Thursday, June 28, 2012

Beer Zionism


"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." 

Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa might have been on to something when he noted that "a real country" needs a beer. I promised in my first post, and reference with the name of this blog, that I would write about beer and what I believe it has to do with Zionism.

Before I get into that, I feel it’s important to give some background and perhaps share two memories which for me recall very formative events in my life. The first being in Atlanta Georgia when I was 17 years of age. I had my first really good beer. Up until that point I had tasted whatever was around, whatever was cheap, whatever someone served as some silly party in someone’s basement or some random house party. But all of that changed in October of 2002. I consumed a SweetWater Georgia Brown with its “river of deep caramel and chocolate malts meandering through undercut currents of hop additions.” I remember thinking upon drinking that beer, my life would be forever changed; beer was good, and I was hooked. I thought about how I had previously underrated beer as a beverage and how it obviously involved much more craft and talent than I was privy to.  

The second exberience (don’t anyone steal this word or phrase, I am going to find a clever use for it in the future) took place in Eugene Oregon while I was in college. I was introduced to the Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout. This was a magical thing. Dessert, as a liquid, and beer, as my somewhat complicated, yet always appreciated- new friend. With this I knew, someone had put love into the recipe. Someone had toiled over this. Someone had created something with the intention of telling a story and offering a piece of who they are in liquid form. I didn’t know it then but I certainly recognize it now, that this has everything to do with supporting my Jewish homeland, reviving a Jewish Nation State, returning to an emancipated, autonomous existence for Jews around the world, and creating a culture, society, and g-dly awareness of our mission here on earth as Jews.

To understand what I mean it’s also important that I highlight a few visionaries, upon whose shoulders I stand in order to make these assertions and endeavor towards the Micro-Brewery which Ben and I will, BH, establish and operate here in Israel very soon.

Leon (Yehuda) Pinsker was a Zionist pioneer and founder of the Hovevei Zion (lovers of Zion) movement. In short, Leon realized that Jews would always be a hated people, persecuted, oppressed, exploited, and harassed everywhere we went because we were always foreigners. We had no land of our own; we wandered in and out of countries and history, depending on the goodwill, or tolerance of others for our survival. Leon urged Jews to strive for independence but more importantly, he pushed for Jewish national consciousness. In 1890, The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine’ dedicated to the practical aspects of establishing agricultural Jewish settlements was established. Pinsker headed local efforts for this charity through an organization, known as the Odessa Committee. Pinsker knew well the national consciousness would be connected to the Land.

A.D. Gordon echoed some of Pinsker’s ideas. Gordon believed because Jews in the Diaspora were unable to participate in creative labor (namely because Jews were in many places unable to own, lease, or work land), they would exist as parasites everywhere they went. Gordon promoted physical labor and agriculture as a means of uplifting Jews spiritually. It was the experience of labor, he believed, that linked the individual to the hidden aspects of nature and being, which, in turn were the source of vision, poetry, and the spiritual life. Furthermore, he also believed that working the land was a sacred task, not only for the individual but for the entire Jewish people. Agriculture would unite the people with the land and justify its continued existence there. In his own words: "The Land of Israel is acquired through labor, not through fire and not through blood." Return to the soil would transform the Jewish people and allow its rejuvenation, according to his philosophy.

Rav Kook also recognized the connection between the people, the land, and our ultimate mission. He believed that the modern movement to re-establish a Jewish state in the land of Israel had profound theological significance and that the Zionists were agents in a heavenly plan to bring about the messianic era.  In some of Rav Kook’s writing, he recognizes the importance and utility of the Land in uniting and strengthening the Jewish people, but for him it was more:

The land of Israel is not some external entity.
It is not merely an external acquisition for the Jewish people.
It is not merely a means of uniting the populace.
It is not merely a means of strengthening our physical existence.
It is not even merely a means of strengthening our spiritual existence.

Rather, the land of Israel has an intrinsic meaning.
It is connected to the Jewish people with the knot of life. 
Its very being is suffused with extraordinary qualities.

The extraordinary qualities of the land of Israel and the extraordinary qualities of the Jewish people are two halves of a whole.
Eretz Chiefetz

These and many other important and influential Zionist visionaries ascribe great significance to Jews working and creating in our land. I believe that while each has his own approach, core problems could be parsed in a like fashion and an underlining theme can be found amongst them all; which is that creativity, productivity, and inspiration are all interconnected with the place and space in which the Jewish people reside and realize their potential.

In Dvarim Chapter 8 it is written “ 
כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, מְבִיאֲךָ אֶל-אֶרֶץ טוֹבָה:  אֶרֶץ, נַחֲלֵי מָיִם--עֲיָנֹת וּתְהֹמֹת, יֹצְאִים בַּבִּקְעָה וּבָהָר  אֶרֶץ חִטָּה וּשְׂעֹרָה, וְגֶפֶן וּתְאֵנָה וְרִמּוֹן; אֶרֶץ-זֵית שֶׁמֶן, וּדְבָשׁ
“For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey.”

That sounds like a nice list of fresh, local ingredients that, when combined with love, craft, inspiration, and holy consciousness, can make a damn good beer and many variations therein.

And so, with this in mind, I believe that opening a microbrewery here in Israel, establishing a business, employing Israelis, growing, harvesting and using Israeli produce and farming goods, adding to the economy, creating independent craft products and brands instead of importing cheaper and sometimes poorer quality alternatives, working the land and using the ingredients Hashem has blessed us with- enhancing the enjoyment of Israelis and Jews, and instilling pride in those who choose to imbibe with said products- are all part and parcel of my Beer Zionism. 

Friday, June 15, 2012

Our speech, the spies, and coming home

(My blog post today is based on and prompted by an article written by Yishai Fleisher in the JewishPress.com entitled Light Onto the Nations from the Comfort of Home )

"By challenging ourselves to amend our speech we can help close a wound that wants to heal after two-thousand years of pain. And by speaking well of the land of Israel, we will melt all the fears and the doubts that fill our hearts today and we will ignite a burning desire in our nation to fall in love with our homeland, and to finally make it our home."


This week's parsha is Shelach, and is always an interesting one for me. My husband reminds me every year that at the summer camp he used to work at, his campers would act out the parsha and he had the dubious honor of playing the grapes. Yes. My husband, with a degree in Judaic Studies and years of leading experiential education and informal Jewish learning, takes great pride in his role as an inanimate object. He does this every year we retell the story of the spies who were sent into the Land to give a report to Moses and the Jewish people. Huge grapes.

Without getting too far into the parsha, that was not the purpose of my post today, I will recap to give some context to my thoughts and to Yishai's article. 

Moses sends twelve spies to the land of Canaan. Forty days later they return, carrying a huge cluster of grapes, a pomegranate and a fig, to report on a lush and bountiful land. But ten of the spies warn that the inhabitants of the land are giants and warriors “more powerful than we”; only Caleb and Joshua insist that the land can be conquered, as G‑d has commanded. The people weep that they’d rather return to Egypt. G‑d decrees thatIsrael’s entry into the Land shall be delayed forty years, during which time that entire generation will die out in the desert. (Thank you Chabad.org).

Only two spies came back with a positive report of the Land. Only two out of twelve. It didn't seem to be enough, and so the Bnei Yisrael became frightened of the prospect of making their new home in the Land G-d gave them, and the rest is Biblical history.  

They say people who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Well I think many of us have learned from history; it's sort of hard not to seeing as how we repeat the exact same Torah parshiot every single year. While there are plenty of frustrating things about moving anywhere, to any new country especially, and there are plenty of things that I wish were different, or improved, and plenty of reasons why people complain about Israeli bureaucratic policies, and there are even plenty of blogs, newspapers, and various media outlets amplifying such complaints and calls for change (Don't worry, my blog will also dive into that as well; its not all roses and falafel) - but this week needs to be different. 


And so in an effort to make sure I do not repeat our mistakes, I want to dedicate this blog post to writing about the positive experience my husband and I have had coming home. The positive attributes of life in Israel and the benefits which I believe, await any Jew who wants to return to Israel. I know we may not represent every person who has made Aliyah. Indeed the two spies did not speak for the whole group. But I also know our success is not isolated or unique. So with this, I want to represent the two of the twelve that are all too often overlooked. Its sometimes easier to see the fear that lies in change, instead of the possibility that lies in new opportunities. 

My husband and I have known for years that we were making Aliyah. In fact, it was the topic of conversation on our very first date in Eugene Oregon. But the wheels started turning and the plan was put into action about 3 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts. I had just moved there to take my job at the Consulate General of Israel to New England  and Ben was finishing up his job at a Northern California Hillel. We got married, he moved to Boston, and began life as "adults". We wanted to get some professional experience in the States, make a little bit of money, begin to pay back our student debt, and settle into our first few years of marriage before turning our world upside.


After about six months in Boston, I figured I would get a head start on the process. I wasn't sure exactly when we would be making the big move but I knew that if something came up, a job opportunity, a zombie invasion,  I wanted to have it all ready to go. I opened our tik  on the Nefesh B'Nefesh website  and began filling out the paperwork online. The first few phases were pretty straight forward and easy to follow. Standard information.  Then, there came the documentation. Providing official copies of birth certificates, wedding certificates, passports, transcripts, ketubahs- since Ben is from Portland, I am from Atlanta, and we were living in Boston- that part took time. Talking to vital records in two States, learning what an apostille is and then paying to get them, sending all these records across the country via ensured and expedited mail . . .I took it easy and decided to work on one piece of documentation a week. I happened to have an "in" with some people at the Israeli Consulate (ie: I sat next to the women who issued Oleh Visas and told her to please give me my Oleh Visa and after smiling and looking over my paperwork, she gave me my Oleh Visa). A year later I had it all collected and ready to go. To be fair, a super organized and motivated person could have done it all in a few weeks, maybe a month, but I am a long term kind of girl so I took my sweet time. 


Then I met with the Jewish Agency representative who came to Boston twice a month from NY. Scheduling that was pretty easy and meeting with him was very pleasant. We eat lunch during the meeting and talked a lot about his daughters. 


My sister lives in Israel with her husband so they were both very helpful. I signed up for the Maagar Meida apartment finding website and received emails of apartment listings in the neighborhoods I wanted to look in. I told my sister which ones I liked and she and my brother in law went and checked them out and sent us pictures. (ACTUAL OFFER: I REALIZE NOT EVERYONE HAS FAMILY IN ISRAEL TO DO THIS SO IF ANYONE IS CONSIDERING ALIYAH AND WOULD LIKE ME TO HELP THEM LOOK AT APARTMENTS, IF IT WOULD MAKE YOUR ALIYAH EASIER- I WILL HAPPILY HELP YOU WITH THIS). We found one we liked, within the budget we decided on (which was entirely based on what the Sal Klita, government absorption basket, provides- since we didn't have jobs lined up and were coming with almost no money), and decided to go for it. We had an Israeli who lived in Brookline help us with the contract, signed it, sent it, and voila- we were renting an apartment in Jerusalem. The only snafu was that my sister and brother in law had to write out 12 predated checks for rent and give them to the land lord before we arrived in case we turned out to be nut cases. I should take a moment to thank Stacey and Yehuda for going out on a limb for us like that and thank Kochava, our landlord, for being so trusting. 


We started selling a lot of our stuff on craigslist to local people in and around Boston. We also started giving away a ton of stuff to friends and family. We knew we were going to be moving to Israel so we had never invested in property, or a car, or any nice furniture, or anything nice for that matter (nicest things I own are my sheitle and my laptop). I asked a few Israelis in the community who the best international movers were and everyone said Isaacs. So I called Isaacs, they guy came and looked at our books, dvds, dishes and appliances (which were mostly wedding gifts, no way was I leaving those behind) and a bed. The guy laughed at me because we just barely met the minimum shipping requirement. We decided two other friends of ours making Aliyah from Boston could throw their stuff in with ours to bulk the shipment and save everyone a little money. He gave us a quote, it sounded fair, we signed, and voila- our shipment was arranged and ready to go.  


We booked our flight through NBN and once we had the date of our flight, the countdown was on. I think those last few months moved quickly for everyone. I think our friends and community in Boston, who we had come to love dearly, were thrown for a loop when we started selling things. It hit home for everyone once the apartment started to empty. Our cat definitely sensed something was happening. I will dedicate another post to what we had to go through to get him to Israel . . .


People were generally supportive those last few months. But every now and then we would receive a comment from one of our friends that rang something like 'it's so great your moving to our homeland, so . . . are you really doing this?'  and 'It's wonderful your actually doing this, I wish I could do it too were it not for [insert excuse here]' or one of my personal favorites 'it's so crazy your actually doing this, do you know what you are getting into?' It was almost as if once we had decided we were really doing this, all we were was a mirror for people.  Our decision made them examine their own. They looked at us and they saw themselves and so they used us as a soundboard to voice their own frustrations, hopes, dreams, fears about some deep desire/ anxiety diaspora Jews have about living in Israel. 


We made it to Newark, NJ- got on the plane, and headed home. The hustle and bustle at the airport was more frantic than normal; a cat, and our lives essentially packed neatly in 6 bags.  65 new Olim, 5 cats, 3 dogs, far too many Jewish males trying to determine the best way to shove bags overhead, and 12 hours later- we landed at Ben Gurion Airport. People clapped and sang when we landed. It was nice, but honestly, not new for me. That usually happens when you land in Israel. But something did feel different. When you are on the road traveling for a while, you are living out of a suit case, probably don't have every thing you would like, feeling comfortable but not quite settled- that's what America felt like for me. And when those wheels touched down and we landed in Israel-it was a very palpable sense of ease. Like now, sigh, I can unpack. Those York Peppermint Patty commercials come to mind. A quick montage of falafel, Tel Aviv Beaches, orange groves, people smoking inside the mall, the shuk, the shabbat alarm, traffic and horns, sunrise on Masada, Israeli kids with big hair screaming everywhere, the kotel, a swerving taxi, tichels and kippahs- it all whooshed over me in a flash. Home. 


NBN representatives ushered us through the special Ministry of Absorption offices near the airport and we signed some papers, got health insurance, our Teudat Zahut, and cash money in hand! It was also the first night of Hanukkah so everywhere we went someone offered us sufganiyot!  Because we had arranged our apartment in advance, we took a free taxi from Lod directly to our front door step. My sister met us there, opened the door, and greeted us in our new apartment. Our Isaacs shipment came the next week. The first few days my sister took Ben and I to the municipal offices to switch the gas, water, and electricity into our names, she took us to the Bank and we opened an account and ordered checks. We got food and toilet paper- essentials- at our local super market. We went and got cell phones the 3rd day in Israel. Didn't have to pay anything upfront! We provided NBN with our account information and within two weeks we had a direct deposit into our account, the first payment of Sal Klita had arrived! 


Until our gas was turned on and in our names, we ate almost every meal out those first few days. It was wonderful. Real restaurants! Kosher food! I gained a million pounds that first week which I am still trying to work off. Everywhere we went, when people heard we were new olim they said 'B'Hatzlacha!' Everyone wished us luck and success and blessings. One of the first nights we ate at an Asian restaurant near our house. Ben and I liked the menu, the decor, the food- deciding to take full advantage of our new Israeli identities we summoned the chutzpa to write in bullet points, on a napkin, Ben's kitchen and work experience and his cell phone number. We gave that napkin to the waitress and asked if she would pass it off to the manager, or perhaps the chef. She did. Ben got a call the next day. He began working two days after that. A job in Israel, within the first week of arriving. Hashem was already showering his blessings on us.  


I was looking for work and trying to leverage the networks and connections I had from my time at the Consulate in Boston when a friend emailed me and reminded me that his friends who had a consulting company in Israel might be hiring (shout out Gordon Dale). I emailed the founders of the consulting company and went in for an interview. Many of the clients of this consulting company were organizations I had worked with in Boston through the Consulate and we had a lot of mutual contacts so that helped quite a bit. I began work within a week. A job in Israel within the first month of arriving. More blessings. 


Within a month, both Ben and I had found jobs and were working. We have a nice, modest, but very comfortable apartment in Jerusalem, we are in full swing shul shopping on Shabbats, trying to find minyans and communities that tickles our fancy. We were receiving our Sal Klita money directly into our accounts, we were staying connecting to family and friends the whole time on skype. Our klita was, and has been, thank G-d, very smooth. None of the horror stories you often hear, or the hyperbolic tales of missing luggage, having no money, leaking apartments. None of that. We were, and still very much are, blessed in our decision to come home. 


And I know its not always that smooth for people. I know for every positive experience we have had, someone can match it with a negative one, or maybe two for that matter. But we are doing okay. We are young, we have degrees of higher education (and yes, we also have student debt back in the States but we are managing that just fine- the US government is surprisingly flexible these days) we are positive, thankful, and optimistic.  We live within our means, we stay focused, and we don't compare every little thing to life in the United States. 


Sometimes people need to hear the good stuff. Sometimes we need to listen, we need to want to hear the story of the two spies. We came home and I firmly believe Hashem has blessed us because of it. I also believe that many of the barriers and obstacles that keep people from coming home and living in our land reflect more the anxiety of the Jew, and less the opportunity the Land can afford us. 


So next time you hear someone speak about the troubles and toils of someone they know who has made Aliyah, try to recall my post and our experience, try to add a positive comment and "speak well of the Land"and perhaps reframe that conversation. As Yishai wrote, "we need to ignite the burning desire in our nation to fall in love with our homeland." 


Shabbat Shalom. 











Tuesday, June 12, 2012

New Beginnings

bh
Today I read an article on Facebook about a topic that I have some very strong opinions on. I reposted the article along with a short blurb outlining some of my thoughts on my wall and on a friend's wall. Within a few minutes two of my colleagues at work came over to my office and told me they had read both the article and my comments, and loved reading "my stuff" every time I put something up. They said my opinions were always "interesting" and that I should write more. 


This has been a big year for my husband and I. In December of 2011, we made Aliyah and moved to Israel. We settled in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish Homeland and modern State of Israel. Although I had been to Israel many times over the years, have family in Israel, worked for the Israeli government, speak some Hebrew, and generally love every form of garbanzo bean- it was still a very big move. 


This move has been the culmination of a lot of things and I realized today that quite a few people are interested in hearing about Aliyah experiences in general, and a personal take on issues affecting the Jewish community and Israel in particular, like mine, for example. 


So after some thought I decided that instead of, or perhaps in addition to, leaving my opinions and comments on random articles and posts on Facebook, I should collect my thoughts and present them in a way that allows my family and friends, and anyone else interested, to tune in and read a more organized, and hopefully coherent, version of my opinions and ramblings. 


With this blog, I will endeavor to share my thoughts and opinions about Israel, Zionism, the Jewish people, and beer. You might be thinking that there is something a little off about the previous sentence, something that just doesn't fit . . .beer? Stay tuned because eventually I am going to elaborate and explain why Beer is something I feel strongly about and something that I think it intimately connected with Zionism. 


And so, as with the new life my husband and I are beginning in Israel, so too will I begin a new blog. Enjoy reading and always feel free to share your opinions!