Internet evils

There were these posters put up on the border of an Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem - telling everyone that according to numerology the "internet" has the same numerical value as "cancer" - therefore, if you use the internet, you will get cancer.

Don't you love the Middle Ages?

Maybe they're preaching to their own who secretly peruse the porn websites?

But I know that the internet is also used for religious purposes too - you can study religion through the internet. Is that bad for one's health?

Geula

I haven't been around that ultra-orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem in years. But it's the only neighborhood my ultra-orthodox sister knows when she comes to visit that I agreed to meet her there on Friday. I pity her because she never had non-Jewish friends and doesn't know where Jaffa Street is, even though she comes here every single year to visit. She stays at her grandchildren's place. They're here for a year or two while their husbands learn Torah at some ultra-orthodox institution. And sis was astounded because I didn't know where Arzei Habira was.

I met sis on the main street of the Geula neighborhood and since it was Friday, the crowds were fierce. I told her I was looking to buy newspapers, but walking up and down the streets, I realized that not a one store was going to sell me or anyone else for that matter, non-kosher, secular newspapers.

I passed by a music shop, but you can bet Britney Spears or 50 Cent was nowhere to be found, and that the salespeople probably never even heard of them. Jewish bands, Hasidic singers, boys' choirs - yes. And there were enough of those performers/bands to fill up that store. One day, I'll just peruse to see what exactly they all sound like. Perhaps different Hassidic sects have different music and maybe it even sounds different? Who knows.

I wondered if the American bakery - Brooklyn Bakery was still in business. It was, and it was packed with people that we went over to the long-running Gerlitz bakery, which had wonderful challah bread and cakes.

I passed by a store that sold evening wear, and was surprised to see that some of the dresses were sleeveless. Probably the religious police had never come into the store. I kept taking them off the rack to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Even I felt self-conscious in the neighborhood with my dress which was cut a couple of inches below my neckline. Everyone else was much more modestly dressed than I was.

The store owner knew I wasn't from the neighborhood and complained, "People don't think there are any nice dress stores in Geulah." I told her she was right. I actually loved the stuff in her store and told myself I'd buy something here for the next wedding of one of my kids - as the prices were the same prices as an outlet.

My sister dragged me off to some dull clothing stores and marvelled at how cheap this ugly brown sweater and checked brown skirt were. She loved them. I hated them.

I told her I was looking for a beautiful challah cover and maybe I'd find one cheaper than I would at the tourist shops downtown, but wherever I went, the covers were more gaudier than the next. My sister was surprised at my disappointment and couldn't understand why I didn't like the silver fringes surrounding the covers. I told her I like the more modern designs, not the old-fashioned stuff. I couldn't find anything modern here. Nothing. Nothing in light blue or purple or orange or red. Not clothing, shoes or challah covers.

Now I know people wore beautiful clothing in biblical times because the bible always mentions crimson, scarlett, purple, blue and other lovely shades. So where did brown, black, grey and navy blue become the de rigeur colors of the ultra-orthodox?

Whose Jerusalem - Ultra Orthodox or secular?

Looks like many secular/traditional/non-ultra-orthodox people breathed a sigh of relief this morning and thanked God (even the secular probably did) that Porush did not win the Jerusalem municipal elections, and welcomed Nir Barkat as mayor.

And I thought of how Jerusalem is supposed to be a City of Gold not an ugly dirty, dingy, city turned upside down by litter and poor city planning. I prayed to God before I went to bed to please, for His sake, let the best guy win (i.e. Barkat) who will hopefully turn this city back into His Golden, gorgeous city.


I can't vote in the elections because I live in the suburbs, but these elections affect me nontheless, as I spend most of my waking hours here, working, playing and eating. I really don't know much about Porush, except that he looks like he doesn't know the meaning of the word "fun."

I cruised by the ultra-orthodox neighborhoods on the bus yesterday afternoon, looking at the filthy neighborhoods, thinking perhaps I would think differently about the typical secular person's fear about ultra-orthodox encroachment, if they would only take a bit of pride in their surroundings, perhaps even consider recycling or something along environmental lines, that doesn't conflict with the Torah. But the ban of having a photo of a woman on a bus ad, we're not even talking scantily-clad women, but even plain looking women, is scary, as is the lack of cultural funding and the tearing down of historical landmarks to make way for luxury housing. I pictured much of Jerusalem looking like B'nai Brak near Tel Aviv, a very ugly city in my mind, with no tourists coming in except to see the sights in the Old City and perhaps Ein Karem in West Jerusalem, no internationals wanting to invest in business here and perhaps Porush would even want the cinemateque closed on the Sabbath. Not to mention the exodus of the bright, young and secular to greener pastures like Tel Aviv and the coast. Those were the many thoughts/fears I had travelling down Strauss Street yesterday afternoon, looking sadly out the window.

I took off work yesterday to work for someone I know would lose in yesterday's elections. I was put to work by Arkadi Gaydamak's party as a mashkif, which is an "observer" in the polling stations. My daughter, who had been happily working for his party for the past couple of weeks, day and night, for a very nice income, gave me this opportunity for the day. I was supposed to be at the Hillel Street experimental school at 7:00 am until 3:00 pm jotting down the numbers listed on the voters' cards. Four of us got there at 7:00 but we didn't have the cards we needed in order for us to be considered "official". We called Gaydamak's office several times to be told "someone will be coming to give them to you." After 1/2 hour, we wandered over to the nearest coffee shop and got to know each other a bit. Not a Russian among us. One was doing her doctorate in Middle Eastern Studies, and another was a warm sephardic woman who insisted the Rebbe of Lubavitch was still alive and well and answering her letters.

We finally got to 'work' at around 9:00 am in separate rooms. There were three other women in the room with me. One was the secretary, who took voters' cards and ID numbers, checked their voting numbers on their voting ticket. I simply highlighted these voting numbers on a numbered sheet, which looked like some sort of advanced bingo sheet and joked if I win anything if the sheet fills up, or I fill in a line or two. There were 976 voters registered to vote in our room and we expected to be busy. But all together only SEVEN people showed up by 3:00 pm. Why? Most of the people on our list were Arabs and stragglers, like students. In fact the people who did show up were foreign-born students who had just made aliyah. The Arabs stupidly boycotted the elections - again. I say "stupidly" because so little of the municipal budget goes to East Jerusalem (I heard about 10%), and they desperately need better infrastructure and more classrooms/schools built. But without voting, I don't think they'll win any prizes or get the things that they need most, and that's a shame. The politicians will continue to ignore this part of the populace as a result.

So what does a person do for hours on end when no one comes to vote? Having never done this before, I thought I'd be busy and would have no time for Sudoku and reading, etc. Our room was an English-language classroom, and I was considering reading all the workbooks, that's how bored I was. I did find one book by Oscar Wilde, which I read in about 1/2 hour. Short stories for young children - The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, The Fisherman's Soul, Star Child, etc, which was the highlight of my day.

Meals were given out by everyone's respective parties. The woman next to me was working for Porush. She got two large fluffy rolls, a can of Star Kist tuna salad, vanilla pudding and chocolate milk. I got a lousy omelet sandwich. Others had a hot meat meal.

And I wondered out loud to the people in the room whether, had I been working for Dan Birran (Green Leaf candidate), I would have gotten an organic vegetable salad with nuts and seeds and sprouts - with a few hemp seeds thrown in.

Look who's moving into the neighborhood

On the eve of Rosh Hashana I walked around the neighborhood, doing last minute things like hand-picking flowers from the florist for my daughter's fiancee's family. On the way I met someone who was sympathetic to all the negative emails I had received about my interfaith encounters.

"I got some real nasty emails" she told me. This was because she told the list that the person who started the whole tirade against my meetings was inciteful. I told her that it's not like I'm inviting car thieves to the meeting.

She then told me her personal story:

"I used to live in Silwan (City of David) years ago. I rented a place from an Arab landlord and everyone was real friendly and warm towards me. I just gave birth prematurely and I walked into my apartment to see bloody handprints all over my door. Of course I freaked out totally thinking 'they're GOING TO KILL ME!'. My landlord explained that it's tradition that when a baby might be in danger, they slaughter a sheep and put the blood of the sheep around the doorpost of the house to save/heal the baby. But I didn't know at first until they spoke to me about it."

I agreed with her that I would have freaked out too at the sight of bloody handprints all over my door. WTF? But I tried to look it up on the internet and the closest thing I can find about this custom was
this:

Meanwhile, hubby wanted to irritate our community a bit more.

"Let's announce that we're having a nudist party" he told me this morning joyfully. Now THIS is a person that should be going to shul today, no? But I'm stuck with him in the house. This is my atonement. I found it quite funny actually and added

"OK - next time I announce an interfaith meeting, I'll tell them it'll be a nudist interfaith encounter, and then we can have fun with all the responses."

But I was thinking, there are scarier things than me inviting 5 Palestinians to my home to talk about religion.

For example, on Sunday I walked around Givat Shaul after I had my yearly boob smooshing examination at Machon Halla. There are a lot of wonderful stores in that neighborhood that borders on the ultra-orthodox Har Nof neighborhood. The customers are mostly ultra-orthodox, meaning lots of toy stores, electronics, clothing, food with reasonable prices. I wandered into one toy store to see this:



Shocking. Especially since I saw that the store owners weren't especially religious. They had kowtowed to the ultra-orthodox customers and had colored over the photo of the immodest mother and even her young female child in every swimming pool box. Except for one.

I called the owner over.

"You forgot to cover up this woman with black marker!" I showed him, pointing to the bare arms and worse of the photo of a woman in the swimming pool with her child.

He just looked at me.

And in the Maale Adumim local paper, the headline screamed how tens (or is it hundreds)of ultra-orthodox Jews are all registering locally at this one particular address so they can have a Maaleh Adumim address to be able to vote in an ultra-orthodox municipality or mayor or something in the forthcoming November 11th local elections. It's being looked into now because it's impossible for hundreds of people to be living in one apartment in the older section of the city. In fact, one of my friends said that "they" knocked on her door asking if she would like to sell her apartment. If they knock on mine, should I tell them apartments are half price in Abu Dis? Or should I just warn the local toy store that they'd better start coloring with black marker the immodest mothers that adorn the boxes of toys in their store?