Israel - A Country of Life and Conflict

     I've officially been in Israel for over a week, and I'm still not sure the reality of it all has sunk in. Monday, I started classes and it was just like being back home at CIU – apart from the setting and people. I guess I mean it felt the same in that I still had to wake up earlier than I prefer and sit in a classroom, sometimes enjoying it and sometimes trying to not fall asleep.

     Class list for this semester:

          Judah's Exile and Restoration: This class is taught by a professor from Geneva that is here on sabbatical. He's... interesting, very nice, but he has a dry sense of humor and a deep monotone voice. And he often makes jokes that he thinks are funny and the students laugh just to humor him – it's a little awkward and tense. Though I'm sure we've all had college professors like this at some point. I blame my adviser at CIU for my feelings towards this professor because he set the standard for cooky professors and no others can match up.

          Physical Settings of the Bible: The class that will take me from “Dan to Beer-sheba” and all the known Biblical sights that are easy enough to walk or drive to. The concept of this class is fascinating and often even what we're learning makes the Bible come alive in a way I didn't think possible, that being said, my idea of fun is not walking in the desert heat in order to look at some stone walls from the 10^th century. Maybe this is just my laziness showing itself in a more prominent way than it could in the states. It also doesn't help that my professor is really perky, and, somehow, when I'm soaked through with sweat, aching, and breathing heavily with exhaustion, the last thing I want to do is have a blissfully happy woman teach me about geology.

          Ancient Egypt: I haven't really had a chance to grow an appreciation for this class, but I am really excited. I remember, when I was younger, the highlight of my youth would be watching the latest excavations of tombs of pyramids on the History Channel. I even dreamed about being an Egyptologist until I realized that archaeologists don't necessarily make a lot of money (funny how, at that age, I so quickly threw away something I loved for money.) Point being, we haven't really dug deep yet, but even learning about the Nile and how it effects Egypt excited me.

          Introduction to the Modern Middle East: Oded Yinon is the professor for this class. I'm sure that you can tell by his name that he's Israeli. This guy walks into the class lecturing and, when it comes to an end, walks out of the room lecturing. There is no introduction or pause for a breath, other than when the occasional student gets the gall to ask him something. Not only does he talk incessantly, but his accent makes him almost impossible to understand. I'm sure he made the class with some sort of structure in mind, but I have yet to find a method to his madness. Thankfully, the only assignment we have is to write a research paper. So I'll probably spend the rest of the semester just trying to figure him out. I'm sure I will have many more interesting stories about him.

          Arabic I: Probably one of my favorite classes. I get to take a bus twice a week into Bethlehem, and then walk from the check-point, through the city, to another college to take it. And I love the professor! Her name is Sallwa and she's a little crazy and spastic, but she's such a sweetheart. Our first class was like being thrown into the deep end of an Arabic storm, but I'm learning a lot, so I can't complain.

Other updates:

     I feel like I ought to comment on Bethlehem for a moment because, for anyone who hasn't been there, you may picture it different than how it really is. At least, for me, I pictured it as not too different from Jerusalem. You know, just an old city built upon years of ancient Biblical history. It's far from this. It's not like Jerusalem at all. Jerusalem is a bustling city, packed tightly together on top of a plateau and surrounded by valleys, full of markets and life. But Bethlehem is a wasteland where just a gust of hope remains in the air. It's a Palestinian city, and as soon as you cross into it's borders you're surrounded by a wasteland of trash. At least twenty taxis are there to convince you that they have the “best deal” for wherever you're trying to get to, and if you tell them that you don't want a taxi then they'll follow you until they finally get the point. The heart of the city has a wall running through it. I'm sure there's some political reason for this wall, but I'm sorry to say that I haven't done the research on it, yet. All I know is that this wall, which runs the length of the city, is covered in graffiti that say things like “This wall may protect the present but it has no future”, “Where is the humanity?”, “I was born Palestinian but I count myself lucky”, “Mexico loves you Palestine!”, “Free Palestine!”, etc. It's sad, fascinating, and it lights within you a flicker of hope. Even though it's not hope for your own culture, it makes you almost proud of something... humanity, maybe? I'm sure I'll think about it a lot more while I'm here, seeing as I pass it four times a week.

     Israel is full of this kind of life and strength, though. Last night I was lucky enough to walk on the outskirts of an Israeli protest – supposedly the largest one to ever occur. People gathered in all the main cities of Israel to protest for social justice. I heard there were about 50k walking in Jerusalem, and it was at least doubled in Tel Aviv. I found two things interesting about this: When asking the citizens what the protest was about, most of them didn't know, and the protest seemed to be a bigger issue than the Palestinian conflict. I found it interesting that most of them didn't know what the protest was about, because it made me realize just how similar people are no matter what their culture is. You can go to America and ask people why they voted for Obama or why they don't support gay marriage, and most of them can't give you a well thought out reason. After asking several groups of people, we were able to discover that the protest was about how expensive it is to live in Israel and the people want the government to do things like lower taxes and help out students, etc. What's more, is that this was a bigger issue to the people than the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Where as, in America, we make this conflict such a big deal! But if you talk to Palestinians, they'll tell you that they just want peace. They would prefer their own state from it, but they really just want peace. And they can't run their own state without the Israelis anyways, because most Palestinians work for Israelis. On the opposite side, though Israelis need the Palestinians for labor (or at least that's what I've understood between class and talking to people – I may be completely off). But the Israelis are almost uncomfortable when you ask them about the conflict. Yes, they want peace, but they don't want to give anything up in order for it to happen. It's a very interesting dynamic to me.

     The last thing that I'll mention is the field study I went on today. We walked all over Jerusalem for 10 hours! It was a long day. First we went to the Holy Mother Zion, which is remembered as the place of Pentecost and the last supper. It's a really cute church and it's right by the school. I would go there to pray a lot, if it weren't being used for a mosque now. We walked through the city to the “broad wall” which is the wall that King Hezekiah fortified with the expected invasion by Sennacherib (Neh. 3:8; Isa. 22:9-10). Then we ventured out of the city and down the valley a little ways to the City of David where we saw what may be the rebuilt wall by Nehemiah along with the possible setting of King David's palace fortress – though there is no conclusive evidence for either of these suggestions. Still, it was neat to see. There was a toilet from the 10^th century BCE in an old house that had been built into the old city wall. From there we went to Hezekiah's tunnel which connects from the City of David to the Gihon Spring at the bottom of the city in the Kidron Valley. Definitely something I only ever need to do once. You actually go down into water and walk through the tunnel from the city down to the spring, some areas you have to hunch down because the ceiling is so low and your shoulders are almost always bumping the walls. Thankfully, I didn't get claustrophobic till we were on our way back up through the old sewage tunnel for the city – kind of gross. Between the narrow passageway and the lack of air flow, I got a little anxious. We also went to the Israeli Archeology museum where I was able to see King Herod's wall's and courtyard that he built outside of the temple mount, and I walked inside where there would have been market shops to buy sacrificial animals and such on the way to the temple. They left a lot of the rubble from the revolt in the streets where there are just huge boulders piled on top of each other in the streets, and you can see where they dented they ground and everything – some serious damage had been done. We then circled around the temple area to the southern steps, where Jesus probably taught his disciples when he spoke about things like the 7 woes of the Pharisees. Now, I know a lot of people would think that it's incredible to be in a place where Jesus probably preached but, honestly, it's something that's so unreal and unfathomable that I can't even comprehend it – and I was there! So yes, it was pretty cool, but it's still definitely beyond my comprehension. We finally ended our day at the Pool of Bethesda which, I found out, was not a pool in a recreational sense like we would think, but was used more for things like feeding sheep and cleaning them for the sacrifices. It was also used by a Hellenistic cult group that believed it could heal you which is why we have the story of the lame man by the pool (which he was probably more likely by a smaller pool by Bethesda) wanting to be put in to be healed.

I know that this is a lot, but it's been a busy few days. I'm sure I had many more thoughts that I haven't written about, yet. More to come!