Finding Community

So I haven't written in a while because I've been kind of busy in and out of Jerusalem. This was my first Shabbat in Jerusalem in nearly a month and.... wow. I didn't realize how much of a diverse and amazing community I've found for myself here until just now.

[A bit of background: Starting in 1989, a group of religious Jewish feminist women decided to pray publicly at the Western Wall despite the fact that there are many (men, women, religious, and secular) who say that women should be forbidden from public prayer, especially at the holy site of the Western Wall. The group of women called themselves the Women of the Wall and have been praying at the holy site for years, despite the constant screaming, throwing of garbage, and occasional physical violence that they often encounter while praying there. In the past few years, the Women of the Wall have been meeting at the Wall to pray out loud and together every month on the first day of the month which is a mini-holiday in the Jewish calendar.]

The month of Kislev started Friday and I met up with some friends at 6:45am to travel to Wall to pray with Women of the Wall that morning. I wasn't sure what to expect - I was kind of intimidated because I was sure there would be all those incredible feminist women who I've heard of but never seen in person before and I'd just stand on the fringes. Boy, was I wrong. My friends and I were the first to arrive. Suddenly another woman came up who I knew from around town and whose home I'd eaten at the previous month and said, "You ready? We'll start with Baruch Sh'amar." And we did. Slowly more and more women joined us but I didn't really pay attention to who was around me because we were praying. Suddenly we started to hearing yelling. And then more. And more. The next thing we know, there are ultra-Orthodox women yelling to our faces, secular Israeli soldiers yelling to our backs, and ultra-Orthodox men yelling to our left. We kept praying. A woman tried to rip off my friend's prayer shawl. We kept praying. An ultra-Orthodox man threw food on another of my friends. We kept praying. By the time a soldier was physically removing our prayer leader, we had finished the first half of the morning service. (The second half, which includes a public reading from a Torah scroll, is never done at the Wall any more due to a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court.) As we gathered our bags and moved to where the Torah reading would take place, I looked around me. Where were all these women I'd spent years putting on pedestals? Every face around me was familiar. I'd met every woman there at Shabbat meals or at synagogue or in classes. Those "incredible feminist women who I've heard of" turned out to all be my friends! Who knew?!

Following services I went shopping with two friends of mine who are studying abroad during their junior year of college at Hebrew University. We had a good time and I got to catch up with the latest news from the Hebrew U community. Then I went home and cooked cooked cooked. (Among other things, I made red lentil stew because this week's Torah portion includes Jacob buying Esau's birthright for a bowl of red lentils.) (Genesis 25:30-34).

That night, I had Shabbat dinner with some friends of mine from the slightly more liberal (religiously and politically) part of the Jerusalem community. Dinner was great, except for when all the lights went out. We continued to eat by candlelight until all of the candles when out. We continued to eat, joke, and talk in the dark for at least an hour after the apartment went completely dark. It was so much fun and it was great to spend time with who I don't get to see that often because we all learn in different institutions.

I had planned on going to an oneg (a Shabbat party - ish) that night but instead ended up at the tail-end of a Renewal Shabbat service-dinner-music-dancing gathering at a local apartment. Even though we arrived as everything was winding down, I still got to spend about an hour talking with friends from the even fringe-y-er religious/political left who I'd spent time with at Rainbow. (Rainbow's a big hippy gathering type thing that I haven't written about yet, but I really should.)

The next morning I went to my normal synagogue and then went to lunch at a friends' house from school. She had about fifteen people over and they were all from Pardes (my school). We had a great time, despite the fact that not all the food ended up getting cooked in time for the meal. If there wasn't enough of the main courses there was more than enough desserts to make up for it! It was weird to be at a meal with only Pardes people. I think it may have been my first meal with exclusively people from my school and it was kind of odd that we all knew each other. But it was also quite refreshing.

As soon as I got home from lunch I made a quick salad and headed over to another apartment of another friend for a late afternoon meal. Most of us weren't hungry as we'd all just come from lunch, but it was great spending time with everyone anyway. If Friday morning was the activist-feminist crowd, Friday afternoon was the undergrad-Hebrew-U crowd, Friday evening was the politically-and-religiously-leftist crowd, and Saturday mid-afternoon was the Pardes crowd, then Saturday late-afternoon was the slightly-more-grown-up-people-with-actual-grown-up-jobs crowd. We talked about children's literature, Bible, The Matrix, Jewish law, Harry Potter, cooking and more. Eventually, they went out to movie and I went home after dark.

I got home, did the dishes, talked to my parents on the phone, and decided it was too lonely in my apartment. So I grabbed a sweat shirt and headed out the door with the intention of finding someone to hang out with. Walking down the street I ran into some friends at a coffee shop. I joined them for I while, we chatted for a bit, and then I was on my way again. I got to downtown, running into only two more people I knew, and running out of ideas. Just as I was about to turn around and head home I recognized a friend going into an apartment building. I followed him in. Six flights of stairs later I was at a Saturday night party filled half a dozen familiar faces and a few dozen unfamiliar ones. It was great - there was lots of snacks and drinks and drums and instruments and candles and spirited singing. The apartment was filled with friends and strangers from the right-wing religious and political hippy sub-sector of Israeli society. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we arrived, the speeches started. An hour later, people were still speaking and my friends and I left. There were only so many closed-minded, right-wing, anti-Arab, anti-secular tirades I could deal with before itching to leave.

So we left. And thus ended the most social day and half I can remember in a long time. I spent significant amount of time with right-wingers and lefties; Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Renewal Jews; feminists and traditionalists; people gainfully employed and people learning at Hebrew University, Pardes, Conservative Yeshiva, Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, Bar Ilan University, University of Judaism, and Bat Ayin; Israelis, Americans, Brits, Australians, and Canadians. I had incredible weekend that made me feel like I've truly succeeded in both making this city my home and in finding a diverse group of friends from various backgrounds all of whom I enjoy spending time with, even if I can't ever imagine them all in the same room together.

And now it's time for bed.