1. I met author Jonathan Safran Foer who was in Tel Aviv to talk about his new book, "Eating Animals." Very convincing presentation on the environmental costs of eating meat. It's not why I got in the game, but I'll take it.
2. Spent the wknd before last in Zichron Yakov with friends from my Freshman year trip to Honduras. Beautiful people.
One of those great people, Alisha, has been living on a kibbutz for the past six months as part of a Palestinian-Israeli-Jordanian-North American Environmental education program (if you think that's an unlikely combo, today at work I came across "The Texas Chapter of the Human Rights Congress for Minorities in Burma." I bet it's in Austin).
Alisha's Kibbutz is in the way, way south of Israel, about a 4.5 hour bus ride from Tel Aviv. On the way down I sat next to an dude from Sudan trying to find work in his 4th country since he left home. Interestingly, he's not a refugee from Darfur but a Muslim immigrant from Khartoum. He told me that Israel is "racist unless your Jewish," citing the Ethiopian community and even African-American Hebrews as proof. Sad to say, racial tensions in Israel run high these days, as Israel's own variation on Brown v. Board of Education threatens to widen the already deep fissure dividing religious and secular Jewish communities in Israel.
Despite the turmoil, or maybe because of it, the insular, close-knit feel of the Kibbutz was a welcome break from the politics and activism of Tel Aviv. Founded by American Jews, Kibbutz Ketura now hosts volunteers from the U.S., Chile, Australia, England, Ethiopia, Ecuador, and many more as reflected in the totally unpredictable playlist at the Kibbutz bar (ever hear a DJ play "Welcome to Jamrock" and then follow it up with Israeli folk music? It's not as bad as you think).
On Friday, the Jordanian et al. people from Alisha's program had a potluck dinner and literally sat around playing guitar and singing together. I'm making it sound more like utopia than it was. You can still sense the divisions, suspicion and cold shoulders. But in-between the 112 degree days, the 5 AM hike up a mountain, and the cactus farming, I was really liking the kibbutz vibe.
Supernatual note: At the Kibbutz, I had a vivid dream about eating a hot dog. In the dream, I thought, well, I don't like eating meat, but this hot dog seems so good. There's nothing I can do. I ate it. I felt very conflicted about my choice.
When I woke up and went to the dining hall, they were serving hot dogs. "Should I break my vegetarianism?" I asked myself. "Maybe the dream has meaning." No, I insisted. Instead, I sat down next to this guy I had met at the bar the night before. "Did you try these hot dogs?" he said. "I love veggie hot dogs bc they don't pretend to be meat." I had one. I should've had more.
Here are some pictures: things I ate in Jerusalem, and Quality Time with my Honduras peoples.
You know Keturah is the Kibbutz where my parents lived for a year...and I was "conceived" there (I was little grossed when I was there at 16 and found that out) - Mara
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