Children of Israel: Day One (Part Two)
Welcome to the second in my retroactive log of my trip to Israel. Names and events remain unchanged (for the most part). All photos by Mathew Parise and Isabel Slepoy
Miche rolled up the blind as the fasten seat belts sign chimed and we all got an eyeful. It was green. Mossy almost. Squares of farmland dotted with olive trees and fringed by steep screes. The plane was quiet. Countless twenty-somethings in at least three different Birthright groups craned their necks. It must be the Galilee.
Touching Tarmac in Tel Aviv we decamped en masse, got our passports checked and waited at the luggage carousel.
(Credit: Isabel Slepoy Photography. Ben Gurion International Airport.)
"Everyone remember their numbers?" Counselor Greg asked as if, after eleven goes at this, he ever expects the answer to be a unanimous ‘yes.’
"Remember the people around you, too." Shit, how many numbers do we have to memorize?
"Should we do the buddy system?" Jordan smirked. People were thirsty and want to get water. Greg and Rebecca apprised us of the “pee rule” and what the color index means for dehydration/hydration. Jordan wondered if Greg will be keeping tabs on our tests himself. This would have been funny if there weren't an invasive search for one of our party at Newark.
Here's the thing about an Israeli public toilet: there are foot pedal flushes on some of them. When I returned from this revelation a crowd had gathered at the water fountain outside the men’s room and I immediately told Redhead Nick. This feature has sold me on this country after only ten minutes of being there. These are an enlightened people who want to touch as little as possible in their stall-based orgy of germs. They're like me. An army of Howie Mandels must do their city planning.
Hearing the good news Redheaded Nick instantly ran into the men's room to confirm. He returned promptly and we filled our muster, counting off from one to 40.
One was missing. A kid named Roi was off to the side wrapping tefalim: thin, black bands with terminal boxes holding rolls of the torah and used in prayer.
David K looked on: “Are those for, like, flagellation?”
Boarding the coach bus, I decide to expand my circle and sit with Matt (with two Ts) who was there with his friend, Amanda. They’re from New Jersey, not far from Greg and Garrett—two old friends who sat on the other side of the aisle from me. In case it’s a tender spot I avoided any allusion to how annoying it was to toll road through Newark.
(Credit: Isabel Slepoy Photography. Counselor Greg counts heads on the coach bus)
The sun didn’t seem to like us. The enmity was mutual. It jumped into the bus window periodically to give us a glare, to which we totally shade it. The countryside had pockets of development and urban life divided by long stretches of farmland, efficient energy complexes and army bases. We drove about an hour and behind me I heard people being put through a gauntlet of Seinfeld references and at least one person (a girl) watching something pornographic involving eels—I know because she said “eels” and “vagina” and there are some words that just pop.
Moshe had.a glorious beard he'd been growing since 1977. If his facial hair was expansive, well-conditioned and appeared soft to the touch he was also possessed of those qualities as a tour guide. We were on a beach in Caesaria. There was a centuries old aqueduct to our left and a guy who kept on trying to break up our loosely-formed circle with his Jeep.
(Credit: © Matteo's Photography, LLC. Aqueduct. Aqueduuuuh.)
We were given strips of paper that breakdown as: “I am a NOUN, VERBing for NOUN.”
(Credit: Isabel Slepoy Photography Moshe hands out the slips of paper.)
Mine was: “I am a bank that needs money.” And I had to find someone else that had a money card. Or someone that needed a bank. This proved difficult. Finally, I found one, Jenna (whose voice betrayed her beyond all doubt as the girl watching eel porn). She was: “I am money that needs investing” or something to that effect. Isn’t that just typical Israel? A whole nation of Jews filling every vocation out there and they bring a bunch of pliable Americans to learn smart investment practices or prime them for banking jobs.
(Credit: Isabel Slepoy Photography. Slips UP CLOSE. David K looks at phone as Jay gives Greg Marks a backrub (courtesy of the depth-of-field) )
But the examples went on. “An investor that needs capital… a capitol that needs a state, etc…” There was no one before me in the string. I was a bookend and stood, bookend-ish next to the other end which ended the line. Something about “A tree that needs the sun.” The exercise was cute, if it didn’t end neatly and we consummated our arrival with glasses of grape juice. Birthright couldn’t serve us alcohol.
Zikhron Ya’akov, an early settlement town peopled shortly before Israel’s official statehood, featured the first cats we’ll see in Israel. In Israel, cats are like pigeons. They were first introduced to regulate a mouse problem but, just like the snakes of Ireland, became the pests themselves. I’m allergic to cats and have no patience for the one that mewled for shawarma at my feet. It’s very pretty here.
(Credit: Isabel Slepoy Photography. Zikhron Ya'akov.)
The sloped streets are cobble and flag-stoned, narrow and primarily trafficked by pedestrians. There’s a European flavor. The locals seem young and monied with children and the arcade is peppered with boutiques and specialty shops, an art fair and a McDonalds. Down an alley we get a great view of the mountains and the valley of high-tension wires below. Chris snaps some pictures and David C poses. I make the mistake of mentioning this looking post to some other people and have to go back down to show them. We bump into a tour (Hebrew-speaking) lingering around what looks like a basement level dive where people play music. I guess it was noteworthy.
An hour trip east through beige and green, up and around winding hills lands us at Kibbutz Hukok. The Kibbutz’s are socialized communities which sometimes feature hotel accommodations. This one was pretty typical.
(Credit: Isabel Slepoy Photography. Jenna, with one of Kibbutz Hokuk's many, friendly dogs.)
I split a triple with Yaron and Jay and we mocked up a hasty shower schedule. Yaron went first or maybe it was Jay. In any case, I go second, waiting my turn on a narrow pallet bed which, were it a rock, would clock in at about a six on the Moh’s hardness scale. The showerhead hangs low and the shower itself is a circle of curtain on a rail. There was no tub, just the floor. But the bathroom was especially great because the doorframe had no saddle at the bottom and the end of the door was a good four inches from the floor. After showering, it was the deluge.
We ransacked the linen closet and used extra bedding to sop up the spill which was creeping into our sports socks.
I met Yaron and John for a walk while Jay showered (if it wasn’t Jay who showered first).
John and Yaron have known each other since middle school and now share an apartment in New York. Together we plodded along the development and dipped into the residential areas and down a ways where we could see the wrap of the Sea of Galillee: Tiberias to the South, Safet to the North and the Golan Heights to the East. We also saw a half-naked (bottom half) baby boy crying in the middle of the road as his mother took a phone call.
We found some citrus trees bearing some not-quite ripe fruit and got lost on the way back to our room. We made it back and into formal wear before the first three stars signaled the beginning of Shabbat.
And there we were in our finery. I slapped a black silk kippah on my head and all the men sat in the clubhouse, staggered with an empty seat between us. The girls were busy lighting the candles and Counselor Greg thought it prudent to force them into an uncomfortable situation. Moshe led the group in what was to be the first of our sharing circles. We each went around and explained what Shabbat meant for us and our lives. This crowd was decidedly non-observant with a few exceptions. Two were Israeli, one (Roi, of the tefalim), was born in Israel but has lived in Queens and just recently began engaging with his faith again and a few more used to do the whole ritual but lost it somewhere along the way and a couple more Keep it Holy.
There was no judgment (after all, we didn’t go with Mayonet). There was, however, a bit of discomfort. Moshe and Stacy are the only confident voices welcoming Queen Shabbat with ‘Lecha Dodi.’ ‘Lecha Dodi’ is a song with no right or wrong melody. Countless congregations have countless variations, but I will say with confidence my version wasn’t right. My words were off. Others were mumbled. There was a siddur in front of me with a phonetic spelling and I couldn’t do it right. But I wasn’t alone.
All our garbled notes and pidgin Hebrew smashed together sounded, roughly, like a rafter of turkeys perching on the action of a piano while a cat in bowling shoes walks along the keys—or really, any prepared piano piece. It was discordant and unlistenable. Moshe offered us a chance to save face, trying to rally the group in another traditional Hebrew hymn in our siddur: “Imagine,” which according to one overeager part of Sachlav 418 who just skimmed was written by R&B artist “John Legend.”
From here we had the first of our Kibbutz meals. We knew where to sit because a placard with Moshe’s name is on our tables. The meal, and all other evening meals unless otherwise specified, consisted of: chicken, beef, potatoes; a hot vegetable vegetarian option; a thin broth soup with tiny, square crackers; bread and hummus; and a cold bar with various slaws, chicken salad, corn salad and a cold simmus (beef and potatoes). Also, we had more of the grape juice wine.
Next did speed-dating in the clubhouse. Chairs were laid out into two, concentric circles the inner circle got to sit comfortably as a revolving gallery of new people moved clockwise around them and into other chairs where another, anchor of a date sat firmly moored. Moshe had at first arranged the circle so that the guys would all remain seated. Needless to say the girls wouldn’t hear of it and many made a march for the inner chairs while the more gentlemanly men abdicated their spots. I wasn’t one of those men. I was in the inner circle which made me feel big. Like I was interviewing friend prospects. I should have had a cigar and a switch on my armrest that opened a trapdoor to a shaft of ravenous cobras if the person before me failed to engage my interest. Like that show Shark Tank. That’s how it works, right? Except with sharks and not snakes?
But when the time came to ask these people questions--dark, probing ones that would unlock their innermost psyches and send them reeling into insanity--I mainly asked them where they were from. And, later, when I couldn’t think of any better exchange I would ask them the most interesting question someone asked them. I would also spend the better half of my time with these “dates” considering how I’d answer the question myself. One time I had two people approach my chair at once, tag team style: Barbara and Rebecca. I didn’t know what to do with this or who to look at and they ultimately proved quite resistant to my questioning. Like Teflon, they were.
I spent the most time talking to Greg. Now, this wasn’t Greg of New Jersey (who comprised the second half of the G-centric two-hander Garrett and Greg (or G-Unit)), nor was it counselor Greg. No, this was Greg from Minnesota and henceforth: Good Guy Greg. Greg and I talked for a spell about his time abroad in Thailand and a job he got in Kraft Foods’ marketing department that doesn’t begin till May and he shared his plans to extend and stay with family in Tel Aviv. I admired all this, though it cast quite the shadow on my not-job, not-travel state of things. In fact, the mention of jobs and the extended, one-on-one format now established reminded me a bit more than I’d like to of an interview process. I’m pretty sure that of the twenty odd people whom I engaged with in the span of this half hour, I would have booked exactly zero jobs with their personal enterprises and not for lack of trying. This was sobering, but going to the bar after the activity proved to be the opposite.
The “bar” at Kibbutz Hokuk was a small convenience store attached to the dining hall that sells groceries—among them, liquor. Outside there was a little courtyard area with a couple of tables. We snaked a wire into the store and played some music off of David C’s iPad. I bought a beer which tasted like Budweiser and an anxious Yaron came up to me asking if I locked our door.
I absolutely did not. I had never been more sure of anything in my life. In fact, I completely forgot I had the key, which I only had because I forgot my kippah in the room. I left my half empty (read into it what you will, but in beer and spirits it’s always emptier than fuller) beer with Yaron and walked back in the direction I came. I got lost. I came back. I explained to Yaron how I got lost and our medic, Idan said that it’s ridiculous to lock your door in a kibbutz because Socialism, I guess. But Yaron wanted me to do it anyway and that’s fair because the people around us are not friendly, egalitarian Israelis with families. They’re grubby, Capitalist American twenty-somethings. Counselor Rebecca started walking back to the rooms so I followed her and locked our door. By the time I was back the crowd had gotten thicker and the people running the store closed up shop, pulling the plug on the music and they slid their shudders down. Counselor Greg moved the iPad and started up Timber by Ke$ha and Pitbull. Then Greg had some real talk with Greg and Garrett. Not sure about what. Jenna Instagramed a group picture.
The crowd thinned out as the lone, nasal voice of some Aussie bloke crowed ‘Advance Australia Fair.’ Like any good cartoon douchebag he had an entourage of two flunkies. A quiet one and one who agreed with everything he said and had a potentially latent romantic interest in him. Almost everyone in our party had the good sense to leave at this point. I stuck around like an asshole and engaged the young Australians, who were on a month long Birthright, in a political discussion. They had questions for me. Javiar (another old friend of John and Yaron’s) and I answered them as ably as we could (Javy did better).
The main guy was actually pretty reasonable for someone who had a heart shaved into his chest. I should clarify. This was the inverse Austin Powers look. He didn’t shape his chest hair into a heart. He shaved away hair from the center of his chest and made his skin the heart. The hair was just the background and then there was a little, light up plastic necklace of a heart that they give to raver babies dangling there, too. This was an absurd human being, but even he recognized how absurdly lax America’s gun control is.
I was the last one there talking to them. No, wait, Amanda and Matt were there too but they talked amongst themselves. We walked home up the hill together. Jay and Yaron were dead asleep.
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