Oak Park Temple
B'nai Abraham Zion

1235 N. Harlem Avenue
Oak Park, IL 60302
(708) 386-3937

by C. Barnard.
Photos by C. Barnard, Sheri, Shawn, & Bob (Click on any photo to see a larger image)
(also see the Sheri's Photo Gallery)

MAHriv, MAHriv, calls the officious burly man in the black suit, going from group to group to gather his minyan. It's JFK airport at about 10 pm on Sunday night December 7, in the El Al departure gate, and already it's a different world. The men gather to daven, and the sense of belonging-but-alien begins, a theme for the week. We're all Jews, and do our differences divide us more than our shared heritage unites us? A timely question at Chanukah, of all times of the year, and a question which echoed through the entire week.

Security from El Al was tight and we were interviewed about our Hebrew, b'nai mitzvah, the parashah of the week, the names of our group members, purpose of travel, etc. My new camera and rented phone were whisked away for testing. All was well. Our group joked about the fact that some could not recall the name of the parashah read just yesterday! And what was the most recent Jewish holiday we celebrated? Shabbat, of course. But Sukkot appears to have been an acceptable answer too.

The flight was easy, comfortable, very full, lots of young large families, babies but few crying. Diversity among Jews; probably some Christian groups, but it was not easy to tell. The girl next to me was an American from New York who is studying for a year in Jerusalem - we met MANY of these girls during the week, quite striking. She flew home to New York for a sister's wedding & was now returning. Her plane reading was her Artscroll siddur and the Artscroll Rashi, same one I have been using. She confessed that her Hebrew was still very limited but says she loves her American school in Jerusalem. She is just three years older than Becca.

There were lots of babies on this plane and I was interested to see how many were in charge of their dads, at least for awhile. These young men, often scarcely old enough for beards, waving their payess over the baby's cradle on the plane - it was sweet and maybe a little unexpected.

I loved the electronic maps showing our progress across a third of the world, displayed on the TV screens on the plane. They alternate between English and Hebrew, and I could sound out the names in Hebrew letters - New York, Roma, Corsica (where we had some really unpleasant turbulence!!), and so on.

The arrival in Tel Aviv was easy. Passport control was quick and it still didn't feel like a different country. There was still a huge banner welcoming the 4300 Americans who came to Israel last week with the federation. Luggage was the usual waiting game, and some of us changed money. The tour "handler" approached and suddenly we felt, we are really in Israel. He was brusque, hurried, impatient, rude. "It's almost Chanukah, already!" he barked as he tried to usher our motley group out to the mini bus. "Light the first candle!" We joked about it all week. And eventually we got to the bus and met Ari, our guide for the week, and Uri, the bus driver.

Ari is a gentle, tender, intellectual soul, passionate about his country, who has degrees in history, economics, international relations, and architecture. He explicitly views his job as tour guide (one of several concurrent careers that he must have, due to the economy) as an expression of international relations. He serves as guide to Jews, Christians, all kinds of groups, but clearly loves to be able to talk to us about our shared heritage and always, always, emphasizes what unites us more than what divides us. At the same time, he confided late in the week that he and his family left Jerusalem to move to Tel Aviv some fourteen years ago because they felt that Jerusalem was becoming too haredi, and they were no longer comfortable within the city. He is happy in Tel Aviv. Later it will also emerge that Ari fought in '73 as a reservist.

Anyway, we went to our hotel and gathered for dinner, then, still not tired, walked to Beh Yehuda street because it was nearby and a safe and interesting destination. The shops were largely closed but it was amazing to look around and see Hebrew signs everywhere, hear the language spoken, feel the incredibly warm & soft air. It was in the mid-60-degrees (F) all week in the daytime (hotter at Masada), and about 50 each night, perfect. The air is neither dry nor humid, the hills seem to coax the wind into becoming a breeze, and the city was busy and felt entirely safe and welcoming.

Jerusalem is crowded, with narrow streets and the famously rude and crazy traffic. Garbage dumpsters tend to be on the street and are not secured. We saw no rodents or squirrels but cats everywhere, feasting on the trash and scurrying away from the cars.

All week we saw two kinds of beggars - a very few of the kind we are used to in American urban centers, homeless, sleeping on the street, asking for help - and a larger number of religious men (and women, at the Kotel), who aggressively demanded money as tzedakah, a mitzvah, they repeated over and over. It was not always clear whether the money was for themselves or a charity, but they were very unpleasant. One of them even followed customers into shops and demanded money - and the store owner stared after him and shook his head disapprovingly, but did not push him out of the store. The shopkeeper said to us, what that one needs is someone to pray for him. We also saw some children begging near the Kotel and Cardo, some of them young Palestinian girls who dress as though they were Jewish and hold out their hands wordlessly so that they can't be identified by their speech.

Tuesday December 9, we began the day at the Haas Promenade overlooking Jerusalem, with shehechiyanu and kiddush (Ari brought wine!). Shawn played his guitar and the day was lovely beyond anything I imagined. A rooster crowed persistently (right out of the morning blessings!) as we prayed and talked and gazed and took pictures and pestered Ari with questions about what we were seeing. As I always do in prayer I put on a kippah, and then, so moved by this amazing place, did not remove it - which turned out to be significant later in the day.

We made our first tour stop at Yad L'Kashish, a workshop for a couple of hundred impoverished Jewish elderly people, men and women, from all cultures. Founded some twenty years ago, the program offers craft and artisan work based on the talents and interests of these folks. They have ceramics, metalworking, textiles, bookbinding, silk painting, everything. We visited several workshops and bought lots of gifts in their amazing wonderful shop. The center started with a few workrooms and has expanded by purchasing adjoining buildings so it is a challenging navigation experience, up and down stairs and around narrow corners, as we visited each room. The "employees" were welcoming and interested in talking. Some spoke Russian, I was able to talk to one woman in French, and we were told they have some Ethiopians there as well who have integrated well, though we did not see them on this visit.

The rest of the morning was spent at the Davidson Center, an archeological research center based at the southwestern corner of the Temple Wall (Herod's Wall, as we come to call it), and then touring around the Wall. We did not know what to expect at this center, but it was fabulous. Not only is it wonderfully well organized to explain the history of the Temple and the wall, but we were permitted to view a special computerized simulation of the Temple, with an extraordinary wealth of specifics about the archeological and cultural / literary bits of evidence for each hypothesis as to the construction and function of the Temple. We all wished that Robin Arbetman could get her hands on this software. Later I found a website with panoramic images from the program which you can actually scan 360 degrees.

Back out in the incredibly clear sunshine, we saw the walls with an entirely different understanding. Ari took us to the southern steps, and showed us exactly how their construction - alternating one long step, one short - absolutely requires slow and methodical progress up to the Temple southern gates from the City of David to the south. Some kids were trying hilariously to run up the steps - their teacher obviously was pointing out to them, as our guide was, that the steps were designed to contribute to a stately and respectful approach. Ari mounted the steps majestically, intoning Shir HaMaalot, to show us how the architecture itself meshes with the melodies of worship.

Then we explored the former market area on the southwest corner. This is an egalitarian area where men and women can worship together. It's still the Western Wall, but not the formal Kotel, which is actually designated a synagogue by the Israeli authorities (hence the kippah problem later). It's a more crowded, casual, messy place, with archeological digs and rubble all around, but has a living and exciting feel to it which the Kotel entirely lacks. There were groups, and laughter, and photos, and those extraordinary Herodian walls.

This is not the place to recite all the history & archeology we learned. (We were unbelievably fortunate to have this wonderful man, Ari, with his breadth of knowledge & command of languages, to lead us. It is not to be imagined that the trip could have possibly been any better with any other guide.) But those Herodian walls - those extraordinary blocks of stone, larger than anything used in building anywhere else, and his trademarked etched border around each other, vain and imperious as he was - those walls! Every block seemed to me to be stained with such passion and loss. Passion for God? Or for Herod's ego? I imagined that every man & woman involved with this must have had his or her own personal pain & passion in the labor. The physical labor involved in constructing all this is itself overwhelming to contemplate, and of course I was haunted by what had to be difficult and lifethreatening working conditions - who were all these men who moved and lifted blocks of stone weighing many tons each? The reconstructions and models offered examples of technologies that were used to move the blocks. The largest, which we viewed later in the tunnel, is 44 feet long and about one and a half meters high. Ari made us wait above, and asked two of us to volunteer - placed each of them at the opposite ends of the block, then welcomed us all to see the expanse of rock marked by our two members. I photographed it, but to touch it is an experience that the photograph cannot capture.

We walked then up to the Kotel, the center of the Western Wall, and went through the plaza to the border with the Muslim Quarter. Some went for lunch, some went shopping. I decided to do neither, so re-entered the Kotel area through the security metal detector, and was stopped by two police, a woman and a man. She was very upset and talked rapidly to him, while I waited & tried to understand the Hebrew. It was quickly clear that she was upset about "kippah" on the "rosh" of the "ishah" - headcovering on a woman, which belongs only on a man. Ari was nearby and came over to see what was going on. He argued with them for awhile, and was exasperated & embarrassed. We walked up to the Kotel plaza with these two police, where two other police joined us and took over the discussion. After awhile, and I followed some of the conversation (ALL Israelis talk SO fast!), it was agreed that I would not wear the kippah at the Kotel, lest there be violence.

Ari was humiliated and angry. He kept saying it was perfectly my right to do this. I actually was so stunned and confused that I wasn't angry. I just said, I'm a visitor in your country and I'm not here to offend anyone. It's your minhag, and mine is different at home, but I respect your ways of doing things and that is not a problem. The number of police, and the passion of the arguments, left me very shaken, and it was in that frame of mind that I actually entered the women's section of the Kotel at the peak heat of the day, about 12:30 or so. It was indeed very hot in the sun.

I went to the central table to pick up a siddur, and was immediately surrounded by I think Russian women demanding money, tzedakah, it's a mitzvah, they said. Money, money, demanded one in English, holding out her hand. Kallah, she said, pointing to a young and very homely girl who was hovering nearby. Money so that this girl can become a bride… It was distracting, disorienting, a little frightening. And a few steps away women where davening at the Wall, sobbing, screaming some of them, shuckeling so fast and so deeply and passionately they might create a hot wind.

To a foreigner, and indeed I feel at least at first that I am a foreigner here religiously as well as by my passport, it was a whirl of images and impressions and feelings. Yes, we share our Judaism, but there are gulfs, maybe even Red Seas, of difference between us. The metaphor sprang to mind and it still bothers me. Am I suggesting that one of us is still on the Mitzrayim side of the Sea, and one has walked through dry land to freedom? That would be arrogant indeed, but so the image stays.

I am of these women, and I am not. I can pray their siddur and I love their Torah, midrash and their chazal and I do think I love their same God, but there is a web of culture and values around each of us, and theirs and mine have many threads which do not seem to touch.

As a liberal American Jew, with values inculcated by young (and, yes, arrogant) America as well as by five thousand years of Judaism, I do look at the tradition in a way that blends all I have been taught and have learned. As indeed do these other women, from their cultures and roots. And they are not monolithic any more than American Jewish women are, I know this. My images of unity and diversity, of coalescing and fracturing identities, continue to evolve.

Later in the week, we met a Conservative woman rabbi from New Jersey at the hotel, wearing a kippah, and I asked her about the Kotel minhag. She said that she wears a kippah there, but also that she goes seldom and dislikes the place. She also said that she is usually mistaken for a man - she's husky, with very short dark hair and a mannish face, I suppose - and when she does go she is asked why she is on the women's side of the wall! She also said that it is actually illegal for a woman to wear tallis or tefillin at the Kotel, so I am glad I did not bring my tallis with me to the Kotel, which I had originally hoped to do.

The Kotel is, I guess, legally a synagogue in Israel & so is managed by a religious leadership group, which, like all religious leadership in Israel, is orthodox. This is part of an ongoing national debate on the nature and role of religion in Israeli life, and we had more discussion and reflection on this through the week. Viewing the Kotel in this way, I had less problem with it - after all, when I go to someone's shul, I should follow their minhag - but on the other hand, given its extraordinary and unique history, should this particular "synagogue" be so controlled by one segment of our faith? And then, on another hand (yes, as a dear friend says, Tevye, there are many "other hands"!), if this particular shul is to be open to all Jews, maybe it is OK that it follow the most strict & traditional interpretation for now. There are other places for the egalitarian branches of Judaism to worship… such as the southern portion of the Wall. Now I understand why Julie and Ari and others have said, the southwestern part of the Wall is the place I like to pray, not the Kotel…

So I davened mincha (found a siddur with a decent-sized Hebrew font, my reading skills are still not good enough, nor my bifocals sharp enough, for the tiny ones!) and sat in the sun, and then moved to the shade, and watched the women, and thought about why they are there and what they want, and what they go home to, and what I will go home to. My education and possibilities, and theirs. It's not a simple picture. Israeli women have wide ranging choices, as do we. Religious women I would say have fewer, as with the more traditional religions worldwide. But they have a nation in which being Jewish happens like breathing, unlike America, where it takes effort. And more on that later.

We then had an appointment to walk through the tunnels under the Wall. This was a phenomenal experience, and it can be done only by appointment. These tunnels were filled in with soil after 1948 by Jordan, apparently to prevent the Jews from ever again having access, and then excavated again by Israel after 1967. Ari introduced us to a grizzled old man, a security guard for the tunnels, who was one of those hired to dig out the untold tons of dirt and reopen the tunnels - a man without too many teeth, but a huge smile, who confirmed without English what a job it was, and how proud he was to have been part of this. Now, Ari said, sinecures such as this guard position have been made available for those who did the hard labor of cleaning out the tunnels.

These tunnels go directly under the Temple Mount and the Muslim Quarter, and there was certainly some uneasiness about this among the group. The tunnels are extremely narrow in some spots, but remarkably engineered - cisterns for water and drainage - smooth secure walls and ceilings - fitting the Herodian blocks to the bedrock that is the hill underneath. Ari gave us a careful and complete history of the tunnels, and the engineering, connecting it all to the education we had received earlier in the day at the Davidson Center.

We emerged into the Muslim Quarter through the tunnel opening which was created (re-opened) a few years ago to tremendous controversy. The Muslim shop owners lounging by their stalls watched us, I thought rather resentfully but perhaps I was imagining. To leave the tunnels one needs to walk just a couple of blocks through the Muslim Quarter, and it seemed bleak.

We saw more of the Muslim Quarter later in the week, and it has a very different feeling from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. It's more crowded, more full of mixed merchandise hanging everywhere, of course more prominent Arabic signs, and much, much filthier. There's dirt throughout the Old City, and trash as well, but the differences are dramatic. At one point Ari said to us, don't go into the Muslim Quarter without me, and one of our group said, how will we know? He laughed a bit and said, you will know. And he was right…. He explained that the city of Jerusalem pays for trash removal and city services in all the areas of the Old City; but I guess the method of distribution of the funds for this is through the Palestinian leadership, and there is a sense that there is some mismanagement.

We went back to the Kotel briefly so a couple of our members could pray who had been at lunch earlier. Then Ari walked us over to the Cardo, a gorgeous covered block or two of shops which specialize in jewelry, art, etc. I found crosses for several Christian friends, artwork for another, stuffed camels for Daniel (his particular request), a Hamsa for Becca, and T shirts for both kids.

We returned at last to the hotel, but not without a little excitement as we had misplaced one member of the group - he had found his way back on his own, it turned out, and all was well. We rejoined for dinner and another walk.

The food at the hotel (all buffets) lived up to the legends about Israeli food and especially the breakfasts - huge, varied, savory as well as sweet, all dairy. The dinners (all meat) were just fine for us. I thought the entrees were poor, but there were always many wonderful vegetables and I prefer that anyway. Another aspect of life in Israel is the typical standard that everything is kosher - a real mind-shift from our everyday life here.

Busloads of Italians had arrived to the hotel and we listened to their mealtime prayers, sung to a complex melody, and enjoyed their noise and energy (and noticed the wine bottles on each table!) after the silence of the first evening, when we had wondered if we were the only ones at the hotel.

On Wednesday morning we got started promptly for the south. Our furthest destination was Masada, and we headed down the highway as the foliage of Jerusalem abruptly yielded to desert and the hills to more rugged small mountains. Once again it was vividly clear what the early Zionists had accomplished to make Jerusalem green, and we were to see more of this in dramatic oases as we went south. We went through one checkpoint, which was as bleak and ominous as I had expected, the soldiers impossibly young, and a line of Palestinian taxis waiting to creep through on the northbound route. It was achingly painful.

A few settlements to the east, in the West Bank area, are readily visible from the highway, which marks the border. They look prosperous and clean and sprawling from the distance of the road. Ari said that many of the residents commute daily to work within the main body of Israel.

Also visible on the way were some Bedouin communities, small temporary shelters and shacks which are, we were told, set up briefly and maintained for awhile, then abandoned or moved as the tribe moves, without regard to land ownership or legal prerogatives. It seems just another aspect of the multicultural life here.

The desert is overpowering. When we read Torah, from our safe distance, we always know that Israel will reach its destination eventually, and when we look at the maps, all the points of Jewish history really look close together. But when you are in the midst of it, and imagining Jacob and his wives and his flocks slowly making their way to face Esau… or the six hundred thousand plodding across these hills and under this sun… it is reminiscent of our own experience in the American west. How can anyone face this terrain and even imagine that they can cross it? And yet they did, and do, and lived to teach us. (In fact, the American pioneers were inspired, as were the American slaves, by the stories born here in this desert and the first documented exodus to freedom and a better land.)

Our first stop was at Kibbutz Mizpeh Shalem, home of the Ahava cosmetics empire and factory. It was frankly commercial and we did not stay long, but it was interesting to see the way that this community has developed science, technology, and marketing to build commerce to reach the entire world.

We then went to Ein Gedi, a marvelous hiking and historical destination, and were met by ibex, relatives of the mountain goat, grazing peacefully and looking us over. We climbed a bit, heard Ari talk about David's flight from Saul into these very hills and caves, cooled our hands and feet in the waterfall and took pictures. Ahead of us were a hundred girls climbing in their long skirts and longsleeved blouses (accompanied by an armed security guard), then a big crowd of uniformed soldiers with their guns, and a smattering of toursts and secular hikers like ourselves. The views were spectacular - desert, mountains, Dead Sea. And again history was alive and frightening and vivid, and David's flight and danger, even survival, was a real human experience, not a fable.

The Dead Sea is so beautiful that its name is really unfair. And as on each day of our stay the weather was so spectacularly perfect that time just melted away and the experience of being was intense and immediate and seemed timeless, perennial. The day was a little hazy from humidity but from time to time we could see the mountains of Jordan across the Dead Sea, and thought again and again of how it must have looked three thousand years ago.

We passed date palm groves, carefully irrigated and precisely planted, the youngest to the most mature trees. And there was vineyard, of all things, springing up along the sea. And Ari described the young industry in flowers in Israel, with precision logistics to ensure that fresh flowers appear in Holland by 4 am every day - and this pre-holiday season a peak one for the market.

Finally we reached Masada, and it loomed anonymous and overpowering among all the mountains on the west of the highway until we were within less than a mile and Ari pointed it out. By now it was midday and quite hot, but we were ready for the hike up the Snake Path. The posted signs warn that it is strenuous, 700 steps up 1400 vertical feet, and that the average walk is 45 minutes. Ari made sure we all had water bottles, then led us through an unmarked path from which we met up with the main Snake Path. He set a very steady pace and reached the top in about 20-25 minutes; a couple of others were just behind and I was there as well, at about 30 minutes. It is indeed quite strenuous, but we could of course have gone more slowly if we wished. There were many young people and soldiers (of course armed) and others going up and down as well. And there is a cable car for those who want it, and there is also the Roman ramp which can be used instead, at the western side, which is less strenuous.

Ari reported that this was his 96th climb up Masada, and I wished we could join him for #100. He has #97 planned - another group coming in two weeks.

Anyway, once we reached the top and cooled off a bit, Ari gave us a brief historical overview and then we toured the ruins, which are extensive. There is a mosaic floor, two palaces, a synagogue, support structures, and there was even agriculture to support the community. He showed us the model and demonstration of the elaborate system of cisterns and water channels which ensured that the community had years of water supplies. Again, it was a story of Herod's ego and community pride and survival, intertwined. We viewed a film of the final moments of the community here, and the drama which has left Masada seared into our imaginations. But there was an extraordinary world here even before that final siege and martyrdom.

We stopped at Haas Promenade again on our return to Jerusalem, as some members wanted to see the panorama after dark. There was a full moon and it was a sight to open the heart - the old city, the temple mount, the sprawl of the clusters of suburbs around the city, and the full moon rising to the east.

Wednesday night we were on our own, and a group of us went back to Ben Yehuda Street for felafel or shawarma and shopping and people-watching. We all talked about the huge numbers of Israelis who smoke, and maybe it's related to the stress of this country; but it continues to confuse me since I think it really does violate halachah to harm your body in that way. We wondered if some of the haredi on the street could explain this to us, but no one asked. It was great to sit and watch the people go by, feel that maybe tourism was improving (the shopkeepers said it was better in the last month or so), and revel again in the simultaneous normalcy and specialness - being a tourist, shopping, but doing this in Jerusalem, what a gift.

Thursday was our "modern" day. We went to the Ein Kerem area, to Hadassah hospital, and on the way saw more how the clusters of suburbs hug the city, each with its own character. At Hadassah, of course the primary focus was the Chagall windows in the synagogue, but first we stopped in the new obstetrics building to hear the enormous pride of the staff in their innovative family centered design. For me, it plucked professional as well as religious strings. Certainly Hadassah is legendary for its quality of care and openness to all cultures, and Ari and others told us stories of the infinite variety of cultural identification among the staff, and the apparent complete success with which Israelis and Palestinians and others work together to take care of patients.

The Chagall windows are of course magnificent. The audio program narrated each window and identified some of the symbolism in each, and it was very well done, and left plenty of time to reflect on the twelve tribes. I was saturated with memories of my grandparents' dining room wall, on which reproductions of the twelve windows were mounted for many years, following their trip to Israel, and was resolved to bring home the very same set if I could. So the beauty of the windows, Chagall's passion and remarkable restoration of the windows damaged in the war, and the complex Biblical history outlined in each window were all overlaid with memories of my grandparents and my life when they were alive. (I later found that the Hadassah hospital shop does not carry those particular plaques any more, but was able to locate a nice set of prints of the windows which I can frame later.)

The synagogue at Hadassah hospital is in the sefardic style with the reading table in the center, but we also noted with some sadness the nearly opaque woven wood mechitza, a folding-screen sort of structure. It was not clear how often it may be used. And, again, I tried to not to judge but just to listen to the culture in all the ways it may speak to us.

From the hospital we went to Herzl's grave and the National Cemetery, which is an extraordinarily sprawling rambling beautiful landscaped place, with no visible security or guards - just peace. We did begin with Herzl, and Ari gave us some history and his own appraisal of this unintentional genius who was apparently seized with inspiration as a journalist and then followed where he was led. Herzl's monument is extremely simple, just a rectangular block in a large plaza. There is a bandshell just next to the monument, and later as we left the cemetery it was filled with soldiers who had come here for their oaths of service, it seemed.

We also walked to the grave of Itzchak and Leah Rabin, a stunning, simple pair of monuments, one black and one white, which curve to meet each other and to welcome and enclose the visitor with a sense of utter peace and perfect proportions, but also with an inevitable sense of deep sadness.

Ari was quite somber here and began to talk about his own military background and the 1973 war. He was in the reserves by then, in his early twenties and maybe already had one child, but as he was preparing for Yom Kippur they heard all the traffic in the streets and quickly got the word of the war, and he just packed up his things and left for his unit. He served during that war in Sinai, speaks of the war will deep feeling and conviction that the Arab world was foolish and that Israel's response was effective, but also mourns Golda Meir's failure to accept the sincerity of the peace initiatives from Egypt. He is convinced that she was, ultimately, not a great leader because of this failure, and attributes the subsequent wars and deaths to her decision to refuse those overtures.

In standing at the Rabins' graves, Ari talked about the evening of Rabin's assassination with tremendous sorrow. He described the reflective, united, peaceful circles of Israelis which formed spontaneously in the days and weeks after the assassination, the determination of so many to find healing and unity in the wake of this agonizing treachery from within Israel and Judaism itself.

He spoke also about the death penalty - reserved, in Israel, just for convicted Nazis - and the process for reviewing and modifying prison sentences for criminals such as Yigal Amir, the assassin. His tone was of terrible sadness. He did draw the parallel with the assassination of JFK, but really the parallel is limited to the fact that everyone can describe where they were when they heard the news - it does not extend to the true national implications of these losses. In Israel, it was a shattering blow to national identity, which continues to shiver throughout the culture I think.

We did see a few more graves and walked among the flowers, left a stone on each grave, and then moved on. We visited the Knesset, to see the outdoor menorah given to Israel by Britain, as Ari explained some of the symbolism on it and we watched a group of schoolchildren, each of whom had an assignment to locate a symbol and describe it. We sat briefly & enjoyed this amazing weather, the cloudless sky, the intricate detail on the menorah. Then Ari showed us the political banners posted just outside the Knesset driveway, and explained the bitter puns and messages implicit in them.

While it was not on the original plan, Ari suggested and I urged very strongly a visit to the Supreme Court building, which I had been told was not to be missed architecturally - and so we went. This proved a real highlight of the trip, especially since Ari studied architecture. He did a wonderful job of taking us slowly through all the design features of the building, including the careful mix of circles and straight lines, symbolizing justice and mercy, and the many references to the use of the Jewish legal tradition. We had a long discussion of how Jewish law is incorporated into Israeli law. The country does not have a constitution, as the Orthodox argued that Torah should serve that purpose and the Zionists compromised. And Ari said that judges use Jewish legal principles, are saturated in them, study Gemara as a formal part of their training. It's an inextricable element of the culture, not perhaps even identifiable in all its manifestations, but intrinsic to the very thought processes. Ari explained all about the dozen judges (and the link to Torah), the selection of panels of judges for each case, the appeals processes, and so on.

The building was designed by a brother and sister, Ram Carmi and Ada Carmi-Melamed, whose portrait with Rabin and other leaders is in the reception hall. The hall is gracious, welcoming, spacious, flooded with that clear Jerusalem light. A wall resembling the stones of the Western Wall greets you. Gentle stairs lead up to the library, with glass walls, curving around a circular hall. The waiting areas outside the five courtrooms are curved for privacy but open to a shared soaring hall. We went into one of the courtrooms and listened to a case for awhile. After, Ari explained that the issue in the case was that a soldier was arrested for drugs and the military refused to share some of the evidence, citing security. The debate was therefore about how much the military can reserve information to itself in the interests of security, versus the soldier's right to information so he can defend himself… quite interesting and incredibly pertinent to American legal challenges to the Patriot Act and so forth. Ari characterized the Supreme Court, interestingly, as quite liberal and pretty much universally respected in Israel - not at all what I might have expected.

The last stop within the Supreme Court building was a secluded courtyard with a fountain which symbolizes the law, given in the desert to Moses. (I later found this on a website about the court building: "The serene courtyard is bisected by a narrow channel of water, meant to recall the desert where the law was given to Moses. According to the architects, 'the stone quarried from the earth and the water reflecting the sky juxtapose the biblical symbols of truth and justice.' ")

We arrived then at Yad Vashem for a fast lunch and time on our own. The historical exhibits inside are largely the same as those at the US Holocaust Museum, and the day continued to be so lovely that I spent almost all the time with the outdoor sculpture, which is diverse and moving. I did also visit the Children's memorial which is devastating - mirrored, narrow, pitch-dark rooms illuminated by what seem to be hundreds of thousands of tiny star-like lights as the names of the lost children and their countries of origin are slowly read aloud. A bitter immortality for those lost ones.

A half-dozen huge tour buses arrived filled with Nigerian tourists and their priest guides. Ari explained that this is part of a Nigerian national program to bring five thousand Nigerian Christians to Israel this year, fully paid by the government, as they work to strengthen Christianity in that nation. They were quiet and respectful, asked lots of questions, and communicated largely in English. (We were humbled all week by the typical American experience in foreign countries, that everyone seems to know English as well as one or two other languages, and our children certainly do not share that multi-lingual facility.)

Yad Vashem was - as we had expected - so powerful that we had planned no futher touring after this. We went back to the hotel, then walked to Mea Shearim in search of a couple of things, and to see the area. Again, it was the experience of unity and difference. We were greeted by the huge banners we had been led to expect, urging tourists to stay away and not gawk at the neighborhood, and exhorting the women visiting the area to dress modestly. The shops were stuffed with Judaica, the people were uninterested in us (at best) and even rude, rushing by. But then, we were invading their home. Mea Shearim street itself is, like many Jerusalem streets, incredibly narrow and pretty dirty and strewn with trash. Tiny alleys and steep steps lead to schools (yeshivot), apartments, and so on. It's very confusing, a bit claustrophobic, and a very closed community with its own culture and rules. There were children everywhere, women alone or with kids, a feeling generally of great security and comfort and individual purpose, everyone rushing home to dinner and so on. And in these tiny narrow streets the Egged buses roaring through, cars, people, and those ubiquitous cats.

Thursday night was a special dinner at the hotel, and while we waited we had some time for conversation with the Palestinian young man who worked at the bar. He told us that he studies at Birzeit University in Ramallah, talked a bit about the checkpoints and the fence / "wall" that is being built. He knows Hebrew, Arabic, Greek and wants to learn more languages "so that I'll always know if people are saying bad things about me." He seemed carefully to avoid all affect and it was chilling. In discussion later, we all wondered what he really thought about working for and among all these Jews.

Finally it was Friday, an unscheduled day for us. I went to the local grocery to get chocolates and gifts for people at work, and really enjoyed shopping in Hebrew, figuring out prices and communicating with the cashier (I asked if she had stamps, but they are not sold in groceries in Israel).

My plan for Friday was to go to the Israel Museum, a couple of miles from the hotel. It looked easy on the map, and I set out walking west, around the center for the Performing Arts (on Chopin street!) and enjoying the amazing flowers everywhere. Of course I was soon confused in the narrow winding streets but had plenty of time before they opened at 10 and rather enjoyed the vague feeling of being lost, knowing that I was still heading west somehow. Eventually I realized I was too far south & turned north on another little street. The houses and apartments were just spectacular, this must be an extremely upscale part of Jerusalem. At some point a young man approached & asked the time, and I simply held out my watch as I couldn't produce the Hebrew words for the numbers fast enough. He was carrying a tallis bag & started practicing very limited English with me. I asked him for directions to the Israel Museum and he took me to a bike path & pointed out how I could follow it there. I would never, never have found this route on my own and it was so peaceful, quiet, and lovely. I passed a monastery and some outdoor sculpture, went under the main road, and was in the grounds of the Israel Museum - just at 10 am exactly.

The main receptionist was giving information to a French visitor and I was able to contribute to that conversation which made me feel better after my halting fragmented few words of Hebrew all week. Then she reverted to (British) English with me and we had a nice brief chat about current exhibits. The Shrine of the Book was closed for renovations but they had a special Dead Sea Scroll exhibit in the museum focused on one of the scrolls, called Envisioning the Temple, and I headed there after enjoying the grounds for awhile. (I know I keep kvelling about the weather there, but it was so lovely by any standards, and of course particularly so since we knew it was 27 degrees F in Chicago.)

The Envisioning the Temple was one of a couple of highlights of the Israel Museum for me. These two-thousand-year old words, written in Hebrew that I can read today, describing the vision of what the third Temple will be like… and the extraordinary drama of the discovery of the scrolls… it is a beautiful exhibit and was wonderfully resonant. In addition, since I had studied this period a little bit in the Rabbinic Judaism course a couple of years ago, it was interesting to read the analysis of the sect which developed these scrolls.

The museum is huge, and I saw a good share of it at least briefly. I did not go to the Children's museum (would make me miserable without my own kids) and did not go to the European art sections (I have the Art Institute for that!). But I did go to the prehistory and early archeology sections, and a fascinating room on the development of alphabets.

A second highlight is that they have three synagogues inside the museum, transported from southern Germany, Italy, and India respectively. It was, again, the theme of unity and difference. Same faith, same texts and tradition, interesting and wonderful differences in artistic expression and how the local cultures are incorporated and reflected and used to enrich Judaism. The German one was particularly lovely, very simple and plain, but wonderfully painted wood ceiling and walls.

And then, a couple of more highlights, quite unexpected. An exhibit of Abel Pann's art on biblical and other themes (he was a white Russian (1883-1963)). An exhibit of "flowers" of Israeli art - how flowers have been used to express nationalistic and zionist themes in the past hundred years - absolutely fascinating.

The most powerful exhibit, though, was on "Control" by David Reev (painter - sometimes pronounced Reeb) and Miki Kratsmann (photojournalist). There was a video playing with interviews with both of them. Kratsmann is well known in Israel for very vivid and controversial portraits of Israeli use of power, eg in the Palestinian areas. In the interview he discussed his childhood emigration from Argentina, and his explicit fear that Israel will become a junta. Reev then has used these photos as the basis for many series of paintings, which are fiercely political. Over and over they focus on the abuses of power, they hammer at the fear and injustice of vulnerable populations. He uses glaring, vivid, primary colors - red, yellow, and black - paints an image from a photo in several iterations - places several photo-based images together - searing, painful, pictures. In a brightly lit room with white walls, after you looked at his painting you would then have an after-image if you looked at the wall - and I am convinced this was deliberate. The room was very quiet, as a large group of students examined the paintings and the photographs and then gathered in a circle to try to talk about their implications.

At last it was 2 pm and the museum closed. I found another walking route back to the hotel, this one through a big, marvelous park just east of the Knesset, where people were playing soccer and reading and walking and snoozing. Another route under a busy highway, and I found my way to Ramban street - incredible, these names… and then walked along until I found myself at the corner of Ramban and Rashba. Only in Jerusalem!! And I had to take a picture of that street sign.

The way back was easy and Shabbat was fast approaching. Shops closed, one after the other, and I stopped for a granola bar realizing that dinner was hours away and there would be no place to get anything. Again - in Israel so much of "living Jewishly" is the same as "living." So very different from our lives, in which Jewish life must be chosen, planned, designed, organized, and of course must be constructed in the midst of a world which is largely oblivious and occasionally obstructionist to Jewish rhythms of living. People were hurrying around with their flowers and challah, getting home in time for candle-lighting which, every shul's sign assured us earnestly, was to occur at 4:01 pm.

After a shower & change, the group of us went to the Great Synagogue a few blocks from the hotel for kabbalat shabbat services, which began at 4:20 as the days are very short now. Women upstairs, men downstairs. They use the Metsudah Siddur which I like and am familiar with, so the service was comfortable even though the Hebrew was very rapid. Most of the melodies were even familiar. At the conclusion, the hazzan's comments were, surprisingly, proferred in Hebrew and then in English. Because of its location I suppose they have many visitors.

I wondered a bit how the men felt in this environment. I was completely comfortable among the women, don't mind the separation at all, and was comfortable with the service. As an unmarried woman my lack of head covering was not really a problem and of course I was dressed very modestly. But the men - even with kippot - looked different from most of those around them, and I wondered if the environment felt actually more alien to them than to me.

In any case, it was a pleasant experience and it was also interesting to emerge afterwards - it was now of course dark, about 5:15 pm - and hear a lot of English spoken, even American English. There were at least a couple of hundred people there and the place was not nearly full. It is very imposing, gorgeous, even somewhat ostentatious.

Friday evening I had plans for dinner with a couple who are friends of a friend. They picked me up at 6:30 and we went to their home near Hadassah hospital, in Ein Kerem. It was a wonderful evening, full of talk about politics and Jewish identity and the situation of women in Israel and teaching Jewish Studies (her profession). I was astoundingly privileged to visit his studio - he's one of the great artists in Israel, now nearly 80 I guess, with work in major installations all around the world, a passionate, gentle, brilliant, tender soul who has suffered and also exulted through this young country's maturation. He immigrated as a young child from Afghanistan, and he made a wonderful Afghani rice and chicken for dinner. They are both committed liberals. She's a member of Women in Black, who monitor the checkpoints, and she spoke of this in tears and indignance. He had scathing criticism of the country's leadership - and neither of them has much hope for immediate progress but yet both remain hopeful - another Israeli characteristic I find. They do feel that Israel "causes" some antisemitism through its actions - I don't agree, though I do understand that Israel particularly lately provides more or less plausible excuses for the expression of antisemitism worldwide. Overall I felt that she was more angry, he more sad, about the state of the country. They apologized for not making kiddush; we talked about what it means to be Jewish in this country, where such "being" occurs with every breath and where the educational system builds a core level of knowledge of text and tradition which few Diaspora Jews achieve. Shabbat is de facto a day when you cannot shop or do ordinary activities, at least in Jerusalem. So, lack of individual ritual observance is not unusual and yet need not necessarily be associated with any lack of Jewish identity or commitment, it seems. As I told them - when I walk the streets in Jerusalem and see Hebrew on a building the immediate instinctive reaction is to assume it's a synagogue, since of course in America this is generally the case. Then there is that little double-take, that mental shake, as I realize that I am in a country where the street signs warning you to pick up your dog's leavings are in Hebrew! (and I did take a picture of that too!) -- that lashon hakodesh is also halashon of every day, the quotidian and ordinary.

Shabbat morning, after yet another varied Israeli breakfast, we walked to Kol HaNeshama, one of the two Reform synagogues in Jerusalem. The service booklet, "service of the heart," was developed there and is in English and Hebrew, and the service was easy to follow and almost identical to ours, including many of the melodies. The minhag was more casual, though, with relatively few people present at the beginning and more drifting in as the service progressed. The bar mitzvah boy did a nice job of reading his portion but the service was led by the rabbi, an American whose daughter kept running up to sit on his lap, alternating with another toddler, and who beat time to the music on the Torah reading table. The room was arranged in a U shape around the ark and reading table, which were raised only a couple of steps - a warm, informal, haimishe environment. The bar mitzvah boy made some brief remarks and then the rabbi expounded at more length, talking about the role and function of malachai, messengers, in Torah - at least as far as I could follow the Hebrew. I think the bar mitzvah boy's remarks were about Jacob and Esau's meeting and how brothers should behave towards & care for each other, but again I'm sure I didn't get all of it.

The kiddush was outside on their patio, the rabbi was warm and welcoming, and we all promised ourselves we'd send a donation to them when we got home. The Reform movement in Israel is really struggling in light of their huge political disabilities and the fact that most of Israel is either secular or orthodox. Oh, and one more thing - the women largely wore tallitot and some had kippot - so I could have brought mine. But at this point I was shy of offending and had left them at the hotel.

The walk back to the hotel was lovely, and we talked a lot as a group about observance at home, and how to bring back some of the delight and warmth we had found here, and very much how to encourage other Jews to visit Israel. There were orthodox visitors, Christian visitors, everywhere - but, as Ari had said, very few Reform and not too many Conservative visitors. Fear has kept them away.

The walk back also was a chance to see lots of families having shabbat walks together, playing in the park, enjoying each other and the day. Again, peace and comfort and security seemed so assured everywhere. And flowers, blooming bushes, green everywhere.

Shabbat lunch at the hotel was again enormous and now the salads and vegetables were familiar and anticipated. It was hard to realize this was our last meal in Israel for the trip.

At 2:00 we met Ari for a walking tour of the Old City. We set off for the Jaffa Gate and "David's Citadel," a mendacious label applied in relatively recent centuries to impart a putative historicity to the outer wall of the old city, which is actually about four hundred years old and Byzantine. Anyway, the museum in the Citadel closes on Shabbat at 2 pm, so perhaps another time we'll see it. This corner of the city is Armenian and we visited the Armenian church and learned just a bit about the Christian sects - more on that later. The church was elaborate, full of incense, and the priests asked our male compatriots to remove their kippot - more of those cultural rules, reminding us that every community has these standards and values expressed by garb.

(This same week France was hotly debating secularism and ultimately Chirac accepted the recommendation of his task force that all obvious religious signs be banned from public sites - kippot, Muslim veils, and "large" crosses - more of this debate on symbols, identity, diversity and respect. Fascinating, complex, culturally rooted, and what is obvious and true in one country and nexus of populations is inflammatory and irresponsible elsewhere.)

We made our way to the Jewish quarter and the Hulda ruins, savagely painful, and the four Sefardi synagogues. We were able to step into two of the latter, as it was later in the day but before mincha/maariv, and the Sefardic design of the shuls and the wall decorations and furnishings were beautiful. There were just a few little boys in each, praying, studying, fooling around, gabbing. No special security, no adults, just comfortable kids in the place they want to be on Shabbat. It was marvelous, particularly emblematic of Jerusalem as it should be for everyone - indeed of Judaism wherever it is.

In fact there were kids everywhere - some on bikes, but maybe they were not Jewish - many walking, running, all over, with other very little kids. It just felt a lot like a block party! Few cars (not zero, but few), quiet, good smells and warm feelings.

We then went through the Christian quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As I understand it, there are three especially holy sites here. Above, the site of the crucifixion (although there are several different sites identified by different branches of Christianity). Below, the site where Jesus was removed from the cross and bathed - this is the site you see as you enter the Church, and there were women praying there and kissing the large rectangular coffin-sized stone marking the spot, embracing it beneath the large lamps. Overall the interior is very dark. Third, there is the cave where Jesus' body was placed. There is a shrine at this site too.

"The Church" is rather a misnomer, it's a collection of huge soaringly high-ceilinged stone rooms and halls and nooks, very dark, each owned and managed by a different sect or branch of Christianity, and there is an intricate choreography among them. We saw a line of monks (I think) in long dark robes with candles, walking and chanting toward one of the halls or sanctuaries; a Coptic monk in a tiny cell with many candles, hunched over a book; priests in different forms of garb, walking or worshiping in their ways. There were lots of visitors, tourists, and much photography going on in spite of the dark.

In the courtyard outside, there were tourists and a money-changer, who was a friend of Ari's, and another tour group led by an Australian in a huge ten gallon cowboy hat who was also it seemed a very dear friend of Ari. They both assured us that the other was the best guide in Israel, but I think Ari's friend is the more correct of the two!

We concluded the afternoon with a walk through the Muslim Quarter, which was dramatically different and felt very foreign, crowded and with different smells and garb. But here too Ari knew a number of people, was warmly hugged and welcomed, and we had more time to talk about friendship and coexistence and respect and the down-to-earth form of international relations that this very special man practices.

Finally, on the walk back to the hotel, we passed some other icons of modern time. The new "King David" condominium apartments - the pinnacle of Jerusalem affluence - the headquarters of the reform movement - and the King David Hotel. At the hotel we said goodbye to Ari and gave him a card from us all, with our personal thanks. We all went to finish packing, then took another walk after motzei shabbat for some final shopping and then to the airport, followed by a waning but still bright and more than three-quarters' moon, at 9 pm. The flight home to New York was uneventful; getting to Chicago from JFK was miserable, involving two missed connections and all kinds of ridiculous travel nonsense, and how ironic it was that the only frightening part of this entire trip was taking off from JFK for Chicago in a small plane in the snow!!

The week was so full of reflection and feelings - the brain and the heart and the soul, reminds me of the v'ahavta. And so it should be.

It was certainly about unity and diversity. Twain said England and America were divided by a common language. I think maybe the many communities of Jews are one nation divided by a common faith. I hope and at least feel there is more that we have in common than that on which we differ.

It was also about purpose and finding meaning where we are, yet knowing when to step out. All travel sparks that kind of musing, I think, when we are pulled from our busy-ness and rest our eyes and intellects on different kinds of lives and choices than we are accustomed to. This kind of travel, rooted in our shared history and faith, the ingathering of exiles, the stunning idea that we all share roots which may have branched 2000 years ago - this stretches the heart and spirit so uniquely.

srael is also full of people who have chosen her. That kind of environment demands the question, what is each of us choosing, and why? I have no desire to make aliyah, that is not the point. But to choose a life, and to live it in thoughtfulness and intent and meaning, that is what Israel, and, I think, Judaism, calls us to do.
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