Tel Aviv Tell-All

During my short hop to Tel Aviv, I furthered my independent study project, although not as much as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I met two leaders in this work and saw some of the products of that work.

Wednesday afternoon, I met Dr. Ruth Calderon at Alma - House of Hebrew Culture and heard four hours of final presentations by her class at this interesting, secular yeshiva. During last fall semester, my Hebrew class read one of her essays on creating Jewish ritual.  During this trip, she did not have time for a private interview with me, but we'll talk on the phone on Sunday (I hope I can get some time away from my orientation at the Conservative Yeshiva, which is then). I did get to hear all of her class's presentations, and while I'm sure that they were all fascinating, it's sad to say that I understood maybe 10% to 20% of what was said. The ones that were visual or that referred to the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible) were obviously easier to follow. But the ones where participants simply spoke or read were beyond me. I could always get the gist, and Ruth's sitting next to me in the bag and filling me in on main points, summaries, or highlights was very helpful. I had always wished that by this time, I would be far more fluent in Hebrew. Ah, well.

The atmosphere was friendly, open, and informal. Most of the students are in their 20s and are artists (poets, visual artists, actors, etc.) and all brought food to share for this final celebration of their learning. The overall theme was motherhood and, even with my limited Hebrew, I found myself fascinated with the intensity, diversity, and, often, beauty of their offerings to their class. Remember that these are clearly hiloni (secular) Israelis, but all looking to Jewish learning and culture to enhance their lives. They are clearly getting this from Alma, and their tributes to the school and its teachers (from what I could tell!) were quite touching.

Afterwards, I sat at a very nearby restaurant/coffee bar with internet access, had a bite, and went online to look for a hotel room. I found one on Dizengoff and Gordon. Took a monit (taxi) there, thinking that I would check and then head out to walk around. The room was nice - air conditioning (not a given in this country, for sure - for instance, our apartment in Jerusalem is not air-conditioned), a little kitchenette (which I didn't need), and a big TV. I didn't end up going out, though; again, I hadn't heard back from anyone I know in Tel Aviv, and I was a bit tired. So, I went online and watched a little bit of Israeli TV simultaneously (mostly stupid comedies, ripoffs of American shows like Dancing with the Stars, etc.) I did watch a bit of the National Geographic channel, which was at least visually interesting. Comfy bed, quiet, good AC - so it was a nice, dull evening, and I'm $100 poorer, but that's not bad considering it included a full breakfast. I love the Israeli idea of breakfast. Of course you can just get a muffin or croissant, but when I saw "Israeli breakfast" on the menu, with its eggs, Israeli salad (usually chopped, with a good lemon-based dressing), crusty bread, libneh (not sure about the name, but it's Israel's cross between sour cream and soft cheese, and is delicious), cheese and jam, with a cappuccino on the side, I couldn't turn it down. Had that at 8 am, and haven't had anything except a cup of tea since, and it is almost 3:30 pm, so it was pretty filling.

This morning, I met with Lior Tal at Bina, another incredible place which is also a secular yeshiva, this one in South Tel Aviv, directly across the street from the Central Bus Station. Bina was started following the Rabin assassination when several secular thinkers/teachers/leaders realized that young Israelis needed to have an inspirational Jewishness that was positive and totally unlike that which Rabin's slayer represented.

Bina is not in a great part of town  - South Tel Aviv has sadly seen some anti-immigrant rioting (but that is worthy of a separate post some time in the future).

Lior, 36, grew up in a Masorati (traditional) household, but began to reject the theology of much of what he was taught by the time he had turned 15 or 16. He had always had and asked a lot of questions, and they were rarely answered to his satisfaction. He ceased to believe in Revelation (Torah miSinai, the idea that G-d gave the Torah directly to Moses on Mt. Sinai). Feeling that he must be wrong, he started to seek answers from inside the tradition, and tried to find them within traditional schools, but he could not. Yet, Jewish identity was still central to him, and he asked himself (and others, as well) why one couldn't be both secular and intensely Jewish. By age 17 or 18, he knew that he wasn't wrong, and naively thought that he had invented something new ("I thought I was going to win the Nobel Prize!") but then learned in college that many others, among them some of the most important Zionist thinkers such as Brenner and Berdichevski, had long ago written about this and the need for its actualization.

Lior became actively involved with and began to learn from those who were doing this work of creating a strong secular Israeli Jewishness, such as Shai Zarchi (one of his strongest mentors and someone whom I hope to interview). Lior started his own program (Bet Midrash Zehut - House of Study-Identity), which failed, and when his friend Tal Shaked (pronounced Shah-caid) proposed creating such a school in S. Tel Aviv along with colleague Eran Baruch, he signed on. Within Bina, Lior currently runs a mechinah (preparation) program for Israeli teens for the year after high school graduation and before entering the IDF (Israel's military), which both males and females join. This mechinah program, among the 40 in existence, is the only one that is both secular and teaches "the Jewish bookshelf" - that is, the classics (Bible, Talmud, Midrash, etc.). When they offer a learning session (shiur, in Hebrew) on a topic such as social justice, instead of sticking to just one of the texts, the teachers pick and choose from all of the "sacred" texts as their sources. Generally, and not surprisingly, halacha (Jewish law) is not included in the learning and discussion, but Jewish thinkers as early as Moses Mendelssohn in the late 1700s, early 1800s rejected the idea that Jewishness was not centrally concerned with adherence to law.

When I asked Lior about any particular, dramatic success stories of students who had transformed their lives, or at least the Jewish part of them, he said that would include at least half of the students in the program!  That alone, even apart from his teaching at another program, the Tel Aviv branch of Kolot, and the post-IDF program, makes him a major player in this important "new" Israeli phenomenon.