Thanksgiving might be American, but food and family is universal.

Since the fourth Thursday of November isn't a holiday in Israel we had class. However being a Thursday, it was a field trip day. This week we went to Abu Ghosh, an Arab town west of Jerusalem. First stop was the town mosque and then we got to visit the elementary school that's associated with it.

One of the residents of Abu Ghosh giving us the history of the mosque.

Melanie and I inside the mosque.

The first grade classroom in the school.

The second part of our day trip consisted of what we were told was going to be an Arabic cooking class. What the teacher really meant was she was about to unleash 15 international students in an operational restaurant's kitchen. We entered the restaurant and were immediately beckoned into the back. After a little awkward shuffling around to fit all of us in, production began. There was little explanation and a lot of activity. Commands and questions went back and forth in Arabic and English as students began chopping ingredients, preparing food, and frying falalel. It was productive chaos as students began doing anything and everything in the kitchen. Activities included just as much coffee drinking, socializing, and hummus spilling as it did anything productive, but I think both the restaurant workers and students had an immensely enjoyable time out of it. And in true Thanksgiving style, it ended with an absolute feast worth of food.

Frying falafel.

Hanging out with chef master Taisub in the kitchen.

Jasper cooking potatoes like a boss... and getting in some practice rounds before being on potato duty for Thanksgiving dinner.

Kitchen selfie with the restaurant owner's brother and my classmates.

After our first feast we all returned home to work off our lunch feast by preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Although there are plenty of activity options for a Thursday night in Israel, I decided that I really wanted to just enjoy some good food and company so I opened an invitation for people to come over for Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment. The only catch was everyone had to bring some sort of food. After all, I had dessert covered.

الأميرات all dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner.

My part of the pot-luck. Three pies and spice cookies with pumpkin dip.

My abroad-family dinner.

From the left is Jasper, Taisub, Melanie, Nora, Lisa, myself, and Teresa. Noah's behind the camera per usual.

Our Thanksgiving feast consisted of salad, mashed potatoes, pomegranate seeds, pad thai, chicken wings, and lots of dessert. Honestly, I'd take Taisub's pad thai and chicken over a roasted turkey any day... he knows how to cook! Our dinner was blessed in a variety of languages and religious traditions before dinner continued in the same way. Noah was outnumbered 7 to 1 by Arabic students and so more often than not Arabic slang was being thrown around the dinner conversation. Overall though it was a great holiday and it's hard to be anything but thankful about a day full of food- Arabic, American, and otherwise.

To all of my family, friends, and sisters back home - I hope you had a great holiday and I miss you all! And to all of my friends here in Israel (at dinner and otherwise) - it's hard to be homesick when I have you as my family here abroad, I am so thankful to have you all as a part of my study abroad experience. I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving as much as I did!

Anything is Possible with a little Guesstimation and a Bottle of Vodka

Wednesday night was an important turning point in my week. Midterms were finally over الحمد لله‎, and the following day was Thanksgiving. Additonally, the weather was extremelly bad. So, there was no better use of my night than to hang out in my kitchen and prepare for Thanksgiving: in my personal family's style.

That means pie.

It's not Thanksgiving in my household without at least half a dozen pies in the house. Pie baking usually begins days before the actual Thanksgiving meal. Personally, I could survive without the turkey or the traditional side dishes, but the pies aren't food; they're tradition.

Baking in Israel comes with it's own set of challenges. The supplies in the grocery store are different, and not always labeled in English. Also, there's no such thing as a pie pan in Jerusalem. I would know, I looked. Additionally, my apartment keeps kosher, so I would have to prepare and bake everything so that it remains kosher (and so that I don't "un-kosher" any of the kitchen utensils in the process). 

But first things first, I had to gather my ingrediants. I headed to the grocery with my very American list and some Google translated notes on what words to look for to varify certain ingrediants. Despite having to shop in a foreign grocery store, the real challange didn't appear until I returned home. I had no way of measuring what I bought.

Conversions were necessary. Most things in the store are measured in grams. All of my mother's recipes are in cups and teaspoons. So, I needed to determine a cup. That's where the vodka comes in. A few days ago one of my roommates had a friend over who had brought along a small bottle of vodka. Finishing it, he left it here in our kitchen. Vodka is imported and therefore the label is in English, so, I could verify the bottle I held was 200 grams. From there it's all guesstimation and mental math. A cup is roughly 228 grams. That's just around a bottle and a quarter bottle of vodka. So, I filled the bottle with water ~1.25 times and emptied it into a regular drinking glass and suddenly I had myself a measuring tool.

The roughly 228 grams of water next to the 200 gram vodka bottle.

The first test was the most intimidating- and possibly the most crucial. I had to make the pie crust using only my vodka-guesstimated measurements, a bowl, and a fork. It would be hard to find a more "college" approach to the baking process than that. But let me tell you... I succeeded.

Bringing family traditions to Israel: homemade pie crust. 

The pie crusts rolled out into my make-shift pie pans (aka cake pans I bought at the shuk).

The most exciting moment of my baking was during the pecan pie. After I poured out the Karo into my "measuring glass" I noticed the bottle came with an easy measure feature. Although a waste of having to repour the corn syrup, it was insanely validating learning that my makeshift vodka-bottle-derived measurement system was actually rather accurate.

Proof that I'm a domestic goddess.

And of course, the night ended with pie (or rather, pies plural; plus cookies and cookie dip). Afterall, tomorrow's Thanksgiving and there's no reason to skimp on the options for caloric intake.

My pecan pie.

The finished pies. The pecans on the left and the apple pie with a crumble topping is on the right.

Picturesque Beaching

"It's not the occasional class that I'm going to look back on and remember fondly once my study abroad semester is over... I'm going to remember all the adventures I had," is what I said to pretty much anyone who would listen this past Saturday to try and rationalize my decision. My schedule on Sunday consists of Arabic classes, but I wasn't planning on attending those classes this week. Instead, hours before I'd even have to be up for class, I boarded a bus headed to the beach.

Noah is an art student at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and this past Sunday his photography professor had set up a class trip to go spend eight hours photographing a small local fisherman's beach north of Tel Aviv which I was invited to attend. It was a tough decision... Arabic class or a free beach trip with my friend. أستاذة آسف (sorry professor), but I tagged along with my little Sony point-and-shoot camera to go hangout with Noah and his photography class for the day.

Our location for the day.

It was a small local beach which was rather removed from civilization.

Hanging out beachside for the day.

It was a really nice day. My favorite summary of the trip is actually a list from a follow-up Email from Noah's professor Yosaif. He describes the contents of the day as:

"Consider this wishlist for a foto excursion at the beach in the chilly end of November:

Powerful clouds that have personality and offer soft light

waves and strong motion to make the ocean exciting

a beach where a warm cozy bus is always a ready refuge

sunny highlights on a grey ocean

a fisherman's tent (including fishermen) for Minna with tea, atmosphere and a cozy place out of the rain

a totally private beach and shoreline

high hills and cliffs nearby to look down at the ocean

a good early morning rain to wipe out all the footprints

arriving to the beach the second the rain stops

a warm sunny day for relaxation

warm weather for swimming

safe water without strong currents

water warm enough to enjoy a good swim

enough visual stimuli to make everybody happy

the color of the sunset over the variety of sand and water formations on the shoreline

coming home safely with the same number of people who left.

We did pretty good."

We had everything from overcast skies, to sun, to a light drizzle, to a full blown thunderstorm. A whole season of weather within our short collection of hours onsite. We got to swim, sunbath, take shelter from the ocassional rain cloud, and take pictures through it all.

A picture Noah took of me in front of the Mediteranian.

One of my favorite photos I took during the trip.

A picture Noah captured of one of the fisherman's huts.

When on a mostly deserted beach for an extended number of hours, people tend to get acquainted. During the first intense patch of weather as we counted our numbers while attempting to stay dry in the bus we realized we "lost" someone. Noah's professor alluded to the end of the story in his Email... once the weather cleared we learned that rather than taking shelter with our class in the bus, the missing girl had ended up sitting with the fisherman in their tent over a cup of tea!

People became more comfortable embracing the sparse locals on the beach and even more stories pouring in. While standing in a group I got pulled into converation from a local man who had been a sailor when he was younger. He recalled stories of accompaning shipments everywhere from Panama, to the United States, to the Soviet Union. He could tell me the history of every single location around the beach from Biblical times to explicit details regarding what had progressed in his lifetime. He described one point in his life when he remembered coins from the DDR (East Germany) washing up all over that local beach. He warned me in urgent whispers of the power of wealth while just a little further down the beach a few students were tucked into a shack with some of the fisherman distilling whiskey with them.

Noah happened to capture a picture of the man I described talking to while he was walking along the beach.

All in all it was a great trip. I may not have had a Thanksgiving break this week, but I did get to enjoy a long and fun day at the beach even at the end of November. Sababa.

A Day Off in Jerusalem

Every two weeks my schedule works out so that I have a Thursday without classes. Faced with a whole day of possibilities without the usual weekend crowd, I try to be productive but also enjoy using the time to get out of my usual bubble of academia in East Jerusalem. So, in my usual day off fashion, I took off late morning headed to the train station. Today's destination was Damascus Gate.

Every time I've come to the Old City before it had always been on a day when the Arab residents were protesting something regarding Al-Aqsa mosque. Finally, instead of walking through streets of locked metal doors I was immersed in the chaos of the Arab market. I wandered through the busy streets full of vendors, tourists, and locals just trying to pick up any slight pieces of Arabic conversation I could while scoping out a good destination to spend my morning.

One point while I was walking the Arabic going on all around me became overshadowed by the noise of loudly sung hymns. I looked around and quickly noticed a large swarm of pilgrims flooding the street lead by a group of foreigners carrying a large cross. As if walking around the Muslim quarter signing hymns wasn't stand out enough, they all wore neon yellow vests reading "march for peace" and were carrying olive branches. As much as I could tell some of the marchers were having an immensely spiritual experience, I didn't really want to be associated with the swarm of foreigners so I ducked into a smaller side street where I preceded to watch more neon vests walk by while listening to the Arabic commentary by the other gathered observers.

As I loitered, one Arab man came up to me and encouraged me to 'go back and join the others'. At which point I promptly turned on my heels and walked into the local Arab cafe right near me and displayed my finesse at ordering a drink in the local dialect of Arabic. To sort of combat the locals commentary of how much I didn't fit in, I decided to do exactly the opposite and made myself at home. Nursing a cup of tea I was eventually embraced into the daily on-goings of the cafe. Nearby shopkeepers streamed in and out asking for refills on coffee or tea. A local joined me at my table and proceeded to work on his finances while getting into heated discussions with his friend who worked at the cafe.

The location of my tea break.

My company in the cafe. Even conversations about paychecks and taxes sound poetic when handled in Arabic.

My afternoon consisted of finding a sunny spot in my apartment to curl up and get cozy with my Belief and Ritual in Islam class readings. Surrounded by A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani and nearly deteriorated pages of Helmut Gätje's The Qur'an and its Exegesis I got a productive head start on my midterm papers while actually just procrastinating my Arabic homework.

In reality, the 'productivity' was just a cover to make me feel okay about taking the entire night off too. After (his) class Noah and I headed straight for Cinema City to catch the new Hunger Games movie and afterword we joined the mass collective of students at a "cultural rave" downtown. Part art fair and part public concert, we loitered amongst the crowd while Arabic, English, and Hebrew lyrics competed with heavy bass to fill the streets.

Noah and I in the theater before the showing of the Hunger Games.

Adrian and I at the cultural and music festival. The art instillation behind us is a giant elephant.

I've been trying for days now to try to put into words what I experienced on Tuesday. So many calls and texts came flooding from America asking if I was okay and safe after the horrible event that occured Tuesday morning. However, my Arabic teacher's assisstant and friend Ilona found all the right words to explain everything I feel about Jerusalem right now. You can read it here, but first I'll leave you with the true and unbelievable quote from her post:

On Tuesday, the uncle of one of my Arabic students was slaughtered by an axe-wielding Palestinian man in Synagogue as he prayed.

That is literally what happened. Except, it was my friend and classmate. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone effected by the terrible event and as Ilona says, "Let there be peace".

The View From Here

Amongst the chaos in Jerusalem it's always nice to find a spot to get away from it all. It just so happens one of the best spots to do that is exactly where we already are; just add a few stories.

This is my apartment complex as seen from the roof of my building.

If you look at the tower with the red light on the top in the skyline that's the building where my classes are at. 

Everyday I make the treck from the building you can see in the bottom left over toward the horizon, aka campus.

A picture Noah captured of me looking out over the edge of the roof.

Jerusalem. (Photo credits to Noah.)

Shout out to my roomates for discovering how to get to the roof and passing on the knowledge.

Class Outing to Jaffa

Last Thursday my Arabic Immersion classmates and I boarded a bus bright and early and headed toward the beautiful coastal town of Jaffa. There we spent the day exploring around and experiencing all the culture the city had to offer us.

The Jaffa-Tel Aviv coast.

My Arabic class wandering around outside St. Peter's Church.

St. Peter's Church is the supposed location of where Jesus' disciple Peter raised Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9:36-42). Jaffa holds significant for a variety of very interesting theological stories. The port of Jaffa recieved the building materials of Solomon's temple as well as the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The city is mentioned a total of 4 times in the Hebrew Bible. Additionally the port of Jaffa is where Jonah departed from before being swallowed by a whale.

A picture of the front of the church (borrowed from Wikipedia).

Inside St. Peter's.

The view of the Mediterranean from a window inside the church.

Another interesting religious tie to Jaffa exists in Greek mythology. Andromeda was a daughter of a king in the Jaffa area who bragged she was more beautiful than Poseidon's sea nymphs and Poseidon sent a sea monster to destroy her fathers land in response. Apparently the only option to appease the monster was to strip Andromeda and chain her naked to a rock in the sea. The rock she was supposedly tied to is the rock in the above picture with a white flag on it. 

A run down soap factory we walked past from the Ottoman period.

If you look closer at the above photo you'll realize what just looks like shadowing in the arch is actually hundreds of bats just hanging out.

My class failing to pose for a picture inside one of the mosques in Jaffa. I'm the one in the head scarf looking away from the camera.

We also got the chance to meet up with an interfaith organization in Jaffa working to uplift women in the Jaffa community through a variety of different initiatives. The woman who spoke to us had incredible stories of struggles some of the local women go through and it was exciting to see what sort of grass root opportunities are rising up to help combat them.

My classmates and I at the organization in Jaffa.

Afterword we got a little free time to enjoy the coast and everything else Jaffa had to offer before ending our not-so-little field trip and heading back to Jerusalem.

Up close and personal with the Mediterranean sea.

Demonstration Update

The Jerusalem Post offically published their article on the demonstration last night. If you want to read the professional article on yesterday's event just click below:

Isawiya residents protest blocked off entrances to neighborhood, call them 'collective punishment'

However there's one part I want to draw attention to. The author quotes an Isawiya resident saying,

“You have to understand, we’re talking about minors – nine-, 10-, 11-, and 12-year olds,” he said. “What do you expect? They have no playground, nothing to do and the police come here with M-16s and [stink bombs] for little kids. It’s ridiculous! You use weapons like this to fight an army in Russia, not to fight little kids!”

It sounds bad, but it's entirely accurate. One of the craziest things I witnessed yesterday was how much of a majority of the protesters were young kids. And the police are literally ready to fire chemical weapons at these childern for a few chats and the occasional thrown stone. 

In fact you don't even have to take my word for it. I have video I personally took yesterday showing some of the youth at the protest.

A slightly clearer picture of the young boys from the video at the protest.

It just makes you think about the current situation in Israel. There's something wrong when a country's reaction to terrorist attacks is to become agressive toward young children.

Eclectic Doesn't Even Begin to Cover It...

This Wednesday was pretty crazy for a school day. First off, I had to survive two different Arabic quizzes I had spent the better part of the first half of my week preparing for. After classes I was ready to go home, relax, and unwind. However, that just wasn't the universe's plan for my evening.

Theresa and I were walking back from campus when we noticed a large gathering of people and police at the top of the hill. Clearly, this was way too interesting not to investigate.

A view over Theresa's shoulder of the police at the top of the hill.

We soon found out that there was a student "tour" about to happen of Isawiya, the Arab neighborhood right next to campus that all of the recent drama has been occurring in. Confused as to why students would want to take a "tour" of a residential (and Arab) neighborhood so close to home, I realized by asking around that what was actually about to happen was a demonstration.

The part of me with common sense thought about turning back. However, I'm partaking in an Arabic immersion program. Here's not only an Arab neighborhood, but these people are literally my neighbors. And after all, when in Rome do as the Romans do... so, clearly my time in the Middle East wouldn't be complete without a little politically-charged activism. So Theresa and I decided to stand with the locals from Isawiya and the students from Hebrew University. And thus began our march....

The "tour" walking toward the roadblock Israel put up that blocks off the neighborhood from being accessible to the rest of Jerusalem.

Local residents of Isawiya hanging out and watching everything happen.

The interesting part of this picture is that balloon in the sky. First off, it's right next to my apartment. So I was literally under half a mile from my home. Those parachute balloon things hold 360-degree cameras that observe all of the things going on below in Jerusalem.

A picture I managed to capture of one of the soldiers walking off to the side to overlook Isawiya and the surrounding areas of Jerusalem from the top of the hill.

A video I took of some of the chants that were happening during the demonstration.

What was one of the most frustrating parts though was that as long as the university students were there, it was purposely unescalated. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely zero desire to be in the center of violence and in close proximity to canisters of tear gas going off, but there was still something so disturbing about the situation. After a little over an hour the police commanded the non-locals to leave the proximity. Suddenly, being perceived as white, a student, and possibly Jewish, I had way more rights than my neighbors around me. I could walk through the military line without a second glance. I had the strange ability to assimilate to the Israeli crowd, the local Arabs, or float around with little fear for my safety. The local Arabs don't even have the same freedom I do, to walk down the road out of their village.

Additionally, once the students were evacuated, the police's weapons were no longer passive. As long as I had stood near they kept their guns open so that it would be impossible to fire. Now that students and local Jews were out of the way the guns were locked and loaded. Theresa and I lingered as long as we could, but it was starting to get seriously dark and we really weren't interested in making ourselves close range targets.

A view from behind the police line. The main line is down by the protest, but here behind it different officers walk around freely tending to yell at passersby.

 Upon returning home I still didn't manage to get to my restful night. Downtown there was an Indie music festival going on that most students around Jerusalem were showing up to. Three stages and hours of music and festivities. I guess I just hadn't fulfilled enough of my desire of standing in large, packed, and emotionally charged crowds for the night. So, Noah and I filed onto the train. Tonight the usual orthodox crowd was joined by a large number of people in skinny jeans and thick framed glasses packed amongst the train car.

In fact, the music festival was pretty cool. The streets downtown were absolutely packed. Other than Noah, who I had traveled into town with, the chances of finding any of our other friends seemed slim, however we'd later learn that wasn't the case.

Just a small portion of the crowd packed in front of one of the stages.

A cool panoramic Noah took at one of the street intersections downtown. You can actually see two of the performance stages from this spot.

After Noah took that picture our wandering was soon interrupted by him recognizing a friend from school. We went up to say hi and immediately after introductions his friend asked us, "were you on your way to the drag show?". Out of all of religiously pious Jerusalem, Noah and I would end up standing outside the city's gay bar. His friend Alex quickly explained he usually performs in drag at the venue but was taking this month off. Who were we to decline an inviation to be personally led inside?

Soon the Indie music playing outside was replaced with showtunes, ballads, and Israeli pop music being performed by a bunch of fierce drag queens. Easily the highlight of the night out was when I volunteered them to pull Noah up on stage. For nearly ten minutes Noah humorously bantered back and forth with the queens on stage much to the amusement of the rest of the club.

Noah on stage at gay bar.

I finished up a day full of quizzes and political demonstrations simply by having a blast jaming out with a bunch of guys rocking heels. Within hours I had gone from academics, to protests, to music festivals, and ended up at a drag show. If that doesn't show just how crazy eclectic life is here in Israel, I don't know what does. And when in doubt, just have a kiki.