catching up

ok, just to play catch up a bit.........after returning from israel, i spent a week and half in nyc staying at uncle harry's. it was a pretty rough transition, coming away from great community and intense landscape to being on my own in nyc. i got very immersed in posting all the photos from the trip (photobucket.com/karmakas). sky came and visited, we spent a few days together at harry's and downtown at tegan and arrow's (nyc raver/bio-deisal kids who are twin oaks satellites
). it was great and hard. good to see him and hard to figure out where to go from here.

the day he left, i travelled up to connecticut for a weeklong "internship"at a jewish retreat center called Isabella Freedman. they have a passover retreat for older folks, 12 of us came to help supplement the year round staff in the kitchen and dining room.

from phillie

greetings from philadelphia. i'm spending the weekend visiting my friend michael, a lawyer-turned baker who is part of the extended Elat Chayyim family. he's got on underground (in all senses) organic bakery going in the basement of his co-op house here in west philly. he makes hand-milled, organic sourdough breads, runs bread making workshops, sends out weekly emails to his customers and hosts a bread-blog. its a pretty cool mission, building community through bread baking. west philly feels good, friendly, relaxed and very community oriented.

before coming here, i was in nyc soaking up the jew vibe. thursday night i hung out at a weekly jew party for religious jews on the edge, yiddish speakers, israeli's, and anyone else who feels like showing up. its called chulent, jewish stew, and folks come and hang out, talk, eat, smoke cigarettes and pot and play music all night and into the wee hours of the morning. friday i went to some very hippied out renewal services on the upper west side. the chairs were all in a circle, with the rabbi mixed in with everyone else. there was a woman in the back, doing yoga barefoot. i felt right at home, singing, dancing, and getting into that awesome state of religous/spiritual ecstacy. after, i went over to someone's house for shabbat dinner potluck, turned out they were connected with isabella freedman. most of the kids there taught at teva, a jewish enironmental education program for kids. a very laid back atmosphere with delicious food and nice folks.

ulpan trip

here' a tiny blurb about the last ulpan trip, february 28th

after the desert, i returned to Jerusalem to join the ulpan for one final tiul (trip). we met at yad v'shem , the holocaust memorial museum. all of Mt. Herzl is a remembrance to the holocaust, and the architecture of the museum itself is amazing, basically a suspended triangle that looks out over jerusalem. the museum is a long hallway with rooms on either side so that you sort of snake your way through, deeper and deeper into the horror. at the first end, there was video of pre-holocaust jews, celebrating, dancing, etc. i was very moved by seeing cross-gender dancing (a bunch of young women and men in a big circle, dancing to tunes that the VB's play!) from the early 20th century--the gender separation for dancing among religious people is pretty intense.

needless to say, the whole experience was totally overwhelming. the replica of a train car and the mini model of the body-burning set up were most striking to me. but room after room contained countless heartwrenching stories and many small objects that had been recovered or found.

for now i'm going to move on, there's more to say but its all a bit overwhelming.

from the museum, we went into the old city of jerusalem for a quick bite before entering the tunnels to go underneath the western wall. descending below street level, we walked through tunnels of ancient rock, covered up by later construction. clear windows below our feet showed through to more down below. it was pretty stunning.

Kibbutz Tzora

March 5

so--thanks to valerie, i got in touch with sol etzioni, the secretary of the international communes desk. Sol is a sweet old man who lives at kibbutz tzora. as she predicted, he was absolutely thrilled to be able to play host to a real live twin oaker, and pulled out the red carpet for me. between him and gideon (another member of tsora who did a viz period at TO), i got an incredibly extensive tour of the kibbutz. everywhere we went, he introduced me with immense pleasure and pride as "kassia, from the american kibbutz!"

the kibbutz was started by habonim (jewish zionist socialist youth movement) folks from south africa and Australia. its not religious, i found it very interesting that sol appreciated habonim for providing a way to be Jewish without being religious. there are about 300 members at tzora, and a couple hundred other folks living there. they've even built housing for people's parents, since many people wanted their parents nearby as they get older. recently, the kibbutz gave money for everyone to build a little expansion on their apartment, so there's massive construction going on everywhere.

tzora is between jersualem and tel aviv, near the town of bet shemesh. the views are beautiful of course, its in a little valley at the foot of some hills and mountains. the kibbutz went through their decentralization process a few years back, going the way of most of the other kibbutzim towards privatization. the dining hall now only makes lunch for the kibbutz, and it was a pretty sparse crowd. the facility is used mainly for cooking for other nearby establishments.

tzora has tons of businesses, now mostly privatized. there's a silk screening factory, a furniture factory, a go cart factory ("erasing the stigma of wheel chairs!"), a little zoo, a small grocery, a hair salon, a winery, a pub (open friday nights), and a dyalisis center. some of those have been around for awhile, others are recent ventures of current kibbutzniks. there's also a high school there that serves the whole area, mainly other kibbutzim.

the bureaucratic structure hasn't changed much, there are many committees of course, and there's a rotating "secretary", basically the job of planners except its only one person!! it sounds like people have a pretty similar attitude towards the position too, any little thing to complain about goes to the secretary, and then if nothing happens, more complaining ensues.

sol set up a little event in the evening, meeting with some of the kibbutz teens to chat. that was really great, it was a small group and they were all bright, interesting kids. they asked questions about TO, and i asked them about growing up at tzora. they all had very positive experiences there, and even agreed that if tzora hadn't undergone the privatizing changes, they would have liked to move back there after they finished with the military and school.

we also talked about some of the differences between the kibbutzim and TO. the biggest one in my eyes is the ideology. they were setting up these communities in order to hold the land. many were strategically placed near borders in order to hold that border and defend the country. another big difference is the kibbutz approach to kids. sol was shocked to hear that some folks at twin oaks would rather there weren’t' kids, or that the numbers be kept low. as he said, there kids are their best crop--they have amazing child programs and its just heaven for kids, there's so much to see and do. There were some sililarities too--as we walked by the piles of old computers, defunct ovens etc. in the yard of the kids’ houses, he explained about their special method of using this stuff educationally.

stay tuned (hopefully) for the holocaust museum and the western wall tunnels. and of course the madness of purim! suffice to say, when i came to israel, i never guessed i'd be standing on stage in a golem costume next to a similarlly outfitted kabbalistic rabbi.
i'll be here in tsfat for the next 3 weeks, house and pet sitting and reading harry potter.

City and Desert

February 25

i just returned to civilization (aka Jerusalem) after 3 days in the desert. its been quite a week--last sunday my phone got crunched, and then i spent a delightful 24 hours with ezra's fantastic sister gia. she and her family are living in an artist village called ein hod, just south of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast. It was started by Dadaists 50 years ago, and you have to be an artist to be a member ( anyone can rent a house there). Its is very cute, there's interesting sculpture all around and a beautiful view of the sea. Gia totally pampered me. We ate decadent and delicious food, picked through flea market leftovers in the rain, drove through the gorgeous carmel mountains and walked on the beach. And of course gabbed our heads off non-stop!

from ein hod, i took the train to tel aviv and stayed in a hostel next to the sea, enjoying the luxury of doing my laundry, checking my email, and taking hot showers, all in the same place!!! I also frequented a lovely vegan diner, sat on the beach for hours, and got a new cell phone.

after a brief stop in Jerusalem (dahlia's house has become my home base), I traveled south on Thursday to mitzpah ramon, a small city in northern tip of the negev desert. it borders a giant canyon, called makhtesh ramon (for some reason, its translated as a crater, but its definitely concave). i stayed at the “desert eco-lodge”, a place just outside of town with little straw bale huts overlooking the canyon. It was utterly serene and silent, i think the quietest place i've ever been. the desert is very intense b/c the landscape is very beautiful and also very very still--nothing moves or appears to be living. i was so happy to move into my little straw bale hut, my first little home since the ulpan. there was little food to be found, especially on Shabbat, so Friday morning i bought some dried fruit and nuts, bread and hummus and chocolate, and lived off of that for the next few days. the "desert eco-lodge" where i stayed was right next to the desert sculpture garden, giant stoic rock sculptures that blended into the landscape. i took several hikes, trudging through the silent desert feeling tiny and insignificant, and spent the evenings reading in my little hut. the last night, i went to bed at 8 30, (having finished my book).

the desert was very intense and very beautiful, and i have to say that by the end of that intense solitude, i was starting to lose my mind a bit. (there were some other folks staying there, but the longest conversation that i had the whole time was maybe 3 minutes). All in all, I’m starting to feel worn down (and/or malnourished?). Travel on the weekends is always quite crazy; at least half of the bus passengers are soldiers, generally with their giant guns. you pretty much have to shove your way onto the bus in order to ensure a seat. there's no order of course, and the bus driver just lets the bus fill up to capacity, including standing room in the aisles. The solitary travel life is starting to wear on me and loneliness is moving in…..

Tzfat, take one

February 19

Well, this trip has been an exercise in extremes (i think i've been sort of omitting the extreme challenges when writing these messages, but i have to say that this trip has presented me with some of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced). the latest adventure is that a bus ran over my cell phone as i was about to leave tzfat, crushing with it tons of contact info and my one easy reliable way of connecting and planning etc....in the pouring rain, i attempted not to freak out as i realized i didn't have contact info for ezra's sister, who was going to pick me up in haifa, my next stop. but all is well now, and this post really needs to be about the amazing, magical, mystical experiences i had in zfat last week.

Sunday I made my way to this 3000 year old city, perched on top of israel's 3rd highest mountain peak. The landscape it is breathtakingly gorgeous, mountains and valleys on all sides. On a clear day you can see to the Kinneret (Gallilee). there is a sort of main street where you can drive, but most of the city is winding cobblestone, alleys and very old stone buildings with very few cars. it looks out over a stunning valley and mountains to the west (amazing sunsets!). I stayed at Ascent, the Chabad run hostel at the top of the hill (chabad is a branch of chassidism that loves to recruit non-observant jews into the fold). They run a school there too, and give a10 shekel rebate for each class on Judaism attended.

pretty much upon arrival, bizarre, serendipitous and wonderful things started happening. i had one contact in town, a friend of a friend who taught at elat chayyim (the Jewish spiritual retreat center in upstate ny). he is a kabalistic artist and his wife teaches yoga.

That night in class (hey, 10 shekels is 10 shekels...) i "ran into" coco, a woman i worked with 6 years ago at elat chayyim,. we hadn't seen each other in years, and both our jaws dropped to the ground. she is a sweet, warm, kind, generous, angel of a woman and it was wonderful to see her. The class itself turned out to be mildly traumatic-- taught by a 72 year old ravingly fanatical right wing torah scribe and self professed cowboy from colorado.

But afterward, coco invited me over for tea at place. She took me in and fed me brown rice and vegatables (i'd eaten only falafal all day in my attempt to economize), and we shared our stories of the past 5 years. her new friend irene was there too, a 55 year old orthodox raised--long time atheist jewishly questioning woman. we talked about our relationships to judaism and our life paths and journeys until nearly midnight. the next morning, i went to miryam's yoga class. it was at the center for healthy living, and it turned out that i'd emailed with the guy that runs the center from his home. he invited me to join their band for their purim schpeil in early march.

when i returned to ascent, another rabbi that i didn't know asked if i was going to take his class that night. i was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic, but his open, direct gaze and kind face were hard to refuse. also, i'd heard good things about him (he started Ascent and is the director). I decided to give it a shot.

we started around 9pm, and Rabbi Leider launched into an obscure kabbalistic text about the 5 spiritual levels of visiting the grave of a tzaddik (righteous/holy man). then, to give the context for this teaching, he started to give a "brief" over view and history of kabbalah (mystical judaism). i was in heaven. this man is brilliant, learned, kind, funny, inquisitive, and very sensitive. he challenged us with good questions, (the class was just me and another jewishly questioning american woman in her mid 20s), and was very aware of our level of engagement. he drew from a full range of texts and spoke with passion and deep understanding. the hours flew by and somehow it was suddenly midnight, and my head was aching from paying such intense and close attention for so long. sensing our interest and despite his obviously insanely busy schedule, he offered to find a bit of time the next day to continue learning the text with us (the history and overview and various fascinating tangents, questions, and stories had inevitably sucked up most of the time so that we had barely gotten into the actual text that he had wanted to study). The second class was just as satisfying as the first.

that night i went to yoga class again, and stayed after for the first rehearsal of "the golems", the purim band. we played songs like "i shot mashiach (messiah)" (to the tune of i shot the sheriff), and "we're jammin/" (as in, Just As Much Moshiach, like we are all just as much moshiach.). the plot of the play is hilarious, there's an american idol-esque contest to decide who should be the next moshiach. in between classes, i wandered through tsfat's enchanting old city and artist quarter, visiting synagogues and getting lost.

zfat felt familiar and easy, and immediately comfortable. i had tapped into this really warm and wonderful community of (mostly american) hippies, artists, musicians, and kabbalists who were welcoming and generous. they reminded me alot of my parents' friends. everything just flowed easily, and before i knew it, someone had offered me to house/pet sit in their giant, beautiful home for three weeks in march. although i took a few days to really think about and weigh the decision, it felt pretty easy and organic to say yes.

tsfat has this crazy energy that everyone is always commenting on, where things just happen in this amazing flow. also, the spiritual energy there is very intense and quite palpable. its very compelling to me, and i feel very drawn to being there in the future sometime, in some way. for now though, i'm happy with three weeks in this beautiful wood paneled house with a giant bathtub, massage chair, and lemon tree out back.

Rosh Pina and Food

Today we walked around Rosh Pina, a 125 year old village settled by a group of romanians about 10 min. from the kibbutz. Many of the buildings remain from that time and/or are restored, the roads are cobblestone and it has a very old feeling to it. in the surrounding hills, you can see burnt trees hit by ketusha rockets in the (most recent) lebanon war. (ok, and of course its stunningly beautiful!).

staying with yifat's family was fun and it was nice to be fed within an inch of my life after the relative undernourishment of the previous week (i've been living on falafel and persimmons), and they were very kind and generous to me. sara (the mamale) spent the entire day saturday cooking up a giant feast for dinner!! we had: quiche, pizza (from scratch), fried eggplant, potatoes w/onion, rice, tuna salad, vegatable stir fry, and some more things i'm forgetting. and home made cream puffs for desert! it was all amazingly delicious.

sara said she'd like to visit twin oaks on her trip to the us this summer, and she even gave me her "let's go israel" book, which was huge relief now that i'm travelling on my own. by sunday, however, i felt a bit over-mameled (not to mention fat) and ready to strike out on my own. now i'm in the mystical kabbalistic city of tsfat……..more to come!