Israel Update, for those of you interested, or who had asked anything regarding syria/iran related questions....skip if you dont care about my safety.
so ok as i understand it north korea is in cahoots with syria to build nuclear weapons (of course allegedly) to move into lebanon to give to hezbollah, seeing as syria and israel have some sort of peace treaty, and syria is quite obviously hesitant to break UN sanctioned legislation to attack Israel. But since Lebanon is a. the only bordering country of israel that has no sort of peace agreement and b. the literal strong arm of syria's agression towards israel, they would then at worst have the nuclear capability to anihilate virtually the entire populace of israel, and at best be armed with new artillery to bomb the north again. earlier this month israeli fighter pilots broke into syrian airspace, under US backing on "a secret mission" which is suspected to be have been a strike against the alleged nuclear factories, but no one is really talking about that. to make matters worse iran is accusing israel of having nuclear capabilities itself, which although has never been confirmed or denied is relatively obvious that we do, and that its all one big card game everyone is playing, North Korea doesnt want any involvement in the media but secretly wants to hurt the united states by using syria as a pawn and the US using israel as a pawn, in turn syria is using lebanon so as to not have to face a world wide war caused by breaking UN legistlation and israel is playing by bluffing their hand, basically hoping that if people think we might have nuclear bombs they wont fuck with us, but if they are aware that we do all of these other countries will start pouring more funds into becoming nuclearly capabale as well. which basically creates a small portion of the world (i.e. the middle east) with enough explosives to end humanity (this is my obvioulsy extremely optimistic way of looking at this)
in my opinion boils down to israel being the crux of the worlds existence
if you didnt guess this is an Israeli Plane
anyways thats as informed as i am thus far, that and also at least two suicide bombers have been apprehended within the last week (one who was headed to the mall in my city). opperative word there is apprehended, so nothing happened.
but just so you worry a little less, the head of our program is getting all of her safety information for us via the Israeli intelligence, which if not the best is among the best intelligence in the world, so we are currently as safe as we possibly can be. i guess we will just see what happens from here
anyways as far as my weekend was concerned after the carnival (well hours after, actually like one in the morning) after sam {my roommate} and i read almost every single piece of imformation on top chef available to us, to include trying to figure out ways to set up private dining plans with brian at his san digeo oceanaire restaraunt, i finally packed *it should be noted that packing consisted of me taking the laundry i had just cleaned, adding 4 pairs of pants 3 pairs of sandals, two belts, every pair of underwear i own and about 35 shirts and zipping them together in a delightful little duffle my mother purchased me at JFK because she thought it would make a nice stuff sack (turns out we are both "idiots" - of course in quotes because we are both obviously above whatever the national, and presummably international standard level of intelligence is - because my sleeping bag obviously came with a stuff sack, it just happened to be rolled inside of it so we never saw it at first) well thank goodness because this opened up use of the duffle for me. im not sure i mentioned our sojourn to jerusalem was to be whatever clothes you wore that morning, clothing for if you opted to go to shul that evening, sleep clothes, again optional shul clothes and return bus ride home clothes. so ostensibly, if you were a good packer you could wear the same outfit there and back, the same outfit to shul both days (seeing as you want to wear white anyway and its almost weird, strike out almost, just is weird if you have like multiple all white outfits) and one outfit to sleep in. actually i could have packed all of this in my fucking satchel, but of course i packed damn near everything i own because thats how i fucking work, also because after being forced into watching curb for the first time i was tired and packing is bullshit. side note, 1, or perhaps even 2, points to leore - curb (y.e. of course) in fact does not suck ass, as a matter of fact it might almost kick ass...but i still give myself an infinite number of more points because i like arrested (d. duh) and she is really pretty hesitant about watching it, and thats dumb - seeing as its the best damned show that is (not) on tv.
(courtesy sol israel)http://www.flickr.com/photos/11828079@N07/
well we have certainly moved off track, so the point of this weekend was for us to experience yom kippur, the holiest day of the year for us judes (bordering on inappropriate to use german?) by bringing us to the holiest city . seemingly a flawless idea, only it occassionally appears that otzma really only does these things so that we are literally awake by 6 every morning and in lectures 9/10ths of the day. luckily these lectures werent too horrible. i genuinely enjoyed listening to a former orthodox jewish woman from the UK explain her newfound connection to nontraditional Judaism, in every sense of the word...and for the most part the discussion we held betwixt ourselves was decent. i of course thought most people were fucking dumb as shit, but i normally do so thats ok, i guess. then we had a kosher pizza brunch MMMmmmMMM good god kosher pizza is almost good, whatever that was a nice half hour we got to sit outside the gates of the jewish agency, moving on...the next speaker was an irish catholic from the 'burbs of philly (obviously he made aliyah) who has thrice converted to judaism, the last time to orthodoxy (although at his own admission "because i was tired of being told i cant be married or burried here", well cheers to a religion that actually thinks those are valid reasons) whos a professional commedian. He was relatively entertaining, but mostly he proved to me that you dont actually have to be that funny to make enough money doing comedy to support a family of four, and since im looking at spending my life alone in this field of work, that kind of money should be roughly enough for me to get through at least 2/3s of the year. lastly i went and listened to jared, our funky educator, speak on the connection between yom kippur and the actual fast of the whole day, again i enjoyed the text selections he made and his insight, everyone elses, perhaps i could have done without....luckily i was there to interject with the correct opinions (this is not an oxymoron, my opinions actually are factually correct - in the grey areas of interpretation and spirituality)
Following the educational parts of erev yom kippur we bused to the lovely ariel hotel, which is being bulldozed later this week (so as you can imagine they have kept that bitch in tip top shape) to eat our last meal before the fast. dinner at three o'clock what the fuck is this easter or christmas or whatever the fuck day that is yall eat all early...anyways, apparently they wanted the fast to start right then and there because this was legitmately the grossest shit ive ever eaten. anyone whos been on birthright knows what im talking about...but imagine that as your last meal before yom kippur, f that s...am i right (rhetorical, of course i am).
then those people who felt so inclined had the option of going to any shul within walking distance, i know a lot of people tried new ones, reform jews at orthodox shuls, vice a versa, and a couple people (i think maybe actually just adam) went straight to the kotel for the kol nidre service...i on the other hand tried to read the glass castle, i got about 22 pages in before i was "like, man what is it 530 already, lord am i tired", so then i tried to watch top chef on my ipod, but that bitch was so annoying to hold so i set it down, figuring i could just listen to it. i of course didnt even get through the quick fire challenge before i was asleep. oh but let me rewind so right after leore, nicole, nikki and a few others leave for shul i go to the bathroom, push the little lock button in whatever anyways when i leave the bathroom i guess i closed the door (obvious thought in my opinion) well no, of course i have now locked the door from the inside out and im like well fuck. this certainly was not in my plans for 26 hours of napping before i could eat again. anyways so i try all sorts of little tricks, they apparently didnt work, then i call the front desk...they apparently didnt care...then im like ok well ill just wait for beth to get back then this will all be solved. but of course no when i wake up at 1035 to crippling pangs in my uterus, becuase i have to pee so badly the door is obviously unlocking and its obviously leore, and im obviously like well fuck. so OF COURSE, OF COURSE the first thing she says is "wow, tonight was great i really felt connected...but man do i have to pee" so now i have to explain the whole situation, but OF COURSE im hit by a fit of giggles because this is the just the way things HAVE to happen. so then we have to go through a whole ordeal where i was forced to tell the man at the front desk what id done wrong, and sit in the room with the man while he fixed the door (he tried some of my tricks first, they didnt work OBVIOUSLY, but i didnt tell him that, he looked bothered by me as it was) anyways that was my yom kippur night (for those of you wondering the jewish calendar is lunar so all holidays start sundown one night and end sundown of the next, or appropriate one).
so yom kippur day i obviously slept in until about noon time, then i showered, which is one of the five things you arent supposed to do but fuck that, i mean im not eating for christs sake at least let me smell deec. then lauren, nikki and i hiked it to the kotel only about 900 miles away in the blazing sun, and of course we cant drink water...but hey this was my choice...i did feel like it would kind of be something i would look back on and go "oh ANNE" if i didnt do anything on yom kippur in fucking jerusalem, and seeing as this wall that i am standing at is the direct place that every jew around the worlds prayers are being directed to is a pretty unreal thought, unfortunately for me i dont like to try to wrap my mind around things like time (be it history or even time zones) nor do i like communal prayer in anyway. while some people thought that it was part of the beauty of a questioning religion like judaism that people werent all wearing white, that they were wearing day glo fucking crocs at the wall, that some woman had her screaming child, and that their prayers were so strong they werent distracted is something i really do admire...but its certainly not me...im an extremely extroverted introvert and thats about all there is to that. on a day that i am supposed to self reflect, how does singing in large groups or being surrounded by distractions make any sort of logical sense. maybe im just not spiritual enough (in a jewish sense of course, or perhaps more accurately religous sense) to push through the distractions to find god. after about 15 minutes there i walked back to the hotel and did just as much complaining about being tired, hungry and thirsty as everyone else, i hoped they wouldnt notice that theyd been out in the sun and in shul for 6 hours and id been out of bed for 45 minutes. of course i went straight back home to nap, slept until about 6, break fast was at 6:20 - i had some gross coffee and "cake" and then the break fast meal which was surprisingly worse than the before fast meal...actually the only difference was the pre fast meal was meat and the post was dairy...so i cant actually compare them. maybe they were equally as bad, i dont really know. all i do know is that hagim are for families, not for otzmankim and random groups of 18 year old brazillian jews, who act more israeli than any israeli ive met.
in conclusion i only have three days of ulpan this week before sukkot break, so im pretty fucking stoked...my friend lauren and i planned a hike from the galilee to the med over four days of the break, besides that musical festival in tiberias, vineyards, beachs in tel aviv, god who knows - but itll be fun.
this trip is going by so quickly, i really will be home before i know it (if i come, just kidding, im not planning on making aliyah...although apparently according to past trips about ten of us will stay for our size group)
no one really took pictures this weekend in accordancew with religious traditions so thats all for now
Anne PE Alexander
x4 (only two were gross emerald reislings, please wine experts out there please tell me why israel doesnt have pinot grigio at ALL) i mean how do you really relax and unwind, unless you drink and entire bottle of wine? you cant its actually scientifically impossible, i didnt just make that up, its science and thats irrefutable. 
im not even sure they cary these in the us anywhere anymore (not even the real south) and the picture is of a nice one, mine certainly didnt come to me that new and fresh, its been in use since its release to the public in what 1998. 
