Birthright Day 3: Western Wall, The Dead Sea, & Bedouins

My first morning is Israel and a Jewish stereotype of mine was already proven wrong. Where the hell were all the bagels for breakfast? Jews are supposed to breathe bagels like air.

The Mediterranean breakfast confused me. Lots of breads, yogurts, cheese, tomatoes, salad (for breakfast?!?). No breakfast sandwiches. No Cap’n Crunch. No waffles, pancakes, or french toast. I was beginning to worry that I had stumbled into some third-world democracy, where breakfast is confused with a real meal, like lunch. Luckily I managed to find some non-instant coffee and I felt a bit reassured.

Over breakfast I finally began to meet most of the other people on the trip. They were from two schools, UVM and VT (Virginia Tech). Needless to say, I learned that most of them were in sororities or fraternities. My experience with Greek life has never been positive. My social anxiety began to reappear. My people are nerds, not Natty Ice/sports lovers. I suddenly had flashbacks of my high school NCSY retreats. Me, trying to understand social convention, while everyone else hooking up with eachother. I’m hoping my biases don’t get in the way of this trip.

We went to Jerusalem today, specifically the heavily Jewish section of the old city. It was here that I made the most amazing discovery of my life. This thing was so much bigger than any of the pictures I had ever seen at Jewish day school. Remembering all of my bible stories gave me some new appreciation for the ancient Israelites. I mean if they were able to build something like this, so extravagant and enormous, they must have been hot shit.

I got into an argument with a kid about the division of men and women at the Western Wall. Currently, men are allowed twice as much space at the wall, and are allowed to read from a Torah scroll. Women are allowed to pray at a small part of the wall, as long as they keep quiet and don’t disturb the men. A woman reading the Torah is totally out of the question. It’s a stupid and sexist requirement. One kid said that we should respect the Orthodox tradition, i.e. that they have a monopoly on the Western Wall and control the customs of anyone wanting to visit it. I vehemently defended my position, that cultural relativism does not mean one group can ignore another group’s culture on the basis of religion.

On a lighter side I also realized how perfect the Western Wall would be against a Zionist (jk) Nazi zombie invasion? It’s 100 feet of solid stone. And underneath all the dirt around it is another 200 feet of buried stone. Like if any section of a large western city could survive a zombie attack, it would be the people of Jerusalem on the other side of that wall.

A few minutes later I made an almost equally awesome but slightly political discovery. I finally understood why there are always scenes on the news of Arab children throwing rocks at Jews. Because the Arabs hate the aesthetics of a city that is required to use only one type of building stone.

After Jerusalem we headed south to the Dead Sea. I was warned on the bus not to fart or pee in the water. I kid you not. And I’m pretty sure that some gas must have escaped my back end. Because when I exited the water I was walking a bit slowly. The whole time I was just thinking how I wished all water made be buoyant like this. Then I wouldn’t have had to take all those Y classes as a 12 year old, just to learn how to do the doggy paddle. FML.

Birthright stock footage

We ended the exhausting day by spending the night at a Bedouin camp. I have already decided that these people are to Middle East what the Native Americans are to America. But instead of taking advantage of government loopholes and building casinos on their own land, some of them give tours to rich American Jews. The only way I could describe this place, which is in an oasis (so f-ing cool) in the desert, is as some bastard version of Disney Land Epcot. Or at the very least what Epcot tries to be (but fails miserably). Atleast they were trying to teach us more about Israel than just the Jews. I wouldn’t want this trip to be tooooo one-sided. Nobody’s perfect.

Tonight I sleep on some supposedly genuine Bedouin mattress, along with some borrowed, public sleeping bags. How many Israeli babies were conceived in these things? I feel like all of American Judaism has slept within the confines of my sleeping bag. I finally feel like I deserve the title dirty hipster.