One night in Jerusalem

I made it to the Blogs of Notice column!! For me that's like winning some kind of literary prize! I thought something was funny when I got all these e-mails from people who read this blog. I thought I was the only one reading - just me and a biker from Texas who saw it in the "most recently published blogs" listing when I first began.

Monday night was the opening of the Israel Festival. We get some international performers - musicians, dance, theatre, etc. - but none that I've ever heard of so I don't go. Except that I do love going to opening night because it's free, and because of the cotton candy, the fireworks, and the band is usually some band I really enjoy, plus there's the camaraderie of a Jerusalem in celebration of anything. This time the opening festivities took place at the Sherover/Haas Prominade - a promenade with a breathtaking view of east and west Jerusalem. The lights of Jordan flickered in the distance. The olive trees behind the stages were lit up beautifully. I thought I had entered a gorgeous still-life painting. I won't be getting a digital camera until August - it would have been great to be able to post photos, but you will have to visualize the scenery. So I usually go to these things alone. Hubby has a distaste for crowds. I don't mind going alone -I feel looser when he's not there anyways. When I got there the sun was setting and the weather was unseasonably cool. I saw my friend in the crowd while the Idan Raichel's Project played their cool ethnic stuff. Two of the Ethiopian band members sing alot of songs in Amharic (language of Ethiopia) My friend had a friend in from LA and we hung out afterwards copping a hilarious ride with another friend from the high-tech company I used to work for before all these companies went bankrupt. We were 4 women (in our 30s and 40s in the back seat), lots of wild hair everywhere and we were trying to dodge traffic cops who would have fined the driver for overstuffing the car. So some of us ducked every time we saw a police car. I felt 17 years old again - ducking and laughing. Two of the women in the car were visiting from New York and one especially reminded me of the Sex and the City star, Sarah Jessica Parker, with her cool job and clothing and hair. Had she lived here we probably would have been good buddies. But like most people she loved it here and is torn when she goes back home - but she would never live here. The standard of life here is not as high as it is in New York - monetarily that is. We seem to live on air here, not money. Oh, and miracles. Let's not forget the miracles.

The New York women opted for Israeli food and my friend and her LA friend and I went for something more "in". There's a whole new neighborhood in Jerusalem - with a very Soho feel to it - where the night life is being revived, with new bars and fancy restaurants (moderately priced) cropping up every month. I can't keep up with the pace! The LA guy said he went to the large and ancient Jewish cemetery at the Mt. of Olives to visit his father's grave - This is in a Palestinian neighborhood. The LA guy is an Orthodox Jew, wears a kippa, and said he felt the "hate" coming off some of the residents there, when he got out of his cab to walk around. I said to him - why don't you just say "Kiv halak" which means "How are you" in Arabic. Play "stump the natives". They'll see a Jewish Orthodox guy being pleasant and nice and you won't feel the hate, you'll feel the hospitality. I hoped I was right. After all, when I was Orthodox and had my hair covered accordingly, I was learning Arabic and practiced it on all the waiters. You wouldn't believe how much free baklava I got just from "trying".

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot was the following day and traditional people stay up all night studying the Torah, having religious discussions, etc. and at dawn prayers are held at the Western Wail. Some synagogues were also planning to pray at the Promenade with the beautiful view. I got up at 4:30 am not because I'm so holy schmoly but because my Criminal daughter and her friend came into the house at that hour and my son woke up and began to fight with her about their sleeping arrangements. I said - oh well, obviously God wants me to get up and pray. But I lounged around instead. I hate praying from a prayer book. I love God and all that, but praying from a book makes me feel like I'm just reading to Him. I do these short, simple prayers to God instead "God, please give me $2,000 extra this month; God, thanks for giving me great friends; God, why can't you send the Rolling Stones over to Israel for a concert", stuff like that. To compensate for the slightly guilty feelings at having been up and missing a cool prayer session at dawn, hubby took me and the dog out to the promenade at 7:30 am. People were coming home from prayers by the thousands. I'd have stopped to photograph all the Ultra-Orthodox in the streets because that was some photo, but didn't want to incur their wrath at doing something so blatantly prohibited in the Orthodox tradition. In the end God wanted me to go just when I did because I met up with some journalists from AP and Canadian newspapers who were also walking their dogs. We started to talk about what we do and they were interested in the fact that I did this matchmaking thing between a publicist in New York who got 30 Orthodox Jewish 12 year old girls (against their parents' wishes) writing to 30 Palestinian 12 year old girls from the Mt. of Olives, courtesy of yours truly who got her the connection. Maybe these journalists needed to know that.