A plea to Israel

In this round of:

"I kill you!"
"You kill me? I kill you!" ad nauseum.

The Palestinians and Israelis are back at it. As an American Jew who only lived in Israel a short time, I know I have no entitlement to tell Israel how to run it's country (unlike a host of other Americans who think because they are Jewish, they have a say in this thing). I do, however, have an opinion and I'm going to share it.

Stop it already. I realize that the Palestinians have been lobbing rockets into S'derot and other border cities. I realize Israeli citizens have been killed and I understand that a government needs to protect it's citizens. But seriously. Stop it. There has to be another way. Bombing Palestinian cities has never worked before. What makes you think it is going to work this time? All it does is make children vow revenge for murdered parents and siblings raising yet another generation of warmongers.

Please stop it. I know Hamas does not want to sit down at a table with the Israeli government and I don't have a wise answer for this problem but I beg you and all of the philosophers and military strategists you have at your disposal to find another way.

On a personal note. I can barely watch these news reports. They actually hurt me. All of these people on both sides with so much potential, either dead or maimed or using all of their human potential to find a better/faster/more ingenious way to kill or injure people on the other side of the line. We are, all of us, better than this.

Thanksgiving follow up

In this photo it is Thanksgiving day 1988. I am 17 years old. I am with the (now Rabbi) Larry Bach. We are massacring a pumpkin to boil, mash and turn into pumpkin pies.

We clearly have no idea what we're doing. But no one died from the pies, so pat on the back to us.

Thanks Michele!

Yom haTarnegol hodoo (Turkey Day!)

Twenty years ago today, I was living on a kibbutz in Israel. I had been living there about 3 months at the time, just enough time to feel settled and comfortable in my surroundings.

On Tzora, I lived with 21 other American students in a little village, separated slightly from the kibbutzniks, though we occupied the same land and intermingled constantly both at work and at play.

Most of the kibbutzniks were born in Israel. Of those that were not Sabras, most were South African and there were a few Argentinians sprinkled in for flair.

There was no American celebration of Thanksgiving on Kibbutz Tzora.

There was, however, a turkey farm. 18,000 stinky, stinky turkeys.

Our living situation was not luxurious but apparently not one of us cared. Each of us shared a room with one other person. In each room there were 2 cots, 2 desks, 2 closets, 2 chairs, a sink, a hotplate and in the bathroom there was a toilet, a sink and a shower head sticking out of the wall.

Three rooms shared one refrigerator.

We all shared a meeting room where we met for some of our courses. In addition to the tables and chairs, there was a television and an oven. At that time, Israel had 3 TV channels. The only thing I remember about the TV was that on Pesach, the 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston showed 24 hours a day. Weird.

Anyway, we decided to make Thanksgiving dinner. I was 17, the youngest of the bunch. I think the eldest was a grand 23 years old. Not quite Kid Nation but a rag tag bunch we were. We all had food rations for the store and I'm sure we saved up our butter and sugar rations for the big meal.

With 10 hot plates, 1 oven and 22 crazy kids, we prepared Thanksgiving dinner the old-fashioned way. Someone killed a turkey, plucked and degizzarded it, and cooked it in one of the massive kibbutz ovens at the main kitchen. Someone got some pumpkins at the closest town which we chopped up into small pieces and boiled on the hotplates, and then made the closest thing to pumpkin pie that we could. We also made stuffing and maude only knows what else. We probably drank more wine than we should have. If I remember correctly, that was a theme of my tenure in Israel.

I wish I had more memories of that day, but that is another story for another time.

What I do know, is that at 17, I learned how incredibly capable I was with this group. I became a more independent, more outspoken, braver human being than I had ever been before and even though I haven't seen most of them in 19 years, I do really love each and every one of them.

Shadow and light

Let me tell you a story.

When I was 17 years old, I moved to Israel. I needed to be away from everything and everyone I knew, including myself. I was "sensitive" and "needy". I was opinionated but intensely afraid of not being able to defend my positions. I was already quite engaged in an eating disorder and terrified of my sexuality.

No one knew me in Israel. I lived and worked on Kibbutz Tzora with 21 other American students. I was the youngest. I worked in the cotton fields pulling up irrigation lines, and in the furniture factory spot welding office chairs. I worked in the laundry ironing sheets on huge rolling machines and in the kitchen cutting onions and cucumbers for the 450 families who lived and worked there with me.

Together with my group of American students we would go to university on Sunday and Monday, Saturday nights we would go to the bars in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Together, we traveled to Haifa and Eilat, to Ashkelon and the middle of the Negev.

On one excursion we assisted the university in an archaeological dig. It was there that I found an Asherah figurine. I was so proud of having found an archaeological treasure that I ran over to the head of the dig and handed it over. In my haste, I had barely looked at her before I'd released the tiny goddess. Later, I felt like I had betrayed something in myself. I had abandoned something that I should have held, even for just one more moment. I might have spent one minute understanding what I had come upon but just as suddenly as I had found it, it was rushed away in the hands of some post-doc or fellow to do dating and identification.

I think it was my first adult lesson in denial of self. I had been self-sacrificing for years and years but this lesson was new. Like plants growing so slowly you don't ever remember them becoming tree from seed, I was suddenly gazing into a new garden and I had just given up an outstanding opportunity.

In the last couple of years I have traveled great distances emotionally. Along the way I have abandoned my fear of sharing my opinion with anyone who will listen. I have taken more time to savor things that I come by in my travels. I have learned that people are interested in what I have to say. I still have a long journey ahead of me though.

I am just now reading a book called Eating in the Light of the Moon. It is a book filled with metaphor and goddesses, which, frankly, I haven't picked up in the past because I am cynical and suspicious of stories of "the goddess" and feminine vs. masculine spirituality. I am a feminist but I am an atheist. My atheism (obviously) extends to goddess myths. Finally, after many recommendations, I picked up the book.

The author, Dr. Anita Johnston, is not interested in converting readers into feminists or believers in a Wise Woman myth. She is interested in helping us discover how we found our disordered relationship with food and how we can leave it behind. In one chapter, near the end of the book, she talks about looking at ourselves,

"deep in the depths of our being, to confront all those aspects of herself that she would just as soon leave hidden in the dark....she eventually discovers that whenever we try to disown the shadow parts of our being, they seem to acquire strength and begin to take over our lives in the form of obsessions and addictions."

This is what happened to me. I tried to disown myself. The parts of myself that I showed were bright and shiny and the parts of myself that were eating me alive were ugly and caged in shadow. I was terrified that what was in there, deep in the shadows, would destroy me. And it nearly did.

In our society we are virtuous if we "bear our pain stoically, keep it hidden from view." says Dr. Johnston. "We have been reprimanded time and time again for engaging in "self-pity" when we have tried to pour out the pain we feel in our hearts. And so we deny our pain and say everything is "all right." But everything is not "all right" if I am eating without knowing why and throwing up to get rid of my anger and my frustration. Everything is not "all right" if you are starving yourself or on a diet every single day of your life or using food in a way that makes you feel angry or disappointed or frantic.

I don't need to share every pain, but I also am no longer keeping it stoically hidden like a good girl. Some have wondered if it is self-indulgent to write a blog. Especially a blog about oneself. Yes. The entire point of writing a blog is self-indulgent. The question I have is, is there anything wrong with that?

My Space

The other day I saw a scene that could have been out of a cartoon. A man came to a dead screeching stop in a parking lot in front of my car. He leaned out the window of his car and his eyes bulged out. A beautiful woman in a white sundress had just walked into the lot.

19 years ago this month, I moved to Kibbutz Tzora, just outside of Beit Shemesh, in Israel. While I lived there, I got involved in a group called Women at the Wall.

At the time we were 5 to 40 women who gathered at the Kotel to pray on Rosh Chodesh. I was the youngest woman there at 17 years old. As is customary, I wore a long skirt, long sleeves, usually a headscarf - although I don't remember if I wore a scarf that particular day. I am sure that, though I was as tznua [modest] as a 17 year old Reform American chick in Jerusalem would be, it still doesn't matter what I'm wearing.

On the way home from the Kotel, I had taken to stopping in the market to buy some groceries on my way back to Kibbutz. On one occasion, my friend and I decided to go into a little stall that was selling dresses. She tried one on behind a purple curtain. I sat waiting for her on the little cement steps leading down into the shop. The owner of the shop, an older man, came to sit next to me and since I was young and very eager to practice/show off my conversational Hebrew, I was not at all concerned when he touched my arm. After all, he was an alter kakher, what could he do?

What he did was reach over and grab my left breast. Plain and simple, like it was his to take. It shocked the hell out of me and because I was afraid and in shock, I stood up, told my friend we had to go and got the hell out of there, the old fart smiling the whole time like he had found the fucking afikomen.

It wasn't the first or the last time I was touched inappropriately in Israel, Egypt or back at home. For a while, I felt like a magnet for men with no boundaries.

I don't understand this concept and perhaps someone can explain it to me. Why do men think they can reach out and grab a woman and/or say something vulgar?

Why?

A couple of months ago, half a lifetime later, I was at Trader Joe's. Again with the alter kakher. Again with the grabbing. He reached out and grabbed my face. He told me I was beautiful. I'm sure the old man thought he was paying me a compliment. But what happened to paying a compliment without the touching part? For those of you who think mental illness...he was not impaired, physically or mentally, he just felt he had the right to touch me.

When I wear a burka of fat on my body to protect me from the world, it doesn't work.

I get thin, it gets worse. The night I was raped, a good friend, home from boot camp didn't recognize me because I had become so thin. For my high school graduation, as a gift to myself, I gained 50 pounds.

I arrived in Israel, lost all of that weight and on Thanksgiving afternoon I was taken to an empty lot in Bet Shemesh by a cab driver I had hired to take me home from the market. I left the cab unharmed but I had to walk a long way back home with my groceries and my Thanksgiving, despite the all-American effort, was not quite the same.

It sucks to be afraid of people.

It sucks to even have the thought, "Did that man in front of me at the ATM rape some girl?" "Is the guy in the truck next to me in traffic who is air bouncing his breasts at me going to go home to a daughter?"

I don't want to have those thoughts but I do, and so do these people.


And I want to thank them for this! Holla back people!!!

Also:

Gwen Stefani
The moment that I step outside
So many reasons
For me to run and hide
I can't do the little things
I hold so dear
'Cause it's all those little things
That I fear

'Cause I'm just a girl
I'd rather not be
'Cause they won't let me drive
Late at night
I'm just a girl

Guess I'm some kind of freak
'Cause they all sit and stare
With their eyes

And P!NK
At the door we don't wait cause we know them
At the bar six shots just beginning
That's when dickhead put his hands on me
But you see

I'm not here for your entertainment
You don't really want to mess with me tonight
Just stop and take a second
I was fine before you walked into my life
Cause you know it's over
Before it begins
Keep your drink just give me the money
just you and your hand tonight

And I think that is enough for this morning.

More Silly Blog Games to Fill the Time

Sara and Ellen both tagged me so I suppose this is a "must do" today.

Four jobs in your life (best to worst):
I've had quite a few jobs. Comparing them is difficult but here goes:
1. Director, UCLA AIDS Institute Vaccine Initiative (I loved this job, the autonomy the challenge. It was truly great.
2. Director, Southern California AIDS Hotline (this one had the benefit of awesome job, but the disadvantage of a really shitty boss)
3. Owner, Metro Limousine (no boss, total autonomy, no coworkers other than Michael)
4. Sunday School Teacher (not a bad job, kids are great but not nearly as fulfilling as the above jobs)

Four movies you could watch over and over:
1. All About Eve
2. The Women
3. The Breakfast Club
4. Mata Hari

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
2. Law and Order (SVU, Criminal Intent, the Original)
3. Project Runway
4. Made in America (who knew I was so dorky - I love John Ratzenberger!)

Four places you have lived:
1. Northridge, CA (17 years)
2. Kibbutz Tzora, Israel (one very long and wonderful year of my life)
3. Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA (three very odd years)
4. West Hollywood (since 1995)

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Paris, France (with my sister - so much fun)
2. New York, NY (with my lovely friend Drew who lives in Chelsea)
3. Grand Canyon, AZ (All by myself and loved every single minute)
4. Dahab, Egypt (with friends - did you know you can trade vodka for hash?)

Four websites you visit daily:
1. CNN.com (obsessed with the news)
2. Craigslist
3. Crazy Aunt Purl (no explanation necessary)
4. Amazon

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Challah (mmm....challah...)
2. Marshmallows (is that a food?)
3. Ben & Jerrys frozen yogurt
4. A really well-made, home grilled cheeseburger

Four places you'd rather be right now:
1. On a cruise to Alaska
2. At the Grand Canyon
3. In Torino (I don't know what it is about the olympics, I'm not a really sporty girl but I love the coming together of nations, the party atmosphere, the cheering...)
4. At work (oddly enough - this is true)

Four favorite types of yarn:
1. Unikat by Skakel
2. Misti Alpaca, worsted
3. Chelsea Silk by Takhi
4. Bernat Boucle (so incredibly useful)

Four bloggers I'm tagging:
1. TK
2. Regina
3. WineGrrl
4. Allison

My job for the rest of the day is to come up with a ten word description of what I'll be doing at UCLA so Michael can describe my job to his friends and coworkers. Wish me luck.