24 July 2007

The cool breezes on which I last posted are all but gone, leaving us in full-fledged summer with little relief in the evenings. It’s back to crossing the street just to walk in the shade, two shekel (50 cent) popsicles every few minutes and extending one’s stay at a store or friend’s apartment to absorb their air conditioner’s bounty.

The other day was Tisha B’Av, “the saddest day in Jewish history” or more perhaps “the Jewish Friday The 13th” when we commemorate the destruction of the two Temples and a whole host of other catastrophes. Jews seem to always fight wars in the summer, with the heat potentially getting to their heads. Despite or because of its mood, the book which is read to commemorate the day, Lamentations, is one of the most powerful in the Bible. True, it’s full of gore and gloom as the author, traditionally ascribed to the melancholy prophet Jeremiah, describes the destruction of the First Temple at the hands of the Babylonians; but it’s so angst-filled and existential that the former teenager in me eats it up every year. We may be asking to return to the days of old, where devotion to our national deity entailed blood sacrifices and the subsequent communal barbeque on the Temple Mount; but when else during the calendar year do you hear Jews chanting, in the traditional Near Eastern poetic form of parallels within a verse, “Why have You [God] forgotten us utterly/Forsaken us for all time?” (5:19) Combined with the melody used to chant the scroll, and you got one public fast that predates that puts the Gothic outlook to shame.

After the open house at the Interdisciplinary Center the other week, I decided to apply. I only took one class in International Politics as an undergrad and I barely passed, being completely turned by the theory-based approach. True, my whole four years was about learning in an interdisciplinary manner, and the idea of being a diplomat floods my mind with images of Embassy Row in DC and cocktail parties with English being only one of several languages used to recall witty anecdotes, both of which compel me to start walking towards the Foreign Ministry under the blazing Mediterranean sun – but would that be enough to get in?
Two days after I applied and sent everything in electronically, I got a brief voicemail message that I was accepted into the four-semester research track which includes writing a thesis. There’s so much to consider before paying the inevitable bill that will arrive – am I willing to pay the difference in tuition from Hebrew University, am I going to move to Tel Aviv to be closer to campus, will their army liaison help me in getting the academic deferment that up until now I’ve been struggling to receive – that at first all I needed to hear was that I got accepted. That’s still sustaining me as I await further developments, look for a job and figure out when I’m next going back to the States to visit.

We’ve just entered another general strike declared by the Trade Federation. Almost every public sector of the market is affected, except most notably (and importantly) the banks and bus companies. Unfortunately, the strike includes the airport which will start tomorrow morning. Not only does this mess up the hordes of tourists that have thankfully returned to the country for the summer, but a very good friend of mine from high school is immigrating tomorrow morning, technically a few hours after the airport strike begins. Even if she is able to arrive, most likely it means she won’t get her luggage and the paperwork she has to fill with the various ministries will have to wait. Welcome to Israel, indeed.

Lots to figure out and lots of motivation but little interest in going outside and into the furnace of late July.