Champagne Zionism

So heres to 3 events that have buoyed the secular-zionist heretic in me that lurks just below my religious-zionist fascard.

Bloody hell i hate being assumed to be a raving right-wing settler and suppporter of the mavdal (the National Religious Party). Note: I stopped wearing my Tzitzit out when a taxi driver assumed he was taking me to the West Bank as I looked to him like the stereotype of what the world likes to call a 'Jewish Settler'. I am a secular, cultural zionist at heart and devotee of Ahad Ha'am in many respects. Anyway more of this rant later,well before i leave it alone, much as i love my little jerusalem bubble and living in Jerusalem in general, Jerusalem is not Zionism, it is not Israel (no im not making a radical leftist political statement about the future status of Jerusalem, its just Jerusalem is not 'the real israel' as so many people will cheesily claim, it is not representative of what the Zionist dream, such as it was, was all about and you cannot possible claim that it is any way representative religiously, ethnically and politically of the rest of the country).

Anyway i digress, even before i started, impressive...

So first football...for this im taking you back to March, a time of celebration. Initially and primarily because of the Marriage of Jon and Shula - Landsman (extremely close family friends). So first off all the family are here Mum, Dad Nina and Dan- Nina enlargening with my new nice/nephew inside (ill be, please G-d an uncle by mid July).

The weekend before the wedding is a critcal Wold Cup qualifying match in Tel Aviv Israel vs Ireland. One side of the Landsman family herald from Dublin's Jewish community and have come in force for the wedding and of course the game, for which a coach had been laid on from Jerusalem.

The game itself was not great, but was marked by a jovial and respectful atmosphere and critically a superb 1-1 result for israel - secured with a last minute equalising goal. So aside from the result the best moment of the evening and the most stirring by far was the stirring rendition of the Hatikvah.

Publicly singing of the national anthem is always a moving and enjoyable moment. This was extra special. The stadium is a wash in blue and white, flags are waving , people of all different stripes, religious, secular, jewish, arab, citizen, visitor are joining with gusto, 40,000 of them! Having 40,000 people fill the evening air with the stirring melody and moving words of the Hatikvah is something that will remain etched on my memory forever as i stood, we stood as one, belting out the lyrics. Superbly spine-tingling stuff!

Particularly when you compare the friendly atmosphere with that which greated the french football team the following wednesday in the second of this huge World cup qualification double-header. Again a largely poor match, marked by vicious play and a superb 1-1 result for israel.

The french dont have a good reputation here and are seen as anti-semitic and anti-israel. This image was not helped by some ill advised comments (for which he later apologised, to no avail) by Barthez the French Goalkeeper who said we didnt want to puit himself and by extgension his family at risk by coming to israel and 'support the occupation' by coming to Israel Ramat Gan Stadium (Suburban Tel Aviv) isn't exactly Hebron, Fabian!. Anyway, needless to say these comments did not endear him to the crowd and the match itself was full of bad blood. In a moment of pleasing poetic justice Israel's goal was caused by a goal keeping error and scored by one of the Israeli-Arabs in the National Team. Couldnt have been planned better! Beautiful.

The return game with Ireland was proceeded by many things, but while were ona Zionist theme i wasnted to mention Yom Ha'atmaut (independence day). A group of us went into town to mark the celebrations. Whilst there, I saw David Broza's free concert at Zion Square - very cool, slightly ironic that he lives in new york these days (allegedly)- but no one mentioned that so it was ok. And then there was all night israeli dancing outside the town hall. That was really cool, i didnt think people really did that anymore, but there were young people and even real israelis not just American sem-girls and tourists, hurrumph for Zionism's cheesy side - long may it continue!

I actually had another of my big warm-fuzzy i love israel moments that night, the like of which i havent had for ages. I was standing watching the concert and everyone was whooping and screaming as David Broza played, everyone cheered whenever he mentioned Israel, 57 years of the State, Happy Yom Ha'atmaut' etc. Pleasingly this wasnt just a frum, crowd, there was young (lots of young children too) and old secular and religious all brought together by their love of Israel and whatever it means for them.

Everyone sang Yiheh Tov together with David Brozaand there were fireworks too, the feeling was magic.

The moment was somewhat dissipated when they immediately called Jerusalem's Mayor the Ultra-Orthodox Uri Lapolansky to the stage to address the crowd. Never mix politics with a rare moment of happiness and unity like this!

To be fair, lapolansky has wide cross-sector appeal primarliy as the founder of Yad Sarah, a Jerusalem wide charity that works with all sections of the community. Also as charedim go, he's pretty damn liberal ( i mean apart from having to please everybody all of the time anyway) he recently permitted the annual Jerusalem gay pride parade to take place as normal.

And so again to the football. The return Ireland-Israel match was a week and a half ago. Again it was dirty and a fairly poor game, which Ireland should have won easily, especially given that they were 2-0 ahead after 20 minutes. By half-time it was 2-2! Israel only had 2 shots on target all night- the second a controversial and retaken penalty.

Jo and i and some either friends watched on a big screen in a bar down town. It was fun to watch the game surrounded by real israelis at the bar - even if they did talk through the national anthem and kept their mobile phones on throughout the game!

This was a superb result and leaves Israel with a genuine chance of qualifying for next years World Cup. Come On!

Champagne zionist, me? Yeah really

See you in heaven...if you get there

After my customary procrastinory interlude (see below) i wanted to share a fascinating tell from my time communting to teach in essex before pesach.

Picture the scene if you will. Im walking down the stairs onto the platform at redbridge tube station after a long day of teaching, with the not so exciting prospect of a 1 hr 20 min journey back home ahead of me, when a voice from behind me says 'Shalom"

'Hello', i say hesitantly back - ive been spotted cos of my new-found kippah wearing antics-

'Shalom' comes the same voice again. Now, the owner of the voice, a man seemingly of African lineage is walking parralel with me on the starcase.

A conversation insues. He found 'Jesus' ten yoears ago or so. He seems excited to have identified me as a Jew, a fellow believer in Yarweh - (his word) and proceeds to take from his large back sports bag a Bible, the inner folios of which are marked up in all manner of flourescent pen/pencil colours. From his Bible he is quick to read me several passages from the Christian Bible which explain that saviour comes through the Jews.

Realising im somewhat cornered i slip a polite enquiry into the conversation. 'Which is your stop?' My friend, politely informs me hes getting off at stratford a mere 6 stops away. 'Phew' i think to myself, i can tolerate this for 6 stops.

We get on the train together as he continues to tell of his theological insights and personal religious journey. It occurs to me i know enough to argue with him and potentially undermine his claims - a milder, if more blatant one being he saying that the Ark of the Covenant was currently in the possession of the Israeli government - go tell harrison ford, buddy! I decide against, after all if hes gonna have no impact on me i cant expect that whatever i say is gonna see him rushing to the nearest mohel for an emergency procedure having realised his error. After all, i thought, this man has faith, which gives him strength and its not for me to undermine that for him.

After a few minutes on the train, he pulls from his bag - which i now notice has the word 'Jesus' emblazened across it in big white letters (if i recall correctly) a series of mocked up newspaper headlines and stories aswell as phototographs of a similar ilk.

Stratford station comes and goes.

These he explains are images and stories of how the world will be once the words of the Book of Revelations come to be fulfilled. By this stage, my participation in the conversation has discentigrated to an intimate 'Right', 'Yes', 'Aha' or some such...

'Wasnt that yout stop?'
'Its OK, I can go a bit further.'

'Crap', i think to myself, im stuck with this guy all the way to Ruislip (still over an hour away) how am I going to shake him off?'

Just as i am about to put an alternative route plan in action by changing trains, he gives up on me and decides to leave.

'Pleasure meeting you Ben', he says. 'Be sure to read those quotes from Revelations wont you'. Well, Ben I hope we'll see eachother again...Hopefully we'll see eachother in heaven. But, remember if you wont to get there you'll have to get yourself baptised. Bye'.



That was quite a parting shot. As i sat in my seat, now thankfully able to mind my own business 2 thoughts occured to me:

1. Wouldnt he of been better off picking on someone less obviously committed to Judaism or any religion for that matter. I was wearing a Kippah for goodness sake. It marks me out (thats after all how he conttoned on to me) as a religioudsly committed person. He'd be much better pickingon unwitting jo-shmoh, with no clear religious convictions and pick on them. Surely this would be a more successful way of attracting followers/converts.

2. All this was caused by me wearing a kippah, not something i had erstwhile done in public outside of synagogue or israel. There was a large part of me that thought bloody- hell if only iwasnt wearing this, it would have saved me this whole experience. This was my first confrontation with what it really means to advertise your judaism and the realitty of wearing a kippah in non-Jewish socieities. I have no cheesy corny message to leave you with about how much this reinforced my desire to wear a kippah and be obviously Jewish to the outside world but it just got me thinking about what the true implications of it can be.

faff!!

I am aware that faff is not a word oft used in North America. In the name of inclusivity, not wanting you to miss out on understanding the title of this blog and its undeniable appropriateness to me here's a hilarious link courtesy of Mr JP Berger Esquire - cheers mate

to find out how to faff to perfection click here

www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/1514/faff.html

yours,

your very finest faffer- original and best

a mixed bag for Mis'a Sal'whay

So it seems like im going round the world collecting variant pronounciations of my name in a variety of education settings. Ill explain...

On my return from Atlanta i had my feedback meeting with Pardes. The report from my mentor in Atlanta had been mixed and what the guy pardes flew over specially saw was really bad, as i mentioned in my last entry. Pardes were worried, and based on what their pardes person had seen of my teaching in Atlanta understandably so. My mentor had suggested that she thought i'd have good skills for elementary/primary school.

With this in mind, and knowing that i had already plans to return to london for Pesach I arranged a brief few days of work-experience at Clore Tikva in Essex in the week before Pesach.

Going into it i was more than a liitle nervous. If things went badly this could have disastorious implications on the possibility of me completing the educators programme. In addition, i had never taught such young kids before (they were age 9) thought it wouldnt suit me and was concerned about how on earth i would get mental stimulation and satisfaction from such 'immature' children.

Oh how wonderful it is sometimes to be proven wrong.

The mentor teacher i had at Clore was superb, and it beiing late in the year had here class running like clockwork. Which made it really easy for me to walk into.

The 29 children of kiteh livneh took to me quickly and vice-versa. Its such a shame that young kids lack strong male rolemodels in the early school years. You could tell that both the boys and girls benefited from having a man around to look upto. And of course this is the other thing with such young children- they love you and yet to be tainted by cynicism. It was a real pleasure to teach them even though it was only a four day visit. They even videoed one of my lessons, so this time i had proof that the teaching went pretty well to take back with me to pardes. This time i would return with my even newer title ringing in my ears 'Mis'a Sal'whay (try it with a thick essex (East of London) accent - stronger than cockney, i.e dick van dyke in Mary Poppins doesnt help) and you'll see how it sounds).

Astoundingly, for kids at a Jewish day school - even though clore tikva is a plauralist school- there were about 6-7 children in my class who were not going to a Seder at Pesach. THAT BLEW ME AWAY. I mean growing up, sure only a few people i knew kept some level of kashrut and certainly nobody kept shabbat - i mean, PLEASE!- but everybody had a Seder, i didnt know a single person that didnt. Was my Jewish upbringing so bizarre?

'Mr Sarrrlaway, I have a quest-ion...'

What an exciting couple of weeks its been, 2 weddings, a shevah brachah, being amongst the 1st people in the world to see the new star wars film and more. Of this, however, more below- you'll just have to keep that breath bated for a while.

Before i get to use this blog for regular updates and reflections, i figure some selected highlights of my year should do the trick for the mo. January saw me in Atlanta for a month of student teaching which is a standard component of the educators programme. Pardes set you up with a school, mentor teacher and host family.

I had a fabulous experience. I really enjoyed my teaching and was welcomed into the Atlanta community very warmly.

We'll get to the teaching and school in a second. First of all the Atlanta experience. Of course, at the end of the programme here in jerusalem i have to fulfill a 3 year teaching commitment in the States so going to a new city and country and finding myself considering how i might potentially feel about living there was kinda strange. As it turned out i left Atlanta regretting the fact that its all but non-existent public transport system does not makee it a viable option for me as a place to work, as the Jewish community/schools are far away from the minimal but efficient metro system that serves the heart of the city.

I travelled with Jamie, my fellow brit and course-mate. Our introduction to life state-side was not exactly a smooth one. Ill gloss over the details, but suffice to say that due to very heavy snow we were delayed in the assundry airports of the New York region for a total of 14! hours. BLOODY HELL. Although the assistant at the Delta desk at Newark had kindly informed us that we were not going anyware for two days at the earliest, so i guess i should be thankful for small mercies.

Finally arriving at Sandy Springs, a picturesque suburb of Atlanta we were pleased to be greeted by our host family. Judy and Shai Robkin. They are big muchers in the school (where Judy teaches art), very committed to the Jewish community and have been hosting educators at their house since Pardes first began the programme five years. They are suburb people, very warm, hospitable and more than a little excentric in the best possible way. They hosted 3 people from our programme, Jamie, Adee and myself. We couldnt have felt more welcome, even their crazy and loveable long-haired datsun 'kishke' took an immediate shine to me.

Atlanta, in addition to boasting great hosts also has a very strong community of Pardes Alumni. Pardes Atlanta, heavily populated by familiar faces and many of the teachers at the school where Jamie and I were working provided a home from home and made the transition into a new and temporary community so easy.

And so to the teaching experience. Jamie and I were teaching at the Weber Community (i.e. plauralist) High School. Weber provided a good introduction to American Jewish Education and i can see why pardes felt like it would be a good fit for me. It is a small school of about 130 boys and girls on a site made up of a warren of portacabin classrooms. The school feels like a family. Its close knit nature aids students to achieve their potential in a supportive environment. You get the feeling that Weber makes a success of kids who would fall through the net at bigger schools.

That said, myself and particularly Jamie were suffering from a fair bit of culture shocj, Jamie particular as he is a Habs boy! You see a not small element of why i set myself on a path towards America and formal, school education is because it is more consistent with the potential for a greater impact on students than the one off session i am incustomed to in the informal education world. The other attractive element is that school is a venue for 'serious' learning and high standards for Jewish literacy etc. America in relation to Britain has a strong reputation for churning out graduates with high levels of jewish literacy.

The story is mixed a Weber but essentially this is not the case here, and it came as a disappointment. If i contrast the school with my own secondary Jewish school experience at Carmel, the Atlanta still comes out streets ahead. We only had Jewish Studies at Carmel, I only did one year of Hebrew and it was not compulsory after the age of 14! We never opened the Talmud or engaged in any traditional style learning at Carmel and it certainly did not inpart any of the skills necessary for Jewish literacy (other than the practical knowledge of the components of living an halachically observant life-style which comes with the territory of attending an Orthodox boarding School). In comparison Weber was streets ahead. With Hebrew, Rabbinics, Tanach and Jewish History all almost daily components of the Timetable across the school. Through in Rosh-chodesh celebrations, shabbatonim and the like and you have a pretty vibrant sounding Jewish life at the school.

And of course on a certain level this is true. The problem is that the school felt often like a summer camp. Only English and Maths are tested subjects. The Jewish curriculum certainly is not (although learning for its own-sake is of course very valuable) and it did not seem that the Jewish curriculum is taken as seriously as i had hoped and it is not backed-up with a strong vision of what graduates of the school need to know in order to be literate Jews or that the school can feel that it has achieved certain things in building the Jewish education of its graduates.

Just as a little aside. The vast,vast majority of American schools DO NOT TEACH GEOGRAPHY- Bloody Hell that explains a lot (Sorry American friends, but as i write this im thinking particularly of your dear friend and mine Dub'ya!).

Oh year and in the state of Georgia its ny on illegal to teach evolution theory! Welcome to the South ladoes and Gentlemen.

And so to the teaching, it was a largely positive experience. I was teaching the story of Queen Esther to grades 9 and 10. The beginning was difficult and the 2 days i was observed by someone flown out especially from Pardes, my lessons were crap, the worst i taught by a large distance- Hurrumph! Things went particularly well with the grade 10 class with whom i built a good rappor. I came away feeling better equipped for the riggers of the classroom. And of course it was hear that i recieved my new title: 'Mister Sarrrlawayyy- it takes forever to say my name with a Gerogia accent!

And so i returned to Jerusalem at the end of the month away reinvigorated in the knowledge that i had wonderful experience and aquitted myself fairly well in the class room, or so i thought....