Shalom de Israel!

Wednesday June 24, 2009 Knerret, Israel

I arrived in Israel two days ago by saying goodbye with my present reality and looking forward. This trip was supposed to be (for practical reasons) a good opportunity to meet Russian Jews in Chicago for social and professional reasons and (for spiritual reasons) an opportunity to explore the role of Judaism and religion altogether in my life.

So, extremely mentally and physically exhausted, I boarded my flight to Tel Aviv via Rome on Sunday with no thoughts but to get some sleep on the plane. The flight was fairly turbulent, but I had two whole seats to myself so that was nice. My first nudge towards religiosity came when the flight attendant double checked to make sure I had explicitly ordered a kosher meal. Right.

In Rome, I felt a sense of familiarity (the whole 2 hours I was there) and smiled happily upon seeing a plane from Uzbekistan airways, a reminder of my journey to the past last summer. When I arrived in Tel Aviv, dazed and tired, (oh yeah make tuna with kidney beans, corn, and salsa…delicious!) I waited for my bags about an hour. Upon realizing that alas they were lost (per usual) I hurriedly walked towards the Alitalia counter to make a claim that my baggage was in fact lost. Another hour of frantic waiting ensued, altogether exacerbated by the fact that I knew that beyond those doors, a member of my family was most likely worrying to death that I had not arrived.

Finally, I made my way through the doors into the frantic tears of my Tyeta Toma, who had the whole airport alert on my disappearance. She was so shaken up, I couldn’t help but laugh at how similar she was to my own Mama, not only in appearance, but in character and franticness.

I went with her to H&O (that’s right, use your imagination) to get some new clothes for my impending trip, and then we went to her small settlement, Alfe Menashe. She explained to me that they were right on the border with Palestine (and when I was right, I mean look to the left Palestine, right Israel) and had built a house there because, in true Russian Jew style, the land was cheaper. She pointed out a taxi in front of us with a green license plate as being a Palestinian cab. Not scary at all for my first 2 hours in Israel. My cousin and uncle greeted me, and we went for my first meal in an Israel strip mall…shish kebab and Israeli salad. Yum!

Then we drove to Jerusalem to meet my group. As we drove I called the hotel to make sure everything was ok, and they claimed not to have any American groups…per usual. But in the end it was the right hotel. At this point, there was no emotion processing and I could only think of my bed, even as we entered and there were Orthodox women running around everywhere at a wedding.

The next morning I woke up in a room with three other Russian Jewish girls. When I asked them how the trip was going they said, “eh. It’s ok” This made me a tad bit nervous as their lack of enthusiasm seemed a bit daunting. Luggage or no luggage, I made my way downstairs and met the rest of my group, which was quite nice. I fit in quite well, and really liked the girls on the trip. The first lecture was a Chasidic rabbi who claimed he was not proving the existence of G-d, which in fact he was. But he was alright and a funny speaker. Soon after, my luggage arrived (thankfully!) and we took a bus to the Negev desert for a “hike.” Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you that taking a hike over a steep mountain covered in desert sand and rocks in 95 degree weather the day after not only your graduation but an 18 hour journey…is not a good idea. About halfway up I began to get the usual signs of heat exhaustion, and decided to not be that girl who passes out in the Israeli desert on the first day by making my way down the mountain and back to the air conditioned bus. Israel 1, Stella 0.

Afterwards, we drove through the desert windy roads to a Bedouin oasis to ride camels, my Camel Buddy, Masha, and I named our camel Moshe…and he was a wily one! The desert was absolutely stunning in its enormity and the beauty of the sunset over the sand dunes. Sitting on the camels while they stand up and sit down is not an easy task. Nature’s own roller coaster?

Bedouin dinner was served in the tents and was a plov-like dish with shish kebabs. At this point I was keeling over in tiredness, and soon after the Bedouin hospitality (tea and music) I hobbled over to our sleeping tent and passed out. What seemed like a few restless minutes later, I heard screaming and woke up to find the girls giggling and scrambling around. Apparently there were bugs everywhere and a fox jumped over one of the girls, Lina. Paying no heed I turned over and fell back asleep. However, the girls had other plans. Being finicky Russian Jews, they decided the tents were not meant for human sleeping, and shlepped mattresses onto tabletops in the moonlight. I was NOT going to be the only one in that infested tent, so I took to the tabletops as well. By this point it was 1 am and our wake up time was 4 am.

We got some sleep and woke up at 4 am to go see sunrise at Masada, an ancient fortress in the middle of the desert where thousands of Jews committed suicide one night, rather than be Roman slaves. We were of course running late, and had to shlep up the mountain in lightning speed to catch the sunrise. Usually this is not my thing, but boy let me tell you. It was AMAZING. We could see the Dead Sea and mountains in the distance, and desert everywhere. There was a feeling of friendship and camaraderie amongst everyone after the Bedouin tent debacle, and I don’t know what it was, but there was something special in the air at Masada.

We toured around Masada and heard the breathtaking story, then funiculared our way down (Snake path down the mountain? Pass!) to the bus. Soon we were on our way to the Dead Sea….I had my first scuffle with the Orthodox staff upon our arrival and announcement of separate sex beaches. Seriously? But then again, as one of them pointed out, we payed a lot less than we were supposed to so we had to follow the sexist (in my view) rules. The girls beach was tinnnny in comparison with the boys, and a little wall led not enough out to the sea to swim. The poor Orthodox women had to float like 8 inches from the rocky ground to not risk being seen by male eyes.

I loved it! The warm felt milky warm but oily in texture. Things started burning everywhere because of the salt, but the view and feeling was breathtaking. After a while, the burning (don’t ask where) got too much and we made our way out. Aggressive Russian saleswomen tried to sell us overpriced creams before we managed to make our way out to the gift shop and to the bus. It was 10 am and we had already hiked Masada, had breakfast (Kosher of course) and swam in the Dead Sea. What’s next? Hike of course!

We drove to Ein Gedi, a waterfall filled climb up a mountain with natural springs. Again, hiking=not my forte, but as soon as we jumped into the waterfall spring area, it all became worth it. Although it wasn’t too large and there were a lot of people swimming, it was super fun. The water felt perfectly cold and in stark contrast to the hot Israeli sun. It was glorious! After hiking down the beautiful mountain, we got on the bus for three hours to a small city by the Knerret, the biggest freshwater lake in Israel.