There are a lot of synagogues in Ramla. Not with quite the concentration of observant Jews as I found when I visited Teaneck, NJ, but nevertheless, a lot. Unfortunately, I still haven't found any that indicate in a clear manner either their nusach (i.e. Sepharadi, Ethiopian, Edut Mizrach, Ashkenazi, etc.) or their designated hours of meeting. I assume that this is because everyone who attends these synagogues knows all of this information; these are all meant for locals, and there is no sense of "shopping around." Schools don't post their hours of operation, age ranges, and their courses of study on signboards outside, do they? Of course not; and it's the same with the synagogues in Ramla. So, I chose one, fortuitously named Beit-El, the same name as my home synagogue in Ithaca, located on Tzahal (צהל) street (for those of you who don't know, צהל is an acronym for Tzeva HaHaganah L'Yisrael, the Hebrew name of the Israel Defense Force).
As I rather expected, I arrived near the end of minchah. There were mostly older Sepharadi-looking men inside, and the nusach was, I think, Sepharadi. It made more difference than I had expected; there are even differences in the piyyutim (such as Yigdal), not just in the large liturgical block that is the Amidah. The synagogue was not large, maybe a quarter the size of my home synagogue's sanctuary. Above the ark was a stained-glass window depicting the seven species of Israel. Have I had them all yet since I arrived in Israel? I still haven't had any olives or barley products since I arrived, but both of those should be fairly easy to come by. Anyway, after arvit was over, one of the men stood up and mumbled something, presumably involving the times of future services, which I didn't catch. All of the men lined up to shake each other's hands and greet and kiss each other, as well as kiss the Torah scrolls behind the curtain in the ark. As in, they all kissed the curtain, and, I think, said something quietly. Trying not to stick out even more than I already did, I did the same. I walked back to Yoseftal. I got a little bit turned around, but made it back to my apartment in maybe an hour. Even though it was dark out, the streets were filled with people of all ages, almost all of them returning home from their respective synagogues. It felt kind of nice not to feel strange for walking around on a Friday nights wearing my button-down shirt and my kippah (no, Mom, I didn't wear my shorts).
I got up at around 6:30 on Saturday morning. I had decided not to try shacharit, because I didn't know the time of meeting at Beit-El or at any other synagogue within walking distance (there are at least two others), so I just spent my day in the apartment, mostly reading and studying. I took a siesta in early afternoon, avoiding the worst of the heat of the day. My roommate Ben and I made Havdallah together afterwards, and I spent the rest of the night applying for a teaching job in the 2014-2015 school year. I'm hoping to get it, but I am wary of becoming too optimistic of my job opportunities, after last year's serial disappointing rejections.
Sunday is a workday in Israel, just like Monday or Thursday; all business goes on as usual. Again, it's a funny feeling to be in a society that stops when I stop, and goes when I go. I was up maybe around 8:45 am. I took a shopping trip in the morning, picking up a phone from the local telephone store, in which I will insert my SIM card once it arrives in the mail. I also went to the shuk, picking up additional dates and pomegranates. I spied some persimmons, too, which, though a little pricy, I thought I'd try. I fell in love with persimmons when I lived in Paris, where I could buy them freshly imported from Spain, at least while they were in season (which was only a few weeks). "Persimmon" is actually a corrupted Algonquin word, pronounced something more like "peshimun," with the emphasis on the first syllable. In French, the word is kaki. I still don't know what the Hebrew word is; I just pointed to the pile, and asked "kamah zeh?" "Esrim" was the response. The woman selling the persimmons worked at a very, very small stand, where there was an image of a Chamsa on the shopping bags; the woman was clearly Orthodox, and had her hair covered. She gave me a big smile, recognizing me as foreign, and asked me where I was from, and why I was in Ramla. I somehow managed to field the questions in Hebrew. It was one of my better transactions of the morning, and we parted by mutually wishing each other a chag sameach.
On Sunday afternoon, I returned to the house on Veradim (where eight of the ITF participants live, and which serves as one of several ITF meeting places). I met a few more ITF participants who had trickled in over the past few days. I can honestly say that I love my cohort. I find the other participants, most of whom are slightly older than I am, to be a group of intellectually-engaged, ideologically-motivated, respectful, and fun-loving people. I spoke to Carmel, the local Oranim coordinator, about a few administrative issues; it looks as if I am going to be staying with a charedi family for Rosh Hashannah, which will certainly be an interesting experience. I returned to my apartment where I read more of Benny Morris's Righteous Victims (I've made it up to the late 1960s; today, Monday, I neared the end of the chapter on the Yom Kippur War), and had a 2-hour conversation with the other Ben in my apartment. He's leaps and bounds ahead in his Hebrew skills, and is perfectly fluent, better in Hebrew than I am in French, completely through self-enforced immersion. I'm hoping to be able to improve to his level. Later in the evening, I visited Veradim, spending a couple of hours socializing with the ITF members in that house; again, definitely a group of people worth spending time with, even if I weren't about to spend the next ten months working alongside them all. Quite a few other History majors... Also, quite a lot of world-travelers! Other participants have spent time in Spain, Samoa, Greece, Thailand, England, Ireland, France, Singapore, China, and Russia, to name just a few of the places that came up. Also, I'm going by "Jonathan" here, mostly because of its easy convertibility to Hebrew. The last thing I need is for the Israelis to start calling me "J'aydi" or, even worse, "Yud-Dalet."
Monday morning, we had another meeting at the library, where we got a bit of a local tour of Ramla. Our guide was an American-born kibbutznik in his early sixties who had immigrated to Israel when he was twenty-five. He spoke of Ramla as a microcosm of Israel in terms of its diversity (many ethnic groups mix and mingle here, in case you hadn't already understood that from my earlier posts). In groups of three (I was with Harry and Alex), we traversed the shuk on a scavenger hunt, in search of such items as "something Iraqi," "something made with sesame seeds," and "a spicy food you've never tasted before." Our tour guide also brought us to the restaurant his Arab friend/brother (ξένος fits the bill fairly well). I needed to run off and perform a couple of errands and transactions, but the rest of my cohort stayed to eat. I met them again an hour or so later on the local campus, where, with the rest of the Oranim participants in Ramla, we met the director of Oranim, as well as a Rabbi. The director, although ostensibly making himself available to our requests, refused the only request made, that for more Ulpan, saying that Oranim was fulfilling a minimum quota, and did not have assets for more. I'm a little unimpressed; Ulpan is practically the most important service that we receive as part of this program, and it looks as if we will only be meeting for four hours per week, which is critically low, in my opinion. When I was in Tours in 2011, I officially studied French nearly that many hours per week, not counting the sorties I made on my own initiative.
The Rabbi was a young educator who spoke to us a little bit about the upcoming High Holidays (although the talk was about Kabbalah, he refrained from mentioning sefirot, etc., much to his credit, in my opinion). At the end of his talk, he invited us all to his home in Jerusalem on any Shabbat; Becky and I are seriously considering organizing just such an ITF-wide trip. At least one member of our cohort has never been to Jerusalem, and, after all, Jerusalem is close to Gush-Etzion, so I may have an opportunity to visit Eli.
In the evening, Noach and I went on a run together, and worked out in the municipal park. He has far more upper-body strength than I do; it will be a long time before I have biceps and triceps like his.
By the way, I'm having some e-mail problems right now, so I apologize if you've been trying to reach me, and I haven't responded. Also, for anyone interested, my address in Ramle is:
24 Yoseftal Street
Apartment #16
Ramla, Israel
Also, I've decided to begin to transliterate רַמְלָה as "Ramla," its most common transliteration, rather than "Ramleh," which I have used prior to this post. My original choice was motivated by the desire to prevent people from thinking that I was going to be teaching English in رام الله, Ramala, which is in the West Bank.
~JD
No comments:
Post a Comment