Week One: what it is in Israel

besides Google being in Hebrew, things here are sweet.

At work, I share an office with a girl who listens to hip hop ("Song Cry" and DJ Clue, yesterday) while I work on my international human rights research projects. At lunch, I get falafel for < $4. And yesterday I found out that there is no work on Fridays...in all of Israel! Apparently the work week here is Sunday-Thursday, in accord with the Jewish Shabbat instead of the Christian sabbath (I don't know why I didn't know that already. I def would've come in on Friday if I hadn't asked, haha). To celebrate, I passed a book store on my way home and bought some comics (3 X-Men, 1 Iron Man) and a nice beet/ginger/celery/carrot juice. I mean, they make it so easy.

Last night my roommate Simone had a birthday party at my (her) apartment, which was cool cuz I got to chill with a lot of Israelis, including a lot of recent immigrants Simone knows from this "new immigrants youth group" sponsored by the Israeli gov. I met people from Chile, Colombia, Amsterdam, the States, and South Africa, and spent a lot of time talking to this Ethiopian girl. First-generation Ethiopians (i.e., born in Israel) are part of the program, too, because the adjustments for their families are typically more drastic than those of other immigrants. To wit, she told me about how her family walked from Ethiopia to Sudan (appx 750 miles) in 1984 to an Israeli airlift in "Operation Moses."

I also had an interesting discussion about marriage in Israel. According to a co-worker, civil marriage does not exist in Israel. That is, if you're Jewish and want to get married, a Rabbi has to marry you. If you're Jewish and want to get divorced, a Rabbi has to divorce you. If you don't get divorced by a Rabbi, and a married Jewish woman has a child with another man, that child is a "mamzer" and becomes an outcast of Jewish religious society for 10 generations (that sucks). If a man has a child while married to another woman, that child is not a "mamzer" (that's whack. but better than both situations resulting in "mamzers"?).

Tonight will be my first Shabbat in Israel, which some people love (day of rest) and others resent (why are all the stores closed?). Which reminds me, there seems to be two opinions about pretty much everything here (three for every two Jews--old joke). On the flotilla thing, for example, many believe that the facts are a lot murkier than have been presented (see here) while others maintain that the humanitarian wrong is clear. One of my co-workers said the other day, "we held a big protest against the Israeli gov in Tel Aviv with over a thousand people and the media didn't even cover it!" Then I was talking to another guy who said "we held this big protest supporting Israel that was a huge success compared to the counter-protest of less than 500 people!" They can't both be right, but try tellin them that.