diplomatic capacity to have these. I have an ex-diplomat car, but I have the yellow Israeli plates.

Black on white. Note the lack of nationality designation.


It's worth mentioning that if you need to change your license plates, you have to do it all at once: If a plateless car is seen parked anywhere, the police will assume it's a terrorist car and blow it up.

Early Thanksgiving bash at the Superintendent's house tonight. The Thanksgiving holiday next week is 4 days off at our school, just like in the US, but many people choose to go on trips, hence the early party. For the holiday, we're having a few low-caliber Thanksgiving dinners in our places, and inviting some Israeli friends.

Oktoberfest in Palestine (I kid you not)

Many teachers at my school are beer aficionados. I've yet to teach at a school without beer aficionados, but that should surprise no one who is already a teacher.

Now, Israel is not exactly a beer-lover's paradise. One can regularly find Carlsberg, Tuborg (which is Danish, I think), Heineken, Stella, and Goldstar, which is the Israeli dark lager, brewed a mere kilometer from our school's campus.

However, many believe the region's best domestic beer to be Taybeh, brewed in the Christian city of the same name, located just north of Jerusalem in the disputed West Bank. The Taybeh brewery has an annual Oktoberfest which attracts beer lovers of all stripes in the time-honored German tradition. If this sounds strange for the Middle East, it is. Three carloads of teachers went on a drove on a fine Saturday in October to sample the wares at Taybeh.

For those of you joining us with knowledge of the Northwest, Driving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem feels almost exactly like driving from Seattle to Tacoma in terms of duration and difficulty. In terms of scenic beauty, it feels like a barren and miniature version of Snoqualmie Pass. Here are some photos that don't quite do the beautiful drive justice -- click to enlarge:



Taybeh is a charming city on a hill, similar to other cities on hills in the surrounding area. The rocky land actually feels and looks more biblical the more you look at it.




Here is the banner and pouring station for the beer:


These are authentic German dudes in lederhosen specially invited to lend some credibility to the proceedings.


Instead of pretzles, there was falafel, and lots of it. Delicious.



Here we are around a table in the beer garden. Note the city on the hill in the background and the hookah action in the foreground.


The Germans turned out the be a bonefide brass band. They played their polka and drank and toasted us in the audience.


There were beautiful remains on a Christian church near the site of the event. Here are a few pictures -- I like this one of the three people entering:


An oven or kiln of some kind, with offerings.



Mausoleums:




We had a fantastic time. A few shots from the drive back into Israel:

Yom Kippur

The month of October contains at least four Jewish high holy days. Of these holidays, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn and important. Jews spend this 25-hour period fasting and praying, and mending the wrongs of the past year to start afresh. One source, I remember, calls the activity on this day "squaring yourself with God". This is one of the few holidays that is observed by even the most secular Jews, and synagogue attendance doubles or triples that of a normal Saturday.

Not only do most Secular Jews observe Yom Kippur, the entire state of Israel, as a definitively Jewish state, does as well. This means:

• No place of business is open
• No cars drive anywhere
  
• No planes take off or land
  
• No radio or television broadcasts

Which means me, as well. I don't think there's a law in the books, but as far as driving goes, it's just not done.

Q: So, what does this mean for non-observers?


A:






Bike shops have their biggest sales week of the year leading up to Yom Kippur. Once sundown hits, it's open season on the roads and freeways for anyone wanting to walk or bike, which usually means yelling kids. There is the occasional ambulance or emergency car, but nothing beats the post-apocalyptic thrill of laying supine in the freeway express lanes at 10pm on a Wednesday, watching the stars and feeling the dull warmth of the day's trapped heat in the blacktop.

In other news, a janitor came into my band room yesterday sporting a Washington hooded sweatshirt with an enormous purple logo "W". This was at first cool, then shocking. We didn't share a language, but I tried to tell him why I loved it by pointing enthusiastically to the shirt, then myself, then Seattle on a map of the world.

In the Desert

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the southern half of Israel is a desert -- the Negev. Vast, dry, and largely uninhabited, it is beautiful in the austere way deserts tend to be, with fascinating rock formations and sparse plant and animal life. A few teachers and I (and 20 high school seniors) visited the Negev for four days as part of a school-wide field trip program called "Week Without Walls". This trip took place in late September, so the desert was still quite hot. Above, our group treks into the Horseshoe Canyon in the enormous Ramon Crater. We stayed in an excellent youth hostel at a small town called Mitzpe Ramon which was perched on the lip of the crater. A few pictures from that trek (click to enlarge):

Our armed guard and medic with the red backpack.


A rare tree (a rattlin' tree)

A rare signpost. There were also painted color-coded signs on rocks throughout the hike. The Ramon Crater would be a terrible place in which to get lost, either in night or day.

The sky in the desert is amazing.

As are the rock formations.

A view of the crater from Mitzpe Ramon.

To me, the most interesting thing about the Negev Desert is the history of its inhabitants, the Nabateans. The Nabateans were nomadic Hasidic arabs who controlled a vast network of oases and storehouses between the Euphrates and the Red Sea, and subsequently controlled all trade of goods and spices between the East and West. We saw many examples of hidden water pools and storehouses where the Nabateans rested and stored their goods. And, as nobody else knew of or had access to these places, the Nabateans held a monopoly on trade until they were conquered by the Roman Empire.

We visited a man who lived in a house in the Negev and provided us with a choice between two activities -- Carving art out of desert rocks:


Or, Frisbee golf on a massive desert course (the circular rock formations that look like they were made by UFOs are the course targets:


Below, the tent where the desert art was being made, and my shadow in the setting sun in the foreground. Coen Brothers, eat your heart out.


We also rode camels (slow and painful) did a dance workshop at an area studio (awesome) and generally rode around the dusty crater in the blasting sun. The vast and unchanging nature of the desert has a strange psychological effect after a while, both restorative and timeless. Some final pictures:

Ibex. They are adorable.

On Beyond Budapest

About two weeks ago, the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Years') holiday created a five-day weekend from school. These don't come along too often, and a forward-thinking colleague of mine started booking tickets to Hungary for the break.

The single greatest thing about short trips around Europe is the cumulative effect of cheap flights, short flight times, and minimal body-clock changes. It reminds me of the alchemy of taking the subway in New York: a short amount of time turns into an enormous geographic change.

Budapest is a stunning city. Architecturally, historically and culturally rich, and flat enough to walk around all day. The long arterial boulevards with formal architecture remind me very much of Washington, D.C., and the way the sunlight traces its way through the streets makes the city have a different look at all hours.


Walking was the main activity of the trip for me, but some other highlights:

• The local opera company put on a production of three Stravinsky chamber operas (modern-sounding 20th century stuff), to which I got a rush ticket the evening I arrived. All three were $12 for the most expensive seat in the house, and the productions were astounding -- music, costumes, vitality, you name it -- one of the operas was the famous "L'historie du Soldat" where a travelling soldier meets the devil on the way home from war. All the dialogue was in Hungarian, but the stories mostly made sense (After getting tricked, I think the soldier finally thwarts the devil by rigging a game of cards, but I could be wrong.) During one of the operas, the entire chorus burst out into the audience and began booing and throwing vegetables at the orchestra in one of the many "meta" and convention-destroying moments of the evening. This is something I'll remember forever.
• Goulash. It's awesome! Paprika is a national treasure in Hungary, and is also used in their delicious house sausage (which was more than reminiscent of Betty's, and made me homesick for the time during family meal.)
• Late-night beer on the boulevards. Autumn begins to get chilly in Eastern Europe, and one restaurant provided blankets with their outdoor seating:
• 

• Taking the subway and train to visit a nearby arts town, Szentendre. Didn't buy anything, but took in the fresh air and wonderful churches and meandering streets.
• A traditional folk dance concert in town with local dancers and musicians. They have dulcimer, violin, and clarinet players the likes of which you've never seen.

There's more, but I'll link two quick-loading Facebook albums here so you can take your own walking tour. It's easy to get caught up in _doing_ things in another country, when a lot of the fun is found in just being there.

Album 1

Album 2

Finally, a picture of me looking rather arch in a restaurant in Jokai square:


And, next time, a story about a desert.

Security

Israel is almost exactly the size of New Jersey. Over half of that area is the largely uninhabited Negev desert in the southern half of the country, separating Egypt and Jordan.

Israel is also surrounded on at least three sides by sworn enemies who abhor its existence as an independent state. The fourth side is the Mediterranean Sea, which, as of this writing, is a neutral power.

A country in this scenario takes its security very, very seriously.

While I am only just now writing about Israeli security, it is the first thing any traveler will notice, and long before they ever enter the country.

When I flew from Seattle to Atlanta en route to Tel Aviv on September 30th, I went through the usual security checkpoints -- metal detector, shoes off, luggage through the machine. In Atlanta, I needed to change planes.

At the international gate for flights to Israel, everyone and their luggage goes through a second identical security screening before boarding the aircraft. When the aircraft is within one hour of Israeli airspace, the instruction is given by ground control that everyone must remain seated with their seat belt fastened and that there is to be no moving in the cabin whatever. By deduction, this is partly due to the fact that Israel is a very narrow country -- about 8 miles wide in the most densely populated region -- and the ability to land in a neighboring country if something goes awry on the plane is not a viable option.

Once off the plane, I had a letter of introduction from the school, and getting through security was surprisingly easy.

Now, the bizarre part: getting out of Israel is three times harder than getting in.

Some colleagues and I flew to Budapest for the Jewish new years' break (which I will write about later this week). Before obtaining my boarding pass, there was a security checkpoint with a metal detector, X-ray machine, and two security officers around solely for questioning. Some of the questions:

Why are you in Israel?
Do you have friends or family here?
Do you speak any Hebrew?
Where do you work?
Are you coming back?
Why are you traveling for only four days?
Did you pack your own bag?

My answers must have been satisfactory, because I was able to pass through. The teacher I was traveling with had the same destination, visa, and employer, but was taken to the back room for a more thorough search. After getting the boarding pass, there is a secondary checkpoint where your passport and ticket are checked, and you are given a number. My number was 1. I later learned that 1 is the least rigorous security check rating you can be given.

I proceeded to line 1, where I walked through another metal detector and my bags were run through another X-ray. Then a very pleasant security office came over to me and said: "You have four electronic devices in your backpack. Please remove them for me." After I removed and identified my camera, iPod, etc, they were swabbed with the bomb residue detector, as was every internal pocket on each piece of my luggage and the bottoms of my shoes.

All clear, I proceeded to the security checkpoint where they actually stamped passports and asked a few more questions. Then I was clear to get to the gate.

In addition to the above, once in Israel, you will go through a metal detector to enter any mall or movie theater. When driving into any parking garage, you will be asked whether you have a gun and your trunk will be checked. Every large store has an armed guard at the door checking bags. Every field trip I've taken with the school has a medic toting a rifle on each bus. Every man and woman does compulsory military service for at least two years after graduating from high school and one month a year for the majority of their lives thereafter, which means the entire nation can be (and has been) mobilized at a moment's notice by an electronic calling system in the event of a threat.


And I'm not entirely certain of the point of this post, except to illustrate that many of the basic securities we have in the United States cannot be fully understood because they have never been consistently threatened. Also, as oppressive as this situation may sound, it does bring a certain peace of mind to know everyone is on the lookout, and after the first few weeks of sitting on the beach it seems like business as usual.