Westbank Week(s) – Part 2: Ramallah

The day after I had been in Hebron, I went to Ramallah with Spencer and Erica. Ramallah is the “capital” of the Palestinian territories, 14km north of Jerusalem,  and probably the most liberal of the Palestinien cities.

Look at the pictures I posted on Flickr, and you’ll see the most funniest thing in Ramallah, the “Stars and Bucks”, a café copying Starbucks audaciously. After we had a coffee there (of course I bought an original “Stars and Bucks” cup:-)) we went to Yassir Arafats grave. The founder of the Fatah, former leader of the PLO(Palestine Liberation Organization) and President of the Palestinian Authorities lived here till his death 4 years ago. He is strongly admired in the Westbank, at least by the supporters of Fatah and his portrait is seen everywhere. Also he won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 90s after the “Oslo” peace agreement. But nobody should forget his terrorist past, the Fatah was responsible for the death of many American, French and Israeli soldiers and also civilians since 1965.

Last dezember, i applied for an AIESEC job in Ramallah, and when I arrived there I got sad again that this didnt work out. Ramallah is a vibrant city, a shopper’s paradise, cheap but not low-quality. Since my first time, I went 2 more times, and people had always been friendly, though hard bargainers;-) There are even a few women without scarf.

I even made friends there, which in the Westbank is easier then anywhere else! Tomorrow I am invited to a family dinner in Ramallah,isnt that amazing!!! I will write about that some time….

West Bank Week – Part 1: Hebron

 

Last week,I began to discover the infamous West Bank. Wednesday,on my last day of the “Sukkot holidays”, me and my friend Spencer were going to Hebron. Hebron is – after Jerusalem – probably the most important religious city in the “Holy Land”. It is important for all 3 Religion “of the book”. Furthermore it is a political hotspot. But first things first. Its religious importance is due the “Cave of the Patriarchs“, or HaMachpela, the second holiest site of Judaism after the Temple Mount. The reason for that is easy to find: Adam and Eve are supposed to be burried here,also Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wifes(Sarah, Leah and Rebecca). Furthermore the entrance to heaven has to be somewhere here…but I couldnt find it… Because of a massacre of the radiacal Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 praying Muslims in 1994, the Machpela, a cave with a huge Building as enclosure, was separated in a Jewish part (about a quarter of the building) and a bigger Muslim part. Christians are allowed to enter both sites. The tomb of Abraham, adored by all 3 big religions, is a chamber with windows to both sides. Sad reminder of the conflict: Next to the tomb, between the two windows, a bullet proof glass is installed, to avert shootings. Something separating even in the tomb of the common forefathers, how symptomatic!

 

The Machpela in August

 

I was first in Hebron in August, with a Activity from the University(and of course, like all buses which go to the West Bank, in a bullet-proof (Panzerglas) bus with lots of bullet marks), and we visited the Jewish part of the Machpela and met some of the Jewish settlers here. They also showed us a memorial of a 7-year-old killed by an Arab snipper. Jewish history in Hebron is fascinating and controversial: like most cities here it had been conquered a lot of times, and the Jews which always tried to live here had been treated differently, sometimes bad, sometimes more tolerant, but always special,  like Jews all over the world. In 1929, a Arab massacre drove the Jews away. Jews could not get to their second most important side (as well as they could not go to their most important one, the Wailing Wall/Klagemauer). One year after the 6-day war, in which Israel occupied the West Bank, a few Jewish settlers rented a Hotel in Hebron and they just refused to leave again. Today Hebron is a divided city. About 800 settlers live under the protection of around 1000soldiers (for both I heard different numbers) and surrounded by far more than 100.000 Arabs. A lot of Israelis and soldiers are not happy that these settlers are living their, and there are a lot of  incidents and clashes.

So when we had been there the first time, I went into an Arabic souvenir shop and got into a great English-Deutsch-Ivrit-Arabija conversation with the 50-year shop owner. We agreed that I will come back on my own lateron with the Arab busses.

This is what I did last week. So we started at Damaskus gate in East Jerusalem, went to the wall, crossed the checkpoint by foot, walking alongside the wall, and bargained with the Arab taxi drivers at the other side, in Bethehem (I’ll go back there on Christmas). After a long and complicated travel with lots of funny or grotesque moments, we came to Hebron. There we first visited the Arab site of the Machpela, which is amazing and which is – surprise – the first mosque I have ever been in. I like the carpets all over the floor and the praying “rooms” (Gebetsnischen) in direction to Mecca, and the Arabic signs all over the place.

Then we went to Munier, the “schuq” owner and had a long and interesting conversations about politics, history and the situation in Hebron. Of course he gave us the Arabic view of things, which has – of course – other facts and truths than the Jewish view. We also got a lesson in recognizing a good Hooka/water pipe and bought a beautiful one…unfortunately Spencer succeeded to break the glass of it already on our way back to Jerusalem…

Since it was Sukkot, there also were a lot of Jews around, and there were also a lot of incidents in this week.There was also a big garbish container burning, which gave kind of a eery atmosphere to the whole atmosphere, surrounded by dozens of soldiers.

For our way back home, we took the Jewish bus of the orthodox Jews, which was pretty cool, to be the only “normal” pesrons in a bullet-proof bus with around 50 orthodox people with their traditionel clothing(I will write about them in some point).

Late at night we got back and made plans for our next Westbank trips to Jericho and Ramallah, which I will tell about soon…West Bank Week – Part 1: Hebron

Oktoberfest in the West Bank

Watch this, a clip about the Oktoberfest near Ramallah.

Unfortunately I could go there, I heard that it was big fun. Sure enough, its a very special event…

My courses.

My semester started last Sunday, and this are the courses I am going to take:

1) 8 hours of Hebrew a week

2) “The emergence of the modern Middle East”, which I chose obviously because of my high interest for the whole Middle East, including the Arab world.

3) “Foreign policy of Israel”. The prof’s comment: ‘I teach this class for 38 years. But every single year, I have to extensivly update my materials’… Probably thats why it is so interesting;)

Its amazing to hear these classes about politicies, afterwards going out on the streets or to the Old City, or to the West Bank, and seeing things you just heard about and it’s implications in daily life…

4) “Business Ethics”. In this class, we only discuss the whole time. Finally no 300 students in a class like in Berlin…

5) “Silicon Wadi – Entrepreneurship in Israel” – Having taken some classes about Entrepreneurship in Berlin, I finally hope that I can learn something about Entrepreneurship… in a Middle East Business environment in which I hopefully can work later on. Interestingly enough, Israel is the country with the highest rate of Entrepreneurs on the world.

All classes include field trips, which is easier in a country with so much of politics, cultures and so many successful entreprises, while having the size of the German Bundesland Hessen. But also every class means a lot of work. We have to read around 80 pages a week for each course, write papers for each course and participate actively. Furthermore the attendance policy is pretty strict. The way of studying is very Americain, but I’m very sure that I will learn much more than in Berlin!

Unfortunately I can not take Arabic which I hoped I can continue here. But my University only offers a course in “Colloquial Arabic” which teaches the Arabic dialect of Jerusalem, more specific of the old city. Only in Jerusalem, there are 12 different dialects of Arabic, hundreds of them in the Arabic world. People from Iraq can probably not understand people from the Maghreb. But “educated” people and people in the mediaare  usually speaking in “Standard Arabic”. This is the Arabic the Quran is writen in, but no person in the whole world is native speaker of this language.  But since I wanna do Business in Arabia in the future, I dont wanna learn a local dialect, but Standart Arabic. So the Arabic teacher told me that learning Jerusalem dialect would not help, but make it more difficult to learn Standard Arabic… Mince!

Ramadan and Eit ul-Fitr

While the Hebrew year ended in these days(see below), also the holy month of the Muslims, the Ramadan ended. During the 9th month of the muslim calender, 1,3 billion (!) Muslims all over the world are not allowed to eat, drink or smoke from sunrise to sunset. This year, Ramadan falling on the end of the summer, this meant fasting from around 4 o’clock till 7 in the afternoon (the sun sets earlier here than in Germany), including 15 hours of not drinking any sip of water, with 30°C every single day! Of course, both moments are annonunced by hundreds of muezzins all over the city, who call at least 5 times a day for the 5 daily prayers, more often (and longer) during Ramadan and on fridays. These calls are an amazing experience walking through Arabic neighbourhoods!

Living next to the room of a Muslim girl, I got some interesting insights in Muslim culture during Ramadan, also Rana  was not strictly following all the rules. Muslims are fasting to show their gratitude for god, to atone for their sins and to think of persons who need helpa dn dont have enough food. The fasting during Ramadan is one of the 5 pillars of Islam. I loved walking through the Arabic quarter in the Old city during Ramadan. Everybody gets very busy when sunset is coming closer, and you can see tons of food. You really have to take care to not be strucked by the wooden carts navigating through the narrow and crowded lanes or to not accidently walking through paddles of blood from slaughtered animals(hier: geschächtet, hab keine wirkliche Übersetzung gefunden), which is pretty disgusting…

Nevertheless, another great thing is the fact that Muslims decorate their houses with blinking chain of lights which look very much like chrismas decoration, like they are popular in Europe and I think even more in the US. Quite apart from the fact that many of them say “Allah” in Arabic letters…

The three days after Ramadan (today was the last of them, which means my favorite falafel-stand is reopened tomorrow*freu*)  are called Eit ul-Fitr (übersetzt Fest des Fastenbrechen, auch als ”Zuckerfest” bezeichnet).  During these days, Muslims visit the mosque as well as the cementary, but also their families. They buy new clothes and eat a lot, a lot of candy (daher Zuckerfest). I was on the Arabic “Schuq”"(Market) on the last day of Ramadan, and the amounts of candy sold there where amaaaazing!

But now I’m happy that all the Jewish and Arabic holidays are over and I can get food as usual:-)

Shana Tova! Happy new year!

Days in Israel traditionally dont start in the morning or at midnight, but with the sunset. Thats why Shabbat starts on Friday and ends at Saturday evening. And thats also why the new year started yesterday at sunset.

Rosh Hashana, thats the name of the Jewish holiday celebrated for 2 days when the new Jewish year starts. Strangely, the new year starts on the first day if the seventh(!) month of the Hebrew calender. Its now the year 5769. The Hebrew calender starts with the creation of the Earth. If that would be right, the Earth was created on Monday, October 7 3761 BC. I do not really understand why it was a Monday, since the Hebrew week starts with the Sunday. I guess God created the earth on the second day (Monday in Hebrew just means second day), and thats why, but dont nail me down to that…

The Jewish calender is a lunar calender (Mondkalender) like the muslim one. This means, the 12 month of a year have the lengh of the phases of the moon, usually about 29 days. This leads to the fact that the year is about 11 days shorter than “our” year after the Gregorian calender, which is also widely used in daily life in Israel.

Because of the holiday, all stores are closed in Jerusalem for 2 days. Not being in Israel during the last days, I wasnt prepared and am starving now:( Unfortunately also the arabic stores are closed, since the Muslims are celebrating the end of Ramadan for 2 or 3 days… Because Jews and Muslims both use lunar calenders, their month begin at the same days most of the time, when the moon is disappeared completely. The only difference is that the Jewish calender is set into a mathematical framework to know in advance when a new month begins, while the Arabic one is still determined by actual looking on the sky and for the moon.

My first… terror attack since I’m here :(

After having wrote a short note last week, here’s a longer version of what happened in Jerusalem last Monday. After having so many incredible experiences, it’s the first time I got in touch with the big enemy which endangers all people living in Israel, Terror.

I had been sitting on a street in the West Bank with my Ulpan class, waiting for a bus to home,  when we got first phone calls, asking where we are. In Jerusalem, a man targeted a group of Israeli soldiers with his car,hurting 19 people – 2 of them seriously, till he was shot by one of the soldiers. Attacks like that alredy happened in July, terrorists using bulldozers instead a car. Fortunately this time nobody was killed.

Although the building of the security fence (“wall”) since 2005 helped to keep terrorists and weapons from reaching Israel, the country is far from being 100% safe. The last attacks had been conducted by Arabs living in East Jerusalem, inside of the wall, allowed to get to every corner of Israel.

After an attack, Israeli mobile networks usually crack down because everybody is calling everybody he knows. I called some friends, too, and they told unbelievable stories. One of my fellow students, a German from Heidelberg, hosted a party just one or two hundred meters from the actual site of the attack! And a lot of my friends had been there, hearing the shootings, seeing people escaping panicly! 

Of course, they did absolutely not know, what to do! There were rumours of more shooting, of an actual gunfight. They tried to get back to the Student Village, not sure if they really wanna take a Cab driven by an Arab, like most of them are. They told stories, confirmed by the newspaper stories the day after, about fireworks in the Arabic quarter, celebrating what happened. On the other site, furious groups of Jews threatened random Arabs which had been around, and screamed things like “Dead to the Arabs”. The house of the driver’s family had to be protected by Israeli police. Obviously a sitution full of suspense!

On the next day, I visited the spot of the attack, a place very close to the old city, close to all the markets, sights, but also clubs and bars I’m usually hanging around when I’m in the city. It was just life as normal. Nothing special there, people acting like every day. This country knows how to deal with these bad situations…

Kol Bezeder!

Hey everybody, fortunately I had not been in the Old City today, as a terror attack happened close to my favorite night club area. I just heard from it and a lot of my friends had been close by. But everything is okay! More details soon

On the roofs of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, conquered, destroyed and rebuilt several times, built on a hilly landscape, is a labyrinth of houses and narrow alleys. One layer built over the last one, its also an up and down between underground ways and walking on the roofs. In the old city, where Jews, Moslems, Christians and many other groups are living close to each other, a whole network of roofs had been established, partly to make it possible for Jews to move in the old city without having to walk across certain Arabian areas. Interestingly enough, many of the buildings these roofs are belonging to are inhabited by Arabs. So close to each other, and yet so far from each other… 

Last week, we decided to explore these roofs in the old city. Hiking there, we saw a Arab family sitting on there balcony and enjoying their Ramadan evening. They noticed us and waved at us, walking on their roof. We began to talk to them, a group of 2 guys, 2girls, obviously not from the Middle East. Surprisingly, the family invited us to come on their balcony, so we climbed down to them, sat down and began to talk to these family of three generations, 2 veiled women and 4 kids. These was pretty difficult because none of us is speaking more then some words of Arabic, and they didnt speak neather Hebrew nor English, apart from the father. Nevertheless it was a nice and open atmosphere, we drank tea with them and the father invited us to come to his butcher shop.

After talking to them for about an hour, we went on on the roofs and went to the Jewish quarter and to the Wailing Wall (Klagemauer). For me it was the second time to be there. Around 11pm, hundreds of people had been there, doing their prayers or just enjoying the special atmosphere. We sat down a meters outsit the walls of the Old City, having an fabulous view at the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rocks(Felsendom) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We began to smoke hookah like real Arabs and were chilling for the rest of the night, till we finally got back to the Kfar Hastudentim, our student village. What a night…! 

different levels,

roofs jehuda, drunter arabische wohnungen

arabian family

Nothing is impossible in Israel: Wargames in a country in war

Yesterday, I played “Paintball” for the first time in my life – and it was a lot of fun!! Paintball is the simulation of a gunfight with guns firing breakable paintballs. A team from Jerusalem played several scenarios against a team from Tel Aviv University. Due to the high amount of equipement, like guns, paintballs, uniform, safety mask etc, Paintball is usually pretty expensive. Fortunately the trip was paid by a guy who organized and finances a lot of student activities. Paintball is also used by the military for training, but mostly in the more professional option with lasers instead of paintballs.

Of course, we destroyed the Tel Aviv guys:-) We played 3 scenarios on the “battlefield”, equipped with old tanks, trenches, and other things to make the battle more realistic and to entrench behind them. The bullets are pretty fast, nevertheless, the game is not dangerous because of the equipement. But bruises happens and bullets on the wrong spots hurts. I got shot at my arm, which you can see on the picture. People which got “killed” and have to leave the battlefield if a bullet hits their body or head (not arms and legs), leaving a clear spot of color on the uniform.

Unfortunately I couldnt shoot pictures, as my camera charger is broken and I didnt get a new one yet. But hopefully there will be a second chance:-)