Dog Days

"Dog Days" are the hottest, most sultry days of summer...usually fall[ing] between early July and early September... Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant...

[In ancient Rome] Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813. (Wikipedia)

These are days of tragedy and grief. Syria is in chaos, as the government ravages its people. Floods continue to pound Southern Africa, while in the East children are dying of draught. The Greek economic crisis threatens all of Europe, and fills its own citizens with despair. Growing unemployment, inconsistent health care coverage and budgetary wars threaten the health, and the homes, of millions of Americans. Our own nation's ongoing anger at inaccessible housing has erupted into demonstrations and tent cities. And this morning I awoke to learn that Y, the sweet, strong and healthy 25-year-old son of friends from my teen years, collapsed yesterday -- inexplicably -- of a heart attack. In a few hours from now he will be buried in a Southern California cemetery.

It must be human nature, that among the unfathomable grief on faceless human beings around the world, one young man's death has hit me so hard.

I haven't seen Y since he was a child, but throughout my teenage years, his parents taught me a formative lesson in true hospitality. Time and geography have led me to lose immediate touch with the family for the past few years, though I've thought of them often. I remember his deep dark eyes, his energy, and his siblings. S, his older sister, is a talented writer while younger sister E was always a bright and energetic spark. Together, they were three of the most beautiful, talented, well-rounded and mature children I have encountered. Now they are only two. They did not have to say goodbye.

* * * * *

A few days ago, I thought I was having a bad week. Our beautiful and affectionate cat, barely out of kittenhood, was cruelly mauled to death in the street by neighborhood dogs, most likely ones owned by irresponsible neighbors. In the fallout, the neighborly high following our family's celebration from last month collapsed like a blown-out mine of precious metals; sadness and anger took its place. Much thought, and a carefully-worded neighborhood email followed, whereby I took our dog-owning neighbors to task -- not by name -- and was rewarded with both words of support, and the inevitable rejoinders of denial.

For a few days, the stressful burden of ill will and mutual suspicion pretty much outstripped the sorrow of losing our lovely little feline. But, I thought, Ahhh, such are The Nine Days. "כפרה עליך" (kaPAra aLAyich) as they say. An atonement for past errors, and a gentle reminder to treasure the good things. Our fate is not in our hands.

Now I imagine the family, waking to a morning with no Y, and another, and another. I picture them gathered together, enveloped by their community, crying out in despair, with shock and disbelief filling every corner of the house.

* * * * *

A few months back I was in class on a minor fast day -- Asara b'Tevet -- and my teacher, a convert to Judaism, remarked,

You know, this religion is so fixed on depression. Why do we need so many fast days? Why can't we be adding more holidays and celebrations instead? It's not good for us...

I imagine he knows a thing or two about depressed peoplehood, having both African- and Native American roots. When I think of two nations with more than their share of calamity and maltreatment, these two come to mind.

Thing is, I was kind of torn. On the one hand, he's right. Why do we insist on indulging in sorrow, guilt and mourning, year after year, four times a year, commemorating events some of which are so historically obsolete as to be almost ridiculous. Why, in fact, should we keep Asara b'Tevet on the books, when it commemorates [the beginning of] the destruction of a Temple -- the First Temple -- that has since been both rebuilt and re-destroyed?!

It is easy, even natural, to side with the thinking that suggests this type of mourning is no longer in step with our national timeline. Maybe such harping on the negative even weakens our collective conscience, at a time when we need to be investing all our emotional energies into increasing our sense of resilience. Can wallowing in our collective sorrow really help us?

On the other hand, we've harbor a tendency to hang on to our traditions, obsolete as they might seem, and for the most part this does us more good than harm.

* * * * *

Either way, Tisha b'Av stands apart from the four minor fasts. We don't just grab one day, midyear, and assign it historical importance, long since superseded by subsequent national events. We enter a process of reverse-mourning, and we give ourselves nearly a month to do it, scraping away, little by little, at our every-day comforts until we come to feel some sense of loss.

And yet, despite all these collective efforts, I know I am not alone in saying that most years, it's a real challenge to really make the loss feel tangible. No Temple? No big deal. We've gone without that for nearly two millennia. As for the victims -- the previous generations who died at the hands of the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans -- they'd all be long gone by now in any event. How can I learn to feel that loss deeply and personally?

We don't fool ourselves either -- as mourning goes, this is not exactly the Real Deal. Unlike individual mourners, physically demarcated and emotionally isolated from their visitors, on Tisha b'Av we all sit together on the floor, reading out Lamentations for all to hear. When Tisha b'Av ends, we don't isolate ourselves, avoiding haircuts and new clothes and parties. We resume our lives, since we have not, in fact, just lost a mother, a child, a brother.

Unless, G-d forbid, we have.

This Tisha b'Av I will continue struggle, as I do every year, to make our ancient national losses feel personal. But this year, I know, this personally-felt loss will echo the national tragedy it truly is.

May the family be comforted among the mourners of Tzion and Jerusalem.

Keep the balance,

ALN

See a previous post on prophets & the Three Weeks.

Nationalism on Their Young Minds

Mommy, I wish I know all the languages. Then I could understand everyone. A brief pause, a puzzled look. And a question: Mommy! am I Israeli or American?

Just when I'm thinking Blondini Boy -- all six years of him -- only has Playmobil and Chaos Faction2 on his mind.

Even now I'm not sure exactly what he was after. Did our recent international influx of family visitors spark geographic, or perhaps linguistic, confusion? Was the very concept of multiple citizenship at odds with his developmental stage and notable tendency toward concrete thinking? Or was I merely underestimating his latent capability for immature existential musings?

I told BBoy he was definitely Israeli, having been born and lived his entire life here in Israel. I emphasized that he was also part American -- and part British, by virtue of his parentage (just to further confuse things), following up with a mandatory footnote, that it is possible to be several things at once, even while you can only live in one place at a time.

He accepted all of that. In other words, I got off easy.

Flash forward, to last Tuesday. J, my work colleague and close friend for over a decade, has rightly insisted that if we don't get ourselves together this week, our breakfast out will have to wait another month until after Ramaddan.

We have a lot to talk about, now that each of us has taken the year off work, to study and recharge....we've missed an awful lot of lunchtime chit-chat. Beyond our common work interests, our kids are of similar ages, and so there are mutual updates and parental wisdom to share, conundrums to analyze and discuss.

I pick up J at her home and forty minutes later we are walking the streets of Jerusalem's historic German Colony heading for my favorite cafe. Once seated, I apologize for having dragged her into such an American venue, but then imagine that for her, being a minority here among the Americans might just be more comfortable.

As always, our conversation tends toward education -- our own studies, the kids' schools -- and our personal and childrearing dilemmas. Her children attend private schools, one secular modeled on the American public school system, the other French Christian with a Muslim majority student body. (Her kids already speak four languages between the two of them).

Together we review pros and cons of separate-sex education, secular education, multi-lingual education, the Education Ministry. Her approach toward nondenominational school prayer comes up, as does my [livid] reaction to my daughter's science teacher's refusal to teach Darwinism because "it conflicts with the Torah" (along with the school principal's support of such behavior on the grounds that "teaching evolution might confuse the girls' spiritual development." (Another time). As always, we found a common interest, and common ground, in every topic.

(For many years J and I worked together in the same department, and from an early stage we began planning our group lesson plans together. I always felt at ease, knowing that her translation of my words would come across exactly as I meant it. If you've ever worked through a translator, you'll understand why this is not something to be taken for granted).

Now here I was, telling J about BBoy's nationality question. Turns out her daughter L, age 8, had recently popped an even bigger one: Mama, do we live in Israel or Palestine?

Hmmm.

J answered in Talmudic style, a question for a question. What do you think? Do we live in Israel or Palestine? L thought about it and answered, Palestine, because everyone here speaks Arabic.

J took a deep breath. Then in a brilliant Uncharted Parenting move, J pulled out a map.

I began to describe, place by place, the areas of Arab settlement, and of Jewish settlement. I explained that there had been one war, and then another, and so things shifted, and that, more recently, the Jewish areas expanded until some of them ran into the Arab ones. I pointed out places that were under Israel's jurisdiction ("Israel"), and places supervised by the PA ("Palestine").

Then she repeated L's own question back at her: Where do you think we live? T concluded that she lives in Israel, but goes to school in Palestine (her school is in East Jerusalem).

Put politics aside, as most eight-year-olds tend to do, and this ends up being a pretty precise answer.

I probably don't need to point out the obvious: J lives in two worlds that don't always fit together. She is proud of her Muslim-Arab heritage, proud her family has lived where it has for over ten generations. Yet she appreciates all the good things her state has to offer -- the opportunities, the education, the freedom. J loves Judaism and completed a bagrut in תנ"ך (Bible) and תושב"ע (the Oral Law) and probably knows more about them than I do. Yet if she's at work during the siren on Yom haZikaron (Memorial Day) she finds a private corner in which to sit, so as not to feel she is betraying one part of herself at the expense of the other.

I don't judge J for all of that. I embrace her for trying to find that ephemeral middle ground between sensitivity and dignity, assimilation and self preservation. (I'm trying to find it too, only this time, for the first time, I'm of the majority). Over the years, our parallel perspectives as minority citizens, searching for the common ground, have blessed our friendship with a mutual understanding neither of us has found too easily elsewhere.

J, have a meaningful Ramaddan.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Next up: Natural resource privatization issues, out of the mouths of babes.

Meetingplace / Marketplace

The short flight had been uneventful.  As we disembark, Blondie Boy waves a casual Shalom to the two youngish ground crewmen assigned to monitor passenger progression from plane to gate.  I try to focus his awareness to the idea that from now on, for the next few weeks, he must speak English to those around him.  The next day, in the Brent Cross shopping mall, Elder Princeski wonders if we will encounter any Israelis here.   My response -- Just keep your ears open! -- is cut short by a mother speaking Hebrew to her two kids as they cross our path toward the escalator.

Brent Cross is a multicultural hub;  families from everywhere, kids of all skin tones.  Women in robes, dresses, headscarves in a spread of colors both bright and drab.   An endless flow of mother tongues, alongside English delivered in multiple cadences.  And so many Jews, they barely glance at one another in any attempt for recognition.   My own moderate headscarf does not register a perceptible glance from anyone, and I feel a sort of relativity effect, an at-oddness with both the bare-headed, spaghetti strap world on my left, and the thoroughly wrapped opacity on my right.  Neither covering, nor lack of one, exposes the ideas and beliefs within the minds around me.

If I were a white Christian male here, I would feel left out, slightly noteworthy, a minority. Perhaps this rainbow effect now means the white majority no longer feels comfortable coming here.  Perhaps it no longer exists, or never did.

At home I sometimes joke about retail therapy, the occasional -- and temporary -- pick-me-up for an emotional trying day at work.   Abroad, it has already become both a chore, albeit an enjoyable one, and an opportunity.  Elder P taking mental notes on the people around her, asking few questions while, I can assume, sitting tight on others which will surface eventually. She's an observant kid, she knows how to make comparisons, and one day soon knowing the answers will become more urgent.

Meanwhile, my headspace is still lingering back at home, ruminating over its own troubled comparisons.  If, here, those people wearing head coverings are drawing any suspicion, I cannot feel it, although they themselves might.  

The marketplace has always been a meeting place, and no less now than before, among our skylights and window dressings and vast air-conditioned spaces.  Retail as the great commons, or commonality.  I enjoy being here, and even knowing such a place exists, whether I come to purchase, or to find comfort and captivation in the purchasers.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Into Another World

(If you missed it, see Maybe I Should Write About It).

The view from their living room window -- dry hills interspersed with grasses and low-lying bushes -- was oddly familiar, in that I could have mistaken it for the California of my childhood. 

I had parked the car on the street above.  There was plenty of parking;  most residents in this area don't know how to drive a car and cannot afford one.  The early afternoon air was hot and still.  The inside car temperature approached that of an oven from the moment I shut off the engine.  

I crossed the sidewalk, paused, and headed toward the double flight of stairs.  To my left, three middle-aged, dark-skinned men squatted over a flattened carton, dealing cards.  The stairs, framed by simple metal railings, abutted a series of dirt-filled, half-meter brick tiers in an uneven stack like some child's haphazard block construction.  They led me down to one of a series of dreary dun developments, each four stories high and six living units across, fronted by an empty patch of dusty soil.  Most of the buildings carried a rusty sign vainly remarking a municipal-sponsored refurbishment in 1976, and despite this, they all looked as though they had somehow survived five decades or more.

As expected, there were no signs pointing the way toward the house of mourning.  The numbering was haphazard and I could not find the right building.  In response to my query, an older man placed his hands on my shoulders and literally rotated my body to the right and downward.  

His murmuring suggested I had a ways to walk, and the apartment I sought was in fact the last one in the staggered row of developments.   As I followed along the row of buildings, there was a smell, of pungent, unfamiliar spice and slightly fermented grains, which seemed to grow in intensity as I approached the entrance.

The door of one of the ground-floor apartments had been left wide open, and the spotless living room floor reflected an image of a hefty woman lounging on her sofa.  She jumped in with an answer  before I could get the question out.  "Where -- ?"  "Up on the third floor."

The door was closed and had no markings on or around it, save a mezuzah with a cheap plastic cover.  Inside the house, the extended family -- his mother, sister, two brothers, four aunts, three uncles and a cousin -- nearly filled the small living room.  His mother had a black mourning cape draped over one shoulder, and as I entered she glanced up, sighed and shifted the cape to her lap, stood, and clung to me.   She sat down, sighed, and offered me a chair near the middle of the room.   "My heart..."

A foursome of aunts and uncles sat around a coffee table playing cards, throwing each card onto one of four piles with an aggressive THWAP.  Somehow, it felt only slightly out of place.  His sister poured me a cup of cola, which his mother refilled after every sip I took.  She exchanged a few words with her daughter.  I was waiting for a translation, some statement about how it was all over, or referring to his time in the hospital.  But no.

He had some new clothes, the sister related.  They're in G's office.  Do you think you can talk to him about getting them back?

Of course.  His brother would be needing those clothes, so carefully chosen only two months before.  

The mother continued her conversation with an aunt who was sitting across from us, while I talked to the sister and made a few phone calls in an unsuccessful attempt to contact the cable TV representative and ask him to come pick up the cable box which nobody in the household now has a use for.  

Sometime later, we exchanged good-byes and I made my way back down three stories, along six dreary buildings, and up two outside flights to street level.  I got in my car, drove out of the neighborhood and back into to my infinitely more complex, familiar -- and for now, sadder -- world.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Finally, Finally, Finally

Ahh, how I wish I could stick to this writing business -- and all the other things in my life -- with regularity, enthusiasm, and a clear head.  I look around in jealousy and wonder at all the regular bloggers, and I know darn well most of them also have lives (Read: families, jobs, friends, hobbies households) that slurp their time down to the last drop.

I owe a big thank you to Ricki's Mom, who tagged me with the Honest Scrap Award nearly a month ago and I'm only getting a response together now.  In general, I owe a big thank you to Ricki's Mom because I find her writing interesting, honest, inspirational and empowering, and hers is one of the first blogs I run to when I've fallen out of the blog loop and want to get back on it.

Rules:  Ten honest things about me, then pass it on to seven bloggers.  Honestly, I dunno about the second part.  I wish I had the time to read seven blogs these days... but let's give it a go:

1.  I've been through almost every version of vegetarianism that there is (excepting, perhaps, fructarianism, which is just a little overboard for me).  Lacto-ovo, lacto, vegan, even juice diets.   For the past decade or so, I've come to terms with a lacto-ovo-pescetarian diet.  Works for me.

2.  I believe in balance.  Not a new concept to you, my readers, but how does it manifest in my life?  Example:  I consider myself an observant Jew, and cover my hair, but usually wear trousers -- as opposed to skirts -- because it's much more comfortable for me, physically and emotionally.  (This may be because I did not grow up in a religious household, but then again, maybe it wouldn't have mattered either way). 

3.  For an American, I use way too many Britishisms in my speech.  Probably the influence of That Guy I Married.  He's from London.  Not his fault.  

4.  I spent hours of my childhood either up in trees or down among the weeds and bushes.  I used to pet the bees I found there.

5.  My family is multi-cultural.  By this I mean that I have an Indian sister-in-law.  I have joined her family in their place of worship (they are Sikh, strict monotheists) and despite the many difficulties and challenges of intermarriage, I feel a certain kinship with them that is hard to explain in words.  (And they have the most beautiful clothes -- they have given me several outfits).

6.  I love to dance, and I don't mean folk dance.  Hip-hop, modern, street dancing.  I shut the blinds and open the windows and crank up the MP3 and go nuts.  Also while cooking.  I get chopped onions & garlic all over the place.

7.  Two years ago I decided it was (past) time to start reading in Hebrew.  I don't mean signs and menus, I mean books.  Novels.  Nonfiction.  It demands more concentration but -- I know this sounds crazy -- when I read in Hebrew, I get this feeling of the juices flowing in a different area of my brain, and I like it.

8.  I am ever grateful to RivkA  for getting me started in the blogosphere.  Before I read her blog, I hardly knew what a blog was.  Once I read hers, I thought -- what a great idea!  Now I'll be forced to write, my family will have automatic updates about my life, and I might even develop a modest fan club.  All for free.  What could be better?  (Then I discovered the catch:  I actually have to write regularly, and not just think about writing).

9.  I work with sick kids all day, of all different ages and cultures and sizes and shapes and intellectual capacities.  I've been doing this for quite awhile now, and I think I've got the basics down by now.  So why am I always wondering whether I'm doing the right thing with my own kids?  It's a mystery.

10.  Working with those very sick kids, for so many years has probably skewed my view of life just a bit, in that I tend to view life as a very limited thing, to be cherished and pushed to the fullest, every second.  Which is why I am in a constant, sleep-deprived and hypo-caloric state and cannot get enough of what this world has to offer:  family, work, hobbies, etc, etc.  Just dangle it in front of me, and I will probably try to pack it into my already-bursting schedule.  

Which reminds me, I have to go back to studying now (I have an anatomy-physiology exam on Thursday), push Always the Imp along on her bike, make supper, plan a work presentation, and book a trial lesson with the guitar teacher.  Among other things.

I really can't do seven right now, but can we settle for Coffee and Chemo, SuperRaizy, Shilo Musings, Here in HP and The Rebbetzin's Husband?  You're all it (and if you've already been through a round of this, please forgive me... I'm behind the times).

Keep the balance,

ALN

PS:   Mother in Israel -- you too!

Scales are Tipped Down, Way Down, by the PA

Since beginning pediatric hospital work over a decade ago, I've shown a tendency to divide circumstances -- that is, reasons for hospitalization -- into two artificially neat categories:  Man-made, and G-d-made.  

Examples of the former include falls from upper-story windows, hot-water burns, and car "accidents."  The latter run a spectrum, from "less serious," (i.e. dangerous but curable) illnesses like RSV, Hanoch-Schlein and cellulitis, to acutely life-threatening maladies like Crohn's, SCID, CF, and acute myeloid leukemia.  

Believe it or not, in many ways I had a much harder time in Pediatric Surgical, working with kids injured as a result of the "man-made" stuff.  Why?  I was constantly troubled by the thought that most of the injuries there were preventable;  Falls resulting from unsupervised climbs along an unfenced roof edge or an unbarred third-story window.  Shabbat kettle burns?  See Prof K's posts, here and here, for more on that.  (Yes, I've referenced these before, and I'll probably keep doing it until the problem is no more).  Car-related injuries?   I won't start ranting here about street safety or seat belt use, but please pretend I did.

As for the G-d-made part -- we can't prevent that stuff.  It's just not our jurisdiction.  We can only try to cure it.  And if we cannot cure a child's illness, we can still try to help that child find comfort and meaning until the end.

But now we are stuck in a new situation, where life-threatening, G-d-made circumstances have been further complicated by man-made decisions.

I am, of course, referring to the February 1, 2009 decision of the Palestinian Authority to cease nearly all payments to Israeli hospitals, thereby cutting off hundreds of Palestinian children (and adults) with life-threatening illnesses from the medical care they need. 

  

Let's not turn this situation into another political discussion.  Because for me, and so many others, this is not a theoretical situation involving some unnamed, unknown enemy.  This is a new reality, where over fifty children, all of which I know personally on one level or another -- some for several years now -- have been given a death sentence by way of a governmental policy of collective medical neglect.

When I let myself think about it, or when circumstances force me to think about this new reality, sadness creeps in and hits me, literally, in the face.  Our department is half empty, which for us staff members could be viewed as a glass half-full, since we've been working at a slower pace these past few weeks and can take a few minutes to breathe now and then.

But then someone like A -- a beautiful, bright and sensitive teenage girl whom we have been treating for a leukemia for the past four months -- suddenly shows up in our department with a nearly lethal systemic infection because she no longer had a commitment from the PA to pay for her treatments.

What about all the others?  Some of them are in touch with us by phone, while others have been so difficult to contact, it's as if they have disappeared into thin air.   All are pleading desperately, crying at the desks of the PA bureaucrats who have the power to make a life-changing decision but choose not to.  These officials have claimed they will sponsor parallel treatment in an Egyptian, Jordanian, or even Europe -- anywhere but Israel -- but with very few exceptions, we've yet to encounter evidence that our patients are receiving any treatment whatsoever.   

Every once in awhile a rumor flits through the department -- that so-and-so has died of a deadly infection in some PA hospital somewhere.  So far these rumors have proven false, but it's only a matter of time before they are not.  Chemotherapy protocols are measured in days and hours.  A lost week is an acute risk;  a lost month, or even a fever, is a death sentence.  

If we could treat for free, we would.  But we can't, because the funding would come out of our department budget, such that within a month even one patient's treatment would empty the coffers and shut down the department.  A few of our staff have even dug into their pockets so that certain individual patients could have this one medical test or that course of life-saving antibiotics.  A few miniscule drops into a very deep bucket.

This past Monday we were all relieved to learn that A's family managed to confirm her East Jerusalem resident status, allowing us to continue the treatment that will, most likely, save her life.  This morning, the Palestinian Authority's Committee of Medical Exceptions purportedly met to review the list of children requesting funding in to continue treatment in Israeli hospitals for long-term, life-threatening illnesses.  

I can only hope that tomorrow morning, all of our lost patients will be knocking down our doors, PA funding commitments in hand.

Keep the balance,

ALN

____

While this situation has affected patients in hospitals throughout the country, for whatever reason most of the (limited) PR refers to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.  See the NY Times piece here, and the JTA piece here.

Be'er Sheva: One Principal Rewriting the Status Quo

(Read this post first if you haven't yet caught my posts about last month's in-service in Be'er Sheva).

We are traveling by air-conditioned bus, having driven Road 60 out of Be'er Sheva and east onto Road 31, north of Be'er Sheva, toward Arad and the Dead Sea.  We have now turned right off the paved main road and I wish we were back on it, since all this bouncing along an exceptionally bumpy dirt road, even at 20 km/h, has made me completely car sick.  As I snap photos out the window, I am trying not to throw up all over the vehicle's well-preserved upholstery.

Welcome to the pezura.  The word pezura -- פזורה -- is Hebrew for dispersion and refers to approximately half a million dunam (equivalent to about 175,00 acres) of unrecognized land, containing 50,000 unlicensed houses, and many, many more people, spread throughout the desert.  Within the Negev there are seven recognized Beduin towns:  Rahat, Tel Sheva, Kseifa, Arara, Segev Shalom, Houra and Laqiyya, and half the southern Beduin population lives within these towns (reference here).  As for the the other half, they live throughout the Dispersion, where there are no electricity lines, no water pipes or central sewage systems, no garbage collection.  With very few exceptions, there are no official schools. 

In the middle of all this brown, dusty emptiness is one exception, a literal oasis of a school. Amal is Arabic for hope, and the Amal School is aptly named.  Kids from kindergarten through high school arrive here every morning by bus, from all over the pezura.  The long, dusty road is literally in the middle of nowhere, and if a child misses the bus, he misses school for the day.  

We are welcomed at the entranceway and led across the school's courtyard --  an expansive pebbled area containing trees and a paved central area -- and into the library, where drinks and cookies have been set out for us.  

The school principal enters and apologizes for not having met us at the gate. He introduces himself as Khalil Elkorm, now in his twelfth year as school principal, and his twentieth in the Israeli Education ministry.*  

His presence fills the room as he launches into an energetic talk about his educational philosophy, the main thrust of which is that schools must find a variety of ways to educate, beyond the traditional frontal teaching style, and that any new educational program, as good as it may sound at first, must be tested and adapted to the needs of the children in system, before it can be thrust upon them.  

Over the years, Khalil has helped to establish after-school enrichment programs, hot meal programs, and an on-site medical clinic so that the parents will be involved in their children's education, without compromising all that has been accomplished by the sectarian and tribal conflicts that would work in opposition to Khalil's educational priorities for his 650 pupils. When asked how he deals with the intergenerational conflict that must arise between these modern-educated children and their conservative parents, Khalil described in further detail how he learned the hard way, that the school must guide the parents, and not the opposite, or change will never happen.

Following our talk Khalil brings us to the kindergarten area, fenced off from the rest to give these youngest pupils a chance to have their own safe space before moving up to first grade.

Unlike the camera-savvy grade-school children who have already mobbed us, begging to be photographed, these little ones are still shy and wary of visitors, but after a few minutes their smiles break through and they are happy to have us watch them solve problems in small groups.

Back in the courtyard, Khalil explains that it is election day in the local towns.  In honor of this event, a group of older girls are conducting mock elections, standing in two straight lines as they wait to cast their vote the ballot box.

I'm pretty impressed by their ability to stand there patiently, and wonder how much of it has to do with the teachers observing along the sidelines, or whether, as girls, they have just gotten used to being told to wait their turn.  I think about the ramifications of what they are doing.  How many of these girls will actually get to vote in an election in their lifetimes? They face so many hurdles:  As women in a men-dominated society, and as an under-recognized minority living in unrecognized areas. 

Khalil is clearly very proud of his school and its accomplishments, and for him this means rejecting his society's status quo.  "His" girls are already voting, even if their votes will not influence this year's election.  

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

*  Khalil gave me his full permission to be featured here.

Be'er Sheva, in Retrospect

It's been awhile.... all good things:  Family wedding coming up, work presentation last Sunday, and other details I won't bore you with.

If you're a regular reader here (kudos to you!) you're aware of my in-service training last month at Beit Yatziv, a continuing education center for teachers, located within a historical neighborhood of the southern desert city of Be'er Sheva.  It was my intention to blog live from down there, but they kept us so busy (classes from 8 am to 10 pm), with some rest and lots of food in between) that I couldn't keep up.  It was also very clear at the time that those moments between classes, lectures and workshops were digestion time for the brain.  The few posts I did managed from there are available here, here and here.

Meanwhile (yesterday afternoon, in fact) we met to kick off this year's series of bimonthly workshops on multiculturalism in the work place.  I and several others were pleased to learn that the emphasis of our discussions will not be limited to Jewish-Arab -- and other religion- and race- considered -- relations, but will also focus on organizational issues and the discrepancies between the hospital/medical organizational culture and our own educational culture within it.

Not all of the staff participants of the bimonthly meetings were present at Beit Yatziv, and the opposite, but as we begin this new series of meetings, the experience in Be'er Sheva remains at the forefront of my mind, with the field trip to the surrounding Beduin areas at the locus of that experience.

I'll begin with where we did not go.  We did not enter any private homes or tents.  With the exception of school children, we did not meet "ordinary" Beduins.  We met some of the exceptions;  the role models, the risk takers, the mould breakers.  All of them are well known in their respective communities, respected by some and resented by others, for daring to go against the grain and change the status quo.  In the next few days I'll introduce you to them, one at a time.  Stay posted.

Keep the balance,

ALN

"Maybe I Should Write About It..."

I know, we're not supposed to have favorites.  Or at least, we're not supposed to show them.

But I won't lie to myself, or to you.  I have favorite patients.   And they're not necessarily the sweetest ones, or the friendliest ones, or the ones that always draw a crowd of staff members and volunteers, because they're so darn cute.

OK, I like those patients, too.  I love them, really.  But they aren't my favorites.

My favorite patients are the ones who tell their stories, share their lives, plunge the depths, with an authenticity that astounds.  It expresses itself, often as not, through a mighty silence, a reclaiming of their lives via quiet refusal, or restrained acknowledgement.

T is nineteen years old.  He was meant to have graduated high school last year with a diploma and a qualifying certificate in electronics, but he didn't make it back to school to finish his senior year.  

Meanwhile his hair has grown back, springy dark corkscrews that he still feels a need to hide under a baseball cap.   During last week's visit he was short on patience, fasting before a procedure, so our conversation was brief and centered around Spanish football teams.

This morning, though, T is feeling much better, sitting in Outpatient waiting for his regular check-up, and --surprise -- he wants to talk.   I ask him about the Sidge festival two weeks ago, a holy day for Ethiopian Jews, during which they celebrate aliyah and gather to pray for all Jews to return to the Holy Land.   T claims not to know too much about it, then changes his approach.  

What kind of respect do you think olim deserve? he asks me.  Point blank.  Immigrant to immigrant.   No beating around the bush, and no whitewashing.  

I think immigrants like me, from the United States, get a lot more respect than immigrants like you, from Ethiopia.  

He responds by giving me one of his fantastic smiles that announces:  At last, the truth comes out!  We discuss the discrepancies, the race-based unfairnesses.  We don't get into too much detail, since T is the type that likes to hint at things before laying his trust on the line.  With him, you gotta earn it, over and over.

You know, when we get here, they don't even recognize our university degrees.   No, I did not know that.  I also had no idea that T attended school for the first time only after moving, at age twelve, from his rural village to the far away city of Gondar.  He's telling me this, and I'm imagining a preteen, illiterate village boy falling like Dorothy into a foreign world whose very name sounds nearly Tolkien.  In Gondar T studied math and learned to speak a few basic words of English, though this barely helped him two months later when he arrived in Israel.  My mouth was already too old to learn to speak right, he explains, sticking his tongue out and demonstrating the difficulties he had, shaping that adolescent mouth into the words of yet another set of foreign sounds.

How many times can one kids move?  Multiple times, it turns out.  Once in Israel, he moved from an absorption center in the South to a development town in the Center, to a dormitory trade school along the West Coast, and then... leukemia.  Back down south for treatments. Recovery, and back to school.

Relapse.  

New hospital, new people, new living situation.  T recounts each step but leaves the details behind.

I'm sitting there, trying to follow all of this while keeping track of the number of times he moved in a span of six years.  So far I've counted seven.

Eight, he corrects me, and hints that there were more, prior to his family's move to Gondar. He pauses.  I've been thinking, maybe I should write a book, about all those moves.  

Pretty impressive idea for such a private person.  You'd be good at that, I tell him. Especially since you've been through things no one else has.  He faces me with that intense glance of his. What do you mean?   

He's not looking for me to tell him something new, of course.  He's testing me.  Not as a rebellious teenager, but as someone who has been through so much, he's almost given up believing that anyone else could get it. Especially a Western immigrant like me, with my light skin and state-recognized diplomas.

Well, you're different from most of the other people around here, I continue.  For one thing, you come from a different place, and you can't hide that.  Everyone sees it, right away.  

Now T is staring. What else? he says, waiting, so I continue.  

Beyond that, you've been through all of this.  You know what to expect -- the treatments, the tests, the pain, the complications.   You understand the threat hanging over your head, better than you ever did before.   I pause.  But there's one more thing, the most important thing of all.

He looks astounded, transfixed.  

You're different from other people.  Your personality is different.  You see the people around you;  you see a lot and you notice things.  But you don't jump to open your mouth and talk about it.  You keep your observations to yourself, until you know you can trust someone, and then --  maybe -- you share your thoughts with that person.

His expression says it all:  This revelation, this conversation, is the real thing.  This person might just get it, just a little... so maybe sharing one's inner thoughts and feelings is worth the occasional risk.  

(It's a risk for me, too, not having a direct way of understanding T's thought patterns until he --  or I -- voice them.  A serious misreading of his emotional and cognitive process would only have further isolated him by enforcing his belief that others cannot understand him).

Later on, I offer to help T start the writing process by typing into the computer as he narrate. He hesitates.  As with everything else, he wants to think about it first, on his own, and get back to me. 

We agree to discuss the option the next time we meet.  

Keep the balance,

ALN

Live from Be'er Sheva 3 - Field Trip

In a few minutes we'll be getting onto a bus that will take us to visit local Beduin women and learn about their lives.  I don't know what to expect, but I intend to take notes and photos.  Stay posted..

ALN

Live from Be'er Sheva 2 - Nationality and Identity

Our first session this afternoon focused on a historical look at the concept of nationality (לאום) and religion, and how there tendency in Israel to confuse the two.  Since this was a short introduction to a very broad concept, I'll try to get back to it in a later post.

We just finished a workshop run by two group leaders from the Merchavim Institute, an organization I was not familiar with until today.  They have developed a model for shared citizenship which I plan to peruse soon.

In our group of 25 women from different cultures, working in two hospital schools here in Israel, we met in groups of two, and later four, to share personal answers to focus questions such as,

As a child, what did you want to be "when you grow up?"

What family customs do you remember growing up, that are important for you to continue observing even now?

Which women in your life have inspired your identity as a woman today?

What are some the traditional ways a woman in your culture prepares for her wedding?

The conversations that arose brought forth some fascinating interchanges, and in the group discussion afterwards we came to the conclusion that as women, we had a unique ability to identify with one another and find similarities while simultaneously making note of the differences.  We reviewed the idea that each of us comes with our own home-grown assumptions that we take for granted as the way to do things, and only when we meet someone with a different approach, can we begin to examine our own from a more removed perspective.

Toward the end of our recap, one of the group leaders posed a question:  Did you hear about anyone's family traditions that you wish you could adopt (or adapt) for your own?  

I was pretty surprised by some of the answers.  A couple of the Muslim participants said that they really liked the idea of Shabbat dinner, and that they wished they had a weekly event that would bring their families together for a meal.

Later in the afternoon we started out with a game, where we had to make our way down a path, occasionally collecting chocolate and drafting laws that would affect the entire group.  Some of us were given a head start.

The group dynamic waffled from excitement to wavering enthusiasm, as we all waited for certain groups to effect laws that might benefit all of us, or only the "majority."  There were other blatant discrepancies in the rights of various group members.  See the die?  It only goes up to three.  Note that two of its sides are completely blacked out, meaning that a third of the time, certain players weren't allowed to advance at all.

The day has completely tired me out, so for now you'll have to come up with your own societal metaphor for what took place here.  More tomorrow...

Keep the balance,

ALN

Live from Be'er Sheva

Be'er Sheva is a large-ish city at the Northern edge of the Negev, home to a population of 200,000 from a wide variety of cultures, from Iraqi and Russian immigrants to Beduins who have lived here and the surrounding desert for generations.  Among its many landmarks are the Ben Gurion University, known for its scientific research, a large art museum, and several additional educational sites, spread out over the city's approximately 23,00 acres.

I am here along with some of my colleagues for a three-day in-service training ("hishtalmut") in multicultural studies at Beit Yatziv, the Education Ministry's center for continuing studies in the humanities.  Our program includes about 10 hours a day of lectures, discussions and workshops, with lots of food in between.

Oops, time to get back to class.  More later.... stay posted.

Keep the balance,

ALN

Border Issues

I don't blog politics.  Why is that?  Maybe because there's no trace of balance in politics, making it a lost cause from the start, as far as this blogger is concerned.  I also prefer not to compare apples and oranges, but in this case I'm living, or have lived, close enough to each of these situations to feel the relevancy.

I am referring to state borders and the fences that demarcate them.   This piece appeared in last Tuesday's NY Times, with an accompanying slide show. I found interesting the photo below, showing the simple barbed wire that later progressed into a taller, chained-linked fence, and which is now on its way to being a double fence separated by a no-man's land. 

Pat Nixon, the former first lady, at a dedication of Border Field State Park in 1971. "I hate to see a fence anywhere," she said. 

I know next to nothing about the former First Lady's politics or belief system, but I believe that she did hate to see a fence, probably because it reminds her of the suffering that has always accompanied the building of border fences -- the splitting up of families, suffering of children, economic upheaval, sickness, and loss of hope for the future.   

Seeing the fence would put her human, emotional side at odds with her intellectual understanding of the need for such a fence, and the ramifications of not having one. Forty years ago, the U.S. could only begin to imagine the effects of a mass illegal Central American immigration on the state and national economy, health care and education systems, water needs, and many, many other sectors of society.

So by now you've probably figured out the other border that comes to mind what else I'm thinking about... the wall (alternately referred to as a fence, since in places it does alternate between the two) marking the boundary between pre- and post-1967 Israel, and clearly visible from our house.  

(This view is actually from our neighbors' back garden, since it's clearer than the one from our balcony).

I remember the days before the wall was completed... the multiple car and animal thefts, the helicopter searches for potential terrorists in the valley below our moshav,* the afternoon shut-down of the mall in the city a few kilometers away due to terror warnings (apparently the bombers reached the mall, realized something was amiss, and were caught by the border patrol as they tried to cross back over the border).  Make no mistake:  I am happy the wall is there, because I know that without it, our lives were directly threatened.

I'm aware, as Mrs. Nixon was, that we pay a human price every time we demarcate a boundary and reinforce a border, and also that we pay a different price, both human and economic, every time we don't.  For years we have continued to live for years with a boundary situation that does not fit into a neat category, about which we as a nation have not reached a consensus, and concerning which most of the world feels an obligation to judge us, time and again, despite a naive and simplistic analysis of a very complex situation. And if that weren't enough, we are being "led" by politicians who cannot seem to get their personal or national priorities straight on the most basic of levels.

When I first read the NY Times article, I felt a moment of, Ah!  Take that, California, before you continue to condemn us for protecting our country and its citizens.  

No, this is far from a new issue.  California, and the entire U.S., have been dealing with immigration issues for years, long before President Bush, and long, long before 9/11.  Despite the numerous differences, do we have something to learn from U.S. policy?  Perhaps, but -- bottom line -- most of their considerations are still economic ones.  As much as economics has a direct effect on people's lives, for the most part in the U.S. it isn't considered to be an issue of national survival.  (Well, maybe these days it is...)

As for our multiple difficulties over here, I'm trying to keep a long-term perspective;  after all, with 158 years of statehood under their belts, even California is still trying to figure things out.  

I'm not sure if we should find that scary or reassuring.

.שבת שלום

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

* In case you're wondering, our moshav was incorporated by Jews of North African descent in 1964 who chose to come to Israel but wanted little to do with the state's policy of dumping them upon their arrival in what was then the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night).