Losing English phrases

I was in a pretty important meeting today. I'll spare you the details of my ongoing work sagas, but the short version is that I met with our newest COO-type person about a bad sitch I'd found myself in.

During the meeting, I was trying to explain to him that I don't mess around when it comes to saying what I think. I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but I don't have a problem most of the time saying what's on my mind.

In my head, I was trying to think of that phrase that has to do with bushes. I was thinking, "bushes... bushes... walking... pushing... something bushes..." So what finally came out of my mouth?

"I don't mess around. I don't like walking around bushes."

I guess he figured out what I meant.

1-2 Paragraphs

Last week, one of the rabbis at my parents' Reform synagogue has a request from me. Here's how my reply went:

You wrote: "For my Rosh HaShanah sermon, I'm speaking about supporting Israel and the difference that each individual can make. Would you mind, in 1-2 paragraphs, telling me about your childhood, what made you decide on aliyah, and what you're doing now? Anything else that I could include about you that might inspire others to speak up and act out in support of Israel would be greatly appreciated."

You're hilarious. I'll probably write an entire book about these things... maybe two or three... and you want it in 1-2 paragraphs? HA!

The highlights, I guess...

Even though I didn't grow up with religion in my house, I did grow up hearing stories about my dad's Aunt Esther selling latkes in the park, to raise money for Palestine. I saw pictures of my grandma and grandpa from their trip here. I knew my family supported Israel from before its existence.

My first trip to Israel was the Michigan Unity Mission in January, 2001. It was toward the beginning of the intifada, and we spent a lot of time listening to speakers, meeting Israelis, etc.

I went to home hospitality when we were in our partnership region in the north. While everyone talked about how much food there would be, and how the families would stuff us, I ended up in a place where we had a little fish, some hummus and other salads, and bread. There might have been something for dessert -- I don't remember.

Long story short, I realized later that the family was very poor... and they had shared the little they had with the visitors from their partnership region. That was my "real" introduction to Israelis.

I came back, and lived here during the height of the "intifada," although most of us were bluntly calling it "war" by then.

And somewhere in there, I fell in love with the land; with the people; and with the ideology of Jews coming back to the land we were given thousands of years ago and making it a real place to live.

When I came back to the U.S. at the time for three reasons:
1. Finish my degree
2. Get my apartment and other things settled
3. Share my passion for Israel with as many people as possible

And that's what I did. Now, I work in a company where we are the largest employer of olim in Jerusalem. We're about 1,000 people, having grown from around 40 in 2002. I work in recruiting, which means I actually get to give people jobs. And when work is hard, as it gets pretty regularly, I remind myself that I am a piece of the process of the highest level of tzdaka -- giving a person a way to support him/herself. As well, because we are an outsource company for businesses in America and Europe, we're bringing much-needed money from outside Israel, to be used inside Israel.

I could go on and on about how important it is to support Israel, but until people actually *COME* here, they are not going to have even the beginnings of a real understanding of what that means.

Can it be dangerous here? Yep. No doubt. I had several friends who were refugees a few weeks ago, because they live in the north. At least once a month, the terror alert level in Jerusalem is raised to the extent that there's a security guard at nearly every bus stop in the city center. And there's regular crime, too, unfortunately.

Yet when I get to go on a bus and see a woman hand her baby to a complete stranger, so she can walk up and pay the busdriver, I remember why I'm here.

When I see someone fall down on the street, and I see 10 people run, not walk, to help the person who fell down, I remember why Israel is my home.

People don't have to agree with Israel's policies, but they need to understand that as Jews, they are going to be seen as representatives of Israel, no matter what they do. As much as the antisemites who say they're "not anti-Jewish, but just anti-Israel" want to convince people it's that, the fact is that they ARE anti-Jewish.

Israel is the only country, and the Jews are the only groups of people, who are held to a higher standard than the rest of the world. Millions of people are being murdered in Africa, and we get blamed for defending ourselves after being attacked by rockets. Thousands of baby girls are murdered or given up for adoption in China, but boycotts are organized against academics from Israel. If that's not because we're Jewish, why is it?

Anyway, before I start ranting even more...

What can each individual do to support Israel?

Among other things:

VISIT!
Donate money directly to Israeli charities
Write letters to the newspapers when they see the blatant unfairness of the worldview toward Israel
Be verbally supportive of those who choose to visit and make aliyah. It used to drive me crazy when Jews would freak out at my visits, or when I made it public that I was making aliyah. X-ians didn't do it. Non-religous people didn't do it. Only the Jews... and usually the Jews who hadn't been here yet. If they're afraid -- I can't be the one who says "come anyway," but I can at least be the one who says "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Five years later

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=dayOf911

I'm sure everyone's writing about 9/11 today, and I'm no different.

For an in-depth timeline of 9/11, check out the link above. I'm going through it now, and I keep getting chills.

Having been in Israel since 2 July, I had already experienced what it was like to live in a country where the threat of terror hung over our heads.

But it wasn't until 11 September that most of the rest of the world had to learn how to live like that.

I remember on 11, 12, 13 September, trying to figure out if I should go home. Was there going to be a war? Was Israel going to be attacked next? What was it like being in America?

But I stayed, and while Americans were mostly able to start working their ways out of being constantly afraid, the suicide bombings here happened more and more frequently.

I actually ended up bitter and angry at the way America was capitalizing on the tragedy. It seemed like every other commercial was saying "Now, more than ever..." and that would be followed with "you should be watching Channel 7 to keep up with what's going on in the world." or "you should protect your family by buying X life insurance."

[At the same time, we here in Israel were getting blamed for being attacked, because we "occupy" land where Palestinians live. (The fact that in pretty much every other war since the beginning of civilization, conquering armies were entitled to lands conquered doesn't apply to Jews.)]

Now, five years later, all over the world we're still afraid of terror attacks.

I wish America and those fortunate enough to have been free from such fear could return to the level of innocence it was afforded before 9/11.

Here comes another day

I hate these sorts of days. I semi-wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. It happens around once a week, but usually I'm able to read for a while then get another hour or two of sleep. Today's even worse -- I made the mistake of opening my eyes and realized the dawn had arrived. It was 6:00, and although it was more than an hour before my real "get up time," (I don't wake up until at least 10, ever... but I do have to get up and go to work before 10), I knew sleepy time was over.

So I've been flipping through the news and blogs I like to check out, and listening to classic hip-hop, and I figured I'd write something a little different here from the usual complaints about current events.

I work in an American call center. Sure, we do stuff from Europe, too, but it's mostly American and our parent company is American. I work in Recruitment. That is, I work on hiring people to work in the call center.

I figured out not too long ago that one of the reasons I don't hate my job is that I get to do interviews. I get to ask people questions... and even if they're questions like "What's your dream job?" or "How do you think you'll handle it if someone starts screaming and yelling at you?" it's fun to listen to the answers.

It's not journalism, to be sure, but it's still getting to be nosy and getting paid for it.

But I don't love my job, either.

And the thing is, most of us crazy Americans who made aliyah don't seem to love our jobs.

Most of us left something certain or almost-certain to come here... to a country where we don't speak the language well... where just living day-to-day is literally a life-or-death gamble... where we're thousands of miles away from the family and friends we've left behind.

And even though trying to make ends meet in this country is almost impossible, the majority of those who come, stay.

Why?

Honestly, sometimes I've no idea.

Then I'll be on the bus, and I'll see a mother hand over her baby to a complete stranger while she goes and pays the driver.

Or I'll see the blind guy trying to cross the street and see the five guys yelling "Do you need help?" "Where are you trying to go?" and practically pushing each other out of the way to make sure the blind guy is okay.

Or I'll see the street cleaner with the kippah and tzitzit and remember that here, Jews do what we need to do in order to live in our own country.

So I'll go to another draggy day at work today, and remember that even if it's not my dream job, I'm a Jew in my country, and I, too, will do what I need to do in order to live here.

Are you really from Jerusalem?

I was playing games at pogo.com on Friday, when someone else popped into the room in which I was playing.

The conversation went something like this:

(With no "hi" or anything before this...)

"Are you really from Jerusalem?"

"Yup."

"Well, I'm not from here, but I live here now."

"How do you get internet?"

Are you freakin' kidding me?

So I politely answered that Israel has amongst the highest number of home computers and internet connections per capita of anywhere in the world.

The answer I got?

"Wow"

What makes this even better is the fact that just about every day, I have to explain to people in Israel that about two-thirds of the members of the U.S.'s biggest internet provider are still using dial-up access.

"With a modem? Why?"

From here, it looks a lot more like the U.S. is backwards technologically.