The Truth Resists Simplicity

So I wrote the following about 6 months ago when I got back from AIPAC's Advanced Advocacy Mission to Israel. The trip was about 7-8 days long, and was geared towards college students who had not only travelled to Israel previously but who were also well versed in its history, politics, the Palestinian conflict, etc and were willing to go further in depth and engage with the nation's intricacies. On the trip, my fellow participants and I met with key Israeli and Palestinian leaders, journalists, NGO's, and more. It was a non stop week(ish) starting with our early morning walks and often going late into the night with our post-dinner sessions. I left the trip exhausted and wrote this on the bus ride to Ben Gurion Airport where we would head back to the states. I came across it the other day and thought now would be a pretty good time to share it, given everything that is going on...

'One of my favorite authors has repeatedly said "the truth resists simplicity." While I've always found it extremely profound and accurate regarding daily life, this last week has really made that statement come alive. For the past 7 days I have been in Israel as part of the AIPAC Advanced Advocacy Mission meeting with influential leaders and activists throughout the country. In each and every session I had my beliefs challenged and things that I thought I knew were both confirmed and contradicted, depending on who we were talking to. In each session I found myself doodling on the corner of my notes "the truth resists simplicity, the truth resists simplicity, the truth resists simplicity" over and over and over again. I had to constantly remind myself that everything I was hearing was a truth of some sorts, even if it wasn't my truth. Everything that I learned over the last week expanded my truth to encompass other narratives that either I had never considered or didn't really know. I still have a lot to learn, and I think I will always have a lot to learn and will never find the singular truth. Because the truth resists simplicity, and so I choose to embrace complexity and imagine the world in just that way.'

The Threat of Death

So this week I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho partially because I've heard that it's one of those books that everyone should read at some point in their life and also because I still have access to my friend Sophie's Kindle account (you're the best Sophie) and that's one of the books she has and I was looking for something to read. It was an incredible book, I can see how it has come to be known as a book everyone should read, but one line in particular jumped out at me:

"Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives"

Pretty apt timing if you ask me. Now true, I personally am not under the threat of death seeing as Tel Aviv is pretty well protected by the Iron Dome system and we barely even hear sirens in the city, but having been in Israel during a war (2006 Lebanon War) and two operations (Pillar of Defense and Protective Edge) I can see how Israel as a nation becomes incredibly aware of their life and their unity when under the threat of attack. When I was in Beer Sheva during Pillar of Defense, all of my Israeli friends and even Israelis that I didn't know super well offered me and my American friends a place to stay that was out of rocket range. Our program provided well for us, but we still had Israelis all over the country saying that we could stay with them if we didn't feel comfortable. Even now families all over Israel have opened up their homes for families in the South (where the rocket fire is most intense) to have a quiet and restful Shabbat away from the sirens.

There is a lot about Israel that I don't like, but this is by far my favorite part about this amazing country.

Balagan Take 2

So I honestly didn't think I'd be using this blog much or ever once study abroad finished and I returned to my relatively quiet, relatively normal life in Denver. And then I came back to Israel for a summer internship at the Institute for National Security Studies....


Up until a few days ago, my couple weeks in Israel had been awesome. I had met some awesome people (shout out to Alex, Matt, and Emma), was doing really interesting research on peace education programs and the social/psychological impact on participants, exploring Tel Aviv when I could, and spending time with family on the weekends. Of course things were tense with the search for the kidnapped teens and the unity deal between Hamas and Fatah, but then they kind of imploded. The bodies of the Jewish teens were found in a field, Jewish extremists burned a Palestinian teen alive, riots broke out in several cities and it all spiraled from there. Rockets from Gaza escalated and so the Israeli response of air raids and targeted bombings throughout the Gaza Strip escalated as well, marking the beginning of Operation Protective Edge. At first, I thought this would be like Operation Pillar of Defense, there would be rockets and targeted bombings/assassinations, and it would be awful and too many civilian lives would be lost or destroyed by the violence, and then in a week or so there would be a cease fire and life would go back to normal. Now I’m not so sure. It’s clear that Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s capabilities have expanded since 2012, as they’re able to send more rockets into the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem area with a degree of accuracy. Given all the tension the last few weeks everything is escalating much, much quicker than two years ago and it seems like the balagan may last longer than just a week… I know that things will get worse, possibly much worse, before they get better it’s just a matter of how much worse and whether things even will get better or if the country will just totally implode. I haven’t talked to my uncle yet so I don’t know if I should be more worried than I am or what to expect from the next week or so. As of now I’m the only American still at my internship, which will definitely change the experience I have here, and who knows maybe I’ll end up cutting my stay in Israel short, right now it’s hard to tell. But for now all I know is that it’s the balagan take 2 and all I want to do is build a blanket fort, fill it with corgi puppies, stock it with unlimited Chipotle burritos and cupcakes, and stay in there watching Disney and Pixar movies until all of this is over. If you need me, you can find me in Fort Stump.

Thanks for the Adventure... Now go have one of your own!

I meant to post this a while ago when I actually got home from Israel but of course, life happened and I was only home for 36 hours before being back with no internet for 4 days at a conference. But now I’m home sweet home in Denver and have been asked about a thousand times how my time abroad was so I’ve done a lot of reflecting. Here goes...

I can’t believe it but suddenly my experience abroad is over. No two ways about it, it’s just done. I’m home, well I was home and then I was off again, but I’ll never be able to go back to my abroad experience. Of course I’ll be in Israel again, and I might even go to school in Israel again but my experience won’t be the same because I’m not the same. When I saw some of my friends from home, I was told that I looked like I had lost weight (not true, but flattering) and that I looked taller (also probably not true, but who knows). Basically I just looked different after my 5-month adventure in the Holy Land. I know I changed while I was abroad. I’ve always been a social person but that was with my friends, now I’ll go to a new place and talk to people, chat with the person sitting next to me on the plane or bus, approach strangers in the hotel lobby that are probably here for the same conference I am, things I would have never done five months ago. Of course in the states it’s a lot easier since I can just ask questions or start conversations in English, but I can say now that there’s no greater compliment than to be told, by an Israeli, that I don’t sound super American when I speak Hebrew and that if my Hebrew got more fluid and natural, I could pass (momentarily) as an Israeli.

I had said during the balagan (what we called Operation Pillar of Defense) that I didn't want the war to define my experience in Israel. I didn't want that to be the only thing I remembered and talked about and told other people. But now that I've had the "Study abroad was an amazing experience" conversation about fifty million times, I'm realizing that the balagan was a unique and defining part of my time in Israel, whether I wanted it to or not. Out of all my other DU friends who went abroad, none of them lived in a war zone, very few of them had the same kind of life affirming experience that I went through. Because of the balagan, I am even more sure about what I want to do with my life. Because of the balagan I was able to experience something that you can't possibly understand until you've been through it. Because of the balagan I was able to see two sides of Israel, the side that could be a whole lot more accepting of their neighbors, and the side that can stay strong no matter what is thrown their way. Whether I liked it at the time or not, I lived through a war. Yeah it was only a week, and I still don't like calling it a war, but it was what it was and even though this is odd to say, I'm glad I went through it.

Now this is for all of my wonderful sophomore friends that I doubt read this blog: Get excited to go abroad. No matter where you go, you will be able to have an amazing experience that, as cliché as it sounds, will be life changing. Whether you go to a DU partner program that has 10 other Pioneers, or are in some remote village at a home stay with no other Americans let alone people you know, you’ll meet people that will challenge you in ways you never could have anticipated. You’ll meet people who are smarter than you that will teach you a great deal, you’ll even meet people who aren’t as smart as you that will benefit from what you can pass on to them. You’ll see things and places you would have never imagined, get to know foreign cities perhaps better than you know your home town. There will be hard times where you really want some good old American food or you hate your classes but even though it's called "study abroad", don't stress too much about your studies. Live, experience life in a foreign country, take advantage of the time you have there because before you know it, it'll be over and you'll be back home instantly missing the place you just left. So get excited. My adventure might be over, but adventure is still out there.

There's No Place Like Home

Since there's only about a week left in my time abroad I've been thinking a lot about missing things. What I miss about America, what I will miss about Israel, what I won't miss about Israel, all that fun stuff. So I decided to just write them all down, and then maybe I'll be able to focus on my final papers and get all the work that I have done before I get out of here.

What I Miss About America:

• The people: Seeing my family, all of my closest friends, minus the amazing people I've met here
• "American Food" or American interpretations of other culture's food (AKA Chipotle/Pete's,  Noodles, Bagels, etc.)
• A Saturday-Sunday weekend, despite being here for 5 months, I STILL can't get used to my weekend officially being Friday-Saturday and having class on Sunday
• Weather: If I'm gonna feel cold, there might as well be snow on the ground and an excuse to curl up in a bunch of blankets with some hot tea and a book
• Efficient public transportation: RTD Light Rail > Egged/Metropoline/Metrodan

What I Will Miss About Israel:

• The people: I have met some amazing Israelis and Americans (and some pretty cool Germans) in my time here and I don't want to think about leaving them
• Shabbat Dinners: This is something I'm planning to bring back to the states, there's just something wonderful about Friday dinners with your close friends, destressing from the week a little, just hanging out and having fun
• Food: America does Middle Eastern food pretty well but you can't argue that getting really amazing falafel for about 3 bucks isn't something to be missed
• How close everything is: I can travel to anywhere in the entire country on a weekend by just taking a bus or train. Can't really do that in the US. Also, EVERYTHING in Beer Sheva is within walking distance

What I Won't Miss About Israel:

• The Smell: I'd really like to go out somewhere with my friends and not come home smelling like an ashtray, a smell that sometimes doesn't come out of your hair after 1 shower. Also, sometimes Beer Sheva just smells, they could use some infrastructure improvements
• Shabbat: A day of rest is great, an entire country practically shutting down is not so fun
• The people: I won't miss really agressive guys who don't get the hint when you act uninterested or Israeli girls who are (often) pretty cold towards American girls
• Security checkpoints: Now I'm all for security, but it'll be nice not having to go through a gate to get to class every day and only having a few entry/exit points to the university

Putting the Terror in Terrorism

All my life I've heard the word terrorism. I saw it on the news, I learned about it in school, I knew what it was. At least I thought I did. I knew the theory behind it, had a pretty good definition of it, and felt pretty secure in my understanding of it. Boy, was I wrong. Because you can't understand terrorism just theoretically or even from a couple (or a lot of) rocket attacks. I didn't understand what terrorism was until I was sitting on the 446 Egged bus to Jerusalem with Abby this morning. We were hoping to get away from boring little Sde Boker for a day, do the Jerusalem thing, hang out with Joey and friends but all that changed with 5 little words. "Bus bombing in Tel Aviv". It's one thing to hear about a bus bombing from the comfort of your own home and another thing entirely to hear it while sitting on a bus. Not a bus in Tel Aviv, but a bus nonetheless. We hardly had time to look up what happened before Sarah (our counselor and current "mother") called us giving is two options: 1. Go straight to the place we were staying in Jerusalem without taking public transportation and stay there, or 2. Get back on the bus going the opposite direction and come back to Sde Boker. Abby and I went to get a bagel and discussed our options and what we wanted to do. We eventually decided to get back on the 470 (a faster bus to/from Beer Sheva) and head back to Sde Boker to be with our group. All the while we're calling friends in Tel Aviv making sure they were all ok and continually checking the news to find out all we could about the incident.

There's a reason the word for this kind of thing is terrorism and not something else. It is meant to instill fear. It's meant to make you scared. Scared to take the bus, scared to go to school or work, scared to leave the comfort of your bed in the morning. It is supposed to disrupt your daily life in such a way that changes things. The definition of terrorism I always used in class was a violent attack on civilians (anything non-military) with the goal of affecting policy. But after today, I would have to add the element of fear. The word "terror" is the whole root of "terrorism", so why isn't the fear element a part of the definition? How much of terrorism is physical, and how much of it is psychological? Throughout all of Operation Pillar of Defense my friends and I have talked about the psychological aspect of this whole war. The IDF dropping leaflets in Gaza City telling civilians to stay away from known Hamas operatives or to leave their homes in preparation of a ground invasion that might not come. Hamas sending rocket after rocket after rocket, often in the middle of the night to disrupt daily life and sleep. This whole operation has been half physical, half psychological. To be entirely honest, I haven't been scared until today. I wasn't worried about rockets hitting Beer Sheva. I wasn't worried about being stuck in Israel, or spending a night or two in the bomb shelter. I was a tiny bit worried about my Israeli friends getting called up to the reserves and having to fight in this stupid operation, but that wasn't fear for myself that was fear for others. But today, I felt fear. I was worried. I didn't want to get on a bus, but I didn't want to be stuck more so I got back on a bus (well, 2 buses but same difference). Even though this attack didn't really disrupt my life much more than this whole Operation has, it was more than just an inconvenience and 42 shekels down the drain. It was a scary moment and one that I never wish to relive again.

In other news, I'm back in Sde Boker, moving down here for the semester even though I don't want to. Classes will start on Sunday with only some minor changes to the schedule to accommodate the week of missed classes. I don't know what we're doing for thanksgiving tomorrow but I know one thing I will be thankful for: the wonderful people I am going through this experience with. I wish I could be thankful for a cease fire and an end to this whole balagan. Maybe in the next 24 hours that will happen but I don't know what to think anymore.

The Average Israeli

A week or two ago (honestly time has gotten so skewed in the last few days, this activity could have taken place months ago and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference) our OSP did an activity called "the Average Israeli" where we basically discussed/learned about the life of, you guessed it, the average Israeli. Our thoughts before the game: The average Israeli is a college aged male, who wears jorts, crocs (Thomas, crocs are super successful in Israel, I have NO clue why), bro tanks, and have long post-South American backpacking trip hair/beards. Now that we have our "average Israeli" in mind, we move towards the activity itself. We played a sort of "game of life" where we each had a game piece that was a different group within Israel (I was an Ethiopian refugee) and we "rolled the dice" (spun a dreidel with numbers on it) and went through the life of an Israeli. It went from birth through elementary school, high school, year of service, the army, etc all the way through marriage and children where the cycle theoretically starts all over again. This game was interesting for me, but since I have family here in Israel none of it was all that new to me. But recently it's gotten me thinking, the average Israeli is really fantastic (minus the crocs, I just can't hang with that trend).

When all of this balagan (Hebrew for chaos/mess/craziness) started on Wednesday my American friends and I had all of our Israeli friends, even people we had just met a few days before, offer for us to come stay with them and their families outside of Beer Sheva. As each of my 3 flatmates left to go home, they all offered to take me home with them if I wanted to get out of Beer Sheva and didn't have anywhere to go. Once we finally left Beer Sheva and took refuge on Masada (as one of my friend's brothers noted, refuge on Masada usually doesn't work out to well for the ones hiding out...) and eventually Sde Boker we encountered tons of other Israelis more than willing to take us in and offer us a place to stay. Here in Sde Boker, despite being not a very populated area filled mostly with PhD or Masters students, those who do live here have been wonderful. Last night the student union hosted a "refugee party" where a bunch of different people brought food, they provided us with everything we needed to eat, and just hung out with us, gave us something to do. My cousin (well sort of, I'm not entirely sure how we're related) who is also doing her PhD here came to hang out last night and told me about a Thanksgiving dinner that a friend of hers is hosting here in Sde Boker on Thursday that she invited us to as well. In general all the Israelis we have met throughout this whole ordeal have been so wonderful, realizing that none of us have ever been through something like this before and they have been so open, friendly, and hospitable. They also think they're really funny, when I say I study International Relations and Conflict Resolution, they tell me to go resolve the conflict. I usually respond that I'm not qualified yet, I haven't finished my degree, but maybe we just need to get the Holy Trinity here and things will work itself out.

Just a little update about the last few days and what we've been doing, we left Masada Friday morning and arrived in Sde Boker sometime Friday afternoon. We napped, hung out, relaxed, attempted to find internet to check news and see what is going on in the world, and eventually went to sleep. Saturday we hiked to Ein Akev, a natural spring near Sde Boker. It was a hike I had already done before but the route we took on Saturday was exactly opposite the way I went a month or so ago when I did the hike last time. It was nice to see it from a new perspective, and this direction was a WHOLE lot easier and my legs were a lot happier afterwards. We had another bonfire Saturday night (we had done one Thursday night before Masada), and exhausted from the hike crashed early. Sunday, the day classes theoretically would be starting again if the war wasn't going on, we had a mini lecture about Patents and Intellectual Property (random, I know) and an information session about what was going to happen in the next few days. Conclusions: We're staying in Sde Boker until at least Thursday, and on Thursday we will either go back to Beer Sheva to resume life as normal or we will return to Beer Sheva to pack up our things and move our semester down to Sde Boker for the last 5-6 weeks, however long it is we have left. Now personally, and this opinion is shared by everyone else that I've talked to, I prefer the first option. Sde Boker has been great and all, but there is really nothing to do here and all the students are PhD students doing hydrology and bio-technology and desalination and all of these things that we know nothing about. At least back in Beer Sheva students were more our age and we were able to easily make friends, not the case here in Sde Boker. Plus, I think if I had to stay here for the remainder of the semester, I would go stir crazy and the Masada murder/suicide option would be looking pretty great (exaggeration of course, but I would be really really bored). For now, we're just continuing to have these little mini lectures that don't actually count for anything but are just to keep us busy. Tomorrow we're going on some secret adventure because we can't be in Sde Boker during Ben Gurion Day (apparently the Prime Minister is showing up, it's a big deal). Wednesday Abby, Sam, and I (and anyone else who decides they want to come) might be heading up to Rehovot or Tel Aviv just to get out of here for a day or so in case we're stuck here for the rest of our study abroad. So that's life right now, here's hoping a cease fire starts soon and life can return to normal and I can get back to Beer Sheva.