You may have noticed that Israel celebrates a number of holidays, both religious and national, and they tend to come all at once (Brian recently marveled to me that Israel has any economy at all, for all of the breaks dut to holidays.) So, in the aftermath of Pesach, we marked three very important days; Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day.For Holocaust Remembrance Day, our school had an assembly where my classmates sang, prayed and read poetry. It was quite a somber experience, but very appropriate. In the morning, the emergency siren rang and everyone stopped in the streets, completely silent. It was an eerie feeling to see the normally jostling, rushing, loud Israelis stopped and quiet in Rembrance.My friend, Lana, had her Dad visiting from home that weekend, and we decided to take him to Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. I had gone on my last trip, but had not spent a long enough time looking at the enormous amount of horrifying and touching information. The sheer mass of resources, showing the absolute worst and depraved of humanity, but also the most atruistic and heroic, makes for an incredibly emotional experience. The museum is one of the best curated and archived museums that I have ever seen. Perhaps most meaningful was the fact that Lana's ancestors had been confined to the Kovno Ghetto during the Holocaust, and the museum had a special exhibit on Kovno, a ghetto in Lithuania. It was moving to see she and her Dad read the accounts of the people there and what they went through.

Almost a week later, we marked Memorial Day, and in preparation, enormous flags were hung all around the city. The apartment buildings where I live each exhibited a 80-foot flag, and almost every car had a small flag waving outside their window. It is a staggering amount of patriotism, made stronger by the fact that Israel just fought a war last summer, the four soldiers who were kidnapped have yet to be returned, and everyone (men and women alike) serve in the military. There was a ceremony at the Kotel that night (all holidays begin and sunset) and the following day at Mt. Hertzl, the equivalent of Arlington Cemetery, where the President and Prime Minister spoke.Israelis comment on the strange attitude of these days; Monday- Memorial Day- is known as the saddest day in Israel, and Tuesday- Independence Day- is known as the happiest, with only a minute in between.

In this interim, my friends and I walked down to the main street in Western Jerusalem in a sober mood, but then Independence Day began, and we instantly felt happy. The roads were blocked off for a giant concert and people danced and cheered in the streets under blue lights hung for the occasion. The music was not wonderful, but the company certainly was. Over the course of the eveing we ate our favorite foods on Ben Yehuda, drank "snake bites" at one of our favorite bars, and danced until late in the eveing.

It seems that many countries mark Independence Day with barbeques, known as "mangals" in Hebrew. The following Day, we headed to Socar Park with Israeli friends to eat a huge barbeque- there was barely an inch of grass- thousands of people picnicked and sprayed each other with shaving cream (also a weird tradition!). The people we went with cooked a ton of meats and we also had Pita and assorted salads. My favorite is purple cabbage soaked mayonnaise, which I guess is just a rendition of coleslaw. My friend Sam ate two kilos of meat himself and looked like he might yak. We also toasted marshmallows. Because they are up to Parve standards here, marshmallows are really gross- Mom, put that on the list of things we should eat when I get home, and a big "Thanks!" to the Smith gals that sent me Peeps for Easter- I have been rationing them.

These days offer a range of emotions that I found to be very much in-line with the Israeli experience. Israel was founded (in large part) out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Since then, there have been a number of wars in which a large amount of people have lost their lives, reaffirming the commitment to the country,which continues to celebrate the sweetness of Independence and a Jewish State, even though threats remain. It was a thought-provoking time to be part of here. I'm still trying to experience as many things as I can, and then spend the plane ride figuring out exactly how I feel about it all.

There ain't no bunnies, but there is a whole lot of craziness

Sometimes, the spiritual life in Jerusalem is so strong that the faith is almost palpable in the air. At no time have I experienced this sensation more stongly than this past week, when religious pilgrims of all sorts descended unto the city to celebrate both Pesach (Passover) and Easter.

Pesach began at dusk on April 2nd, the day after I got back from my hiking trip. I was invited to celebrate by having Seder with my Hebrew U law professor, Alan Zysblat, and his family. I had never been to a Seder before, and was nervous about what to expect, but ended up having a wonderful time. Professor Zysblat has children around my age, and all of them had gathered at their beautiful apartment with friends to celebrate. Everyone was involved in serving the dishes and reading from the Haggadah, and I instantly felt like one of the family. I had never tried gefilte fish or matzah ball soup, and while I prefer the soup to the fish, both were good. We drank the obligatory four glasses of wine, which gave way to rousing songs continued late into the evening, extolling the Exodus from Egypt.

Pesach then continued until the following Monday; eight days. During that time, there was an influx of visiting Jews, here to celebrate a central theme of Passover; "Next Year in Jerusalem!". Most restaurants were closed or had special menus that were Kosher for Pesach. While I don't mind matzah, I really missed cereal, but all the grocery stores had huge curtains over all prohibited food, and refused to sell it. Normally, an integral part of Passover is not only to refrain from eating leavened bread, but to clean and kosherize the kitchen, removing all chametz. My roommates decided the latter was not important to their individual observance, so our kitchen could still have leavened products in it. My friend, Lincoln who is Christian, accompanied me to the Arab part of town where we had no trouble finding him a loaf of bread and myself a box of honey nut cheerios, which got us through the week just fine. Up until that point, Lincoln had been living off of a stick of salami and Pepsi.

Spending Passover here was a wonderful experience because I learned so much. It felt so different to be in a minority during a major holiday, but it was great fun to take part in the capacity that I did, and to have everything explained to me by my friends. Lana was telling me how she and he family normally act out each of the ten plagues by using props- little faux locusts and frogs.

Starting on Good Friday, a huge population of Christian pilgrims joined the already-crowded city to celebrate Easter in the Holy Land. Most came from as far away as Ethiopia and the more orthodox countries like Greece and Russian. They wore white garb and congregated in the Christian and Armenian quarters. On Saturday, my friends and I headed to the Old City to take part in some of the festivities. There were darkly colored eggs in rich reds and yellows, and the narrow alleyways were so crowded with people! At noon that day, there is a huge celebration at the Church of The Holy Sepulchre called "The Holy Fire", which is thought to be the oldest Christian tradition, dating back to the 4th century, and then steadily documented from 1106. It is recognized by Catholics who are mostly Orthodox,and is pretty cool. The Archbishop of the Church goes into the tomb of Jesus alone, and pilgrims chant outside until he comes out with a lamp of olive oil that they believe has been lit by God. The coolest part is that first, Israeli authorities search the archbishop for anything that could be used to start fire. It's like he's the holiest Houdini ever. Then, these Christians believe that the fire will not burn believers for the first 33 minutes that it is lit. So, to add to the general mayhem of the Old City, people were running around with these huge clusters of lit candles, stciking their limbs and faces in it. The best part was that, last semester I wrote a huge paper for Romanesque Art at Smith on the Church and the tradition, and then I actually got to take part.

The next morning, Lincoln and I joined some other friends who are Christian and attended church services at the Garden Tomb at dawn. Right outside the gates of the Old City, the Garden is thought by many Christians to have belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, and to be the site of the tomb of Jesus. There were 1400 people gathered at the service we attended, and it was amazing to see how far people had come to worship, and what their religion means to them. parts of it were a litttle freaky because I am not used to Evangelical services, but the overall idea was nice. I didn't know about one tradition in which people come up to you and say "He is risen!" and you're supposed to say "He is Risen, Indeed, Allelujah!". Somone came up to me an said it and I was like "Wha?" until Lincoln jumped in.

After Church (and a nap) Sara visited from Florence. I made she and her borther a Kosher dinner, since everything closed down for a second Shabbat on the last day of pesach. I haven't seen Sara since last June, and really enjoyed hearing about her experiences in Itlay.

Monday we all went out as stores were re-opening after the end of Passover (at around 9pm) to officially break the fast at one of our favorite restaurants, Burgers Bar!

Altogether, it was probably my favorite period of my time here, because experiencing the convergence of holidays gave me a glimpse of the true importance of this place to people and their spirituality. To see people devoted to their individual faiths was so inspiring. There was one time, in the Old City, where I was surrounded by Christian pilgrims, Orthodox Jews, on their respective holidays, and heard the Muslim call to prayer, and I thought "This is what this place is all about".

Sea to Sea

Classes ended last Wednesday for Pesach break, which was a welcome hiatus! We all went out for burgers and then came home early. My friends and I were leaving early the next morning for a four day hike "Sea to Sea". Even packing was so exciting- like preparing to go to camp or something.

We boarded buses at 6 am on Thursday and headed to the Mediterranean Sea, the official kick-off of the trip. There were about 100 students, divided into three groups. One group was made up of the hiking club and would be sleeping outdoors and taking a further route. Needless to say, I was not in this group. the remaining two groups,of which I was a part, divided up with tour guides. Our tour guide was this crazy man named Raffi- I've had him before for a tour of Jaffa and he is absolutely nuts- in a good way. We circled up and filled up a bottle with water from the sea to carry with us along our way, each having a turn to carry the water bottle. We were also assigned "secret santas" (Their phrasing, weird, right?) and told to deliver them little presents along the way. We had just enough time to dip our toes in before starting out.

Our first hike was near a Jewish village where one of the kidnapped soldiers from the summer, Gilad Shalit, grew up. We started walking down a mountain toward Lebanon, which snaked around crumbling ruins from the Crusader era and through little rushing rivers from the Med. The hike was mostly shady and downhill or flat, which allowed for a lot fluid conversation and singing. Our group leader, Michal taught us a Hebrew song about going to the shuk to buy animals, which included doing animal noises. Roosters say "coo-coo-coo-coo-ree-coo-coo", puppies say "how how how" and ducks say "ga ga ga", which I guess is no more inane onomatopoeia than "quack". Lana fell, scratching up her leg a good deal, but was a good sport and was easily fixed up by the medic/body guard, Muli. We then all signed her bandages. The only other time we stopped was for Raffi to dole out temporary tattoos he had collected from the choclate milk. I was given a fierce looking spider for my bicep.

After about 4 hours and one wrong turn, we were delivered to our hostel in a remote Druze village called Pk'kin. The Druze are an Arab religious sect that are friendly toward Jews and Israel, but incredibly secretive and mysterious. Our youth hostel was huge and our room fit five; me, Molly, Lana, Bethany, and Danielle, in bunk beds that folded out from the wall. We also had all of our favorite boys right next door. That first night was quite chilly, so we were pleased to not be in the "real" hiking club. we had a huge bonfire, roasting potatoes, making pita, and the Israeli take on "smores"- Kosher marshmallows are foul. We sang some Beatles and Coldplay and were careful to bat at the flint that threatened to burn through our pullovers. it was avery dark night and we could make out Orion's belt and other brilliant constellations.

The next morning we awoke early for breakfast at the hostel; Lana and I were thrilled about the chocolate spread on white bread, a chocolate sandwich, if you will, for breakfast. And then began our hike on Mt. Meron, which was gorgeous. It offered some incredible views and lush terrain, as we were in the North. We wound down through valleys, through farmland with ponds, and on cliffs with trees hanging on to sheer stone. Again, we found some ruins, probably an old tomb or something, which the guys just had to climb, heel-click, on, and try to squeeze in, so we could take pictures of their limbs dangling out of cracks in the huge grey stones. It stayed sunny all day with huge, billowy, white clouds. It was the longest day of hiking and we came back to the hostel, grateful for a long nap and shower. That night we had Shabbat services and dinner in the huge dining hall. One of the hikers from the other group broke her leg on the trail and had to be carried back by some of the guys and then taken to the village doctor where whe was given a cast that looked like little more than plaster of Paris.

Since the next day was Shabbat, we did not hike. Instead, we took a long walk through the village, which was fascinating. The houses were enormous, with elaborate pebble mosaics on the outside, or flamoyant paintings and fences. Donkeys and goats stared back at us from the yards as women hung wash and men drove by in all sorts of craft. The "walk" actually required some exertion, as the street winds around the houses which are set in the steep mountainside. The buildings are cramped together, and from the hostel, they resembled a sea. We stopped at a shrine with carob trees were people come to light a candle to find their soulmate, an old synagogue, and into the center of the city were vendors sold fresh-squeezed juice and bread. Druze flags; red, white, blue, yellow, and green lines, flew everywhere. And the man that sold me an ice cream gestured toward a Druze flag flying alongside the Israeli flag. We had some downtime back at the hostel and then had Havdallah to end Shabbat, with our peers singing, swaying and playing the guitar. That night, the leader of the trip, A Sephardic Jew from Morocco, informed us that he was bringing his family and throwing a faux "wedding" in the hostile to show us what a real Moroccan Henna party and wedding are like. They pulled names from a hat to decide on the roles of the "bride" and "groom", deciding on our friend Rod as the groom and our very own Molly as the bride-to-be. We showered quickly and ran back to the common room to find it totally transformed- ceremonial gold vases sat on a low table, chairs were gathered on either side, and oriental rugs overlapped across the floor. A DJ had been hired to play the latest in Moroccan music. We were whicked into a small room by Moti's mother and aunts, none of whom spoke English, all of whom were efficient at pulling at our clothes and gesturing toward a rack of beautiful Moroccan dresses and head scarves. They picked colors for us, choosing a burnt orange for Lana and a bright pink for me. Molly was taken to another room, not to be seen before the ceremony. It was decided that Lana and I would serve as Molly's sisters, placing us at the head of the ceremony, with Rod's "family". As we sstlled, the men cam in, sporting long robes and fezs, followed by the strongest men, who carried Molly in a gold carriage, far above the room with Rod walking in front, holding a bowl of yellow roses. After a couple of turns around the room, we all danced with Molly and Rod, and then settled for the ceremony. Having signed a wedding contract, affirming the terms of the dowry and such, we were all given Henna in our palms to dry as a sign we had witnessed and approved the contract. As Molly's family, we then danced around her before everyone joined in. after eating some sweet bread, we were all free to dance, limboing and being crazy until late into the night. It was so much fun, and so interesting.

The next day we packed up and hit the trail again, though it had rained most of the night. Clouds rolled in over Pk'kin as we left, partially obscuring the village and adding to the mysterious allure. The leaders weren't sure about hiking, but we eventually persuaded them to let us go. We arrived at our destination, a lush countryside that was incredibly dense and green, with sunshine streaming through the grey clouds and a light mist. We walked for a little over an hour toward the Jordan River where we relaxed for a while, before trying a more difficult trail that took us straight up a cliff and had us walking for hours in a tight single file with a sheer drop-off hundreds of feet above the Jordan, wildflowers all around us, and our first view of the Sea of the Galillee directly in front of us. The mud proved difficult, and we took turns routinely falling, making us muddy and tired quite quickly. it was definitely the most trying but lovely of the hikes. We were so happy to see our bus at the end which then had to drive in reverse for 10 minutes, all the way back up to the road.

We were finally delivered to Tiberius, one of my favorite cities, and thrown a huge barbeque with fresh strawberries and hot dogs in pitas. We took off our shoes, enjoyed the grass and happily ate overlooking the Sea of the Galillee before ceremoniously tossing the Mediterranean water into the Galille and taking pictures with our group. After a 4 hour bus ride back, we arrived back in Jerusalem, bid farewell to Raffi and happily showered and slept.