Some random thoughts

There's probably a scene in 'Being John Malkovich' - and if there isn't there should be - where time stands still, and things have felt like that here for the past few days. It's probably because, in week four out of six of living here, I am at that point where the novelty of everything has worn off but I haven't yet begun to appreciate the more subtle joys of the city. It will come and in the meantime I am content with things like doing the washing, sitting on my balcony with a beer and catching up on news from home.

In fact, for the first time this trip, last week I had a moment of nostalgia for everything British. It could have been G Brown's awe-inspiring defeat in Glasgow East (West? was it even Glasgow?) and the predictable back stabbing, attacks and denials that came out of the cabinet afterwards, but I suddenly fancied a cup of tea and some Radio 4. There's Radio 4 on the internet of course and, thanks to my neighbours Ben and Avi upstairs, I now have some Liptons tea bags, but in the end I couldn't quite do it. It sounds dumb but it seemed somehow wrong to bring a little piece of London life into my Jerusalem bubble so instead I sat and read my book for a bit and went to meet some friends. And anyway it would have been the 'PM Programme', which I always find irritating.

There's some stuff in the papers here about religious schools. The state funds a fair proportion of the costs of the Haredi (ultra-orthodox Jewish) schools and last week a law was passed in the Knesset excusing them from teaching maths, English and civics, which, I guess, frees up more time for Torah, Talmud and Aramaic. You don't have to be a diehard secularist to work out that there's something wrong here. Although there is plenty of beauty in the Torah and the Talmud - and plenty of stuff that can be applied to modern life - these kids also live in a modern state and they need a wider education than that. I mean, what if one of them wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer? It sometimes happens with Jewish kids... (Actually, according to another article in the same paper, ultra-orthodox students do incredibly well in SAT exams, thanks to a bunch of crammers that have sprung up to coach them through all those psychometric tests, so maybe I need to revise my opinions here.)

In the meantime, Obama has had his prayer nicked. I don't know if this was reported in the UK, but, if you go to the Kotel (the Wailing/Western Wall) you can put a little note in one of the cracks between the stones asking God for something. (In fact, if you are not actually in situ you can fax or email your message and someone will put it in the wall for you.) Obama, like all VIPs who come to Jerusalem, (actually, did Gordon Brown?) went to the Wall and put a note in, which was later nicked by a yeshiva student and published in Ma'ariv, a downmarket newspaper here. All the other papers have done that Guardian trick of pretending to be outraged at Ma'ariv for its invasion of Obama's privacy while taking the opportunity to reprint the note's contents. It's pretty bland but if you want to you can see it here. (And, yes, I guess I have made use of the Guardian's trick too - but you don't need to click if you don't want to.)

Personally, I think there is something a little un-Jewish about putting notes in the Wall, but, then again, I am not as moved by the Wall as maybe I should be. The main part just seems to be full of Haredi men (the women have to go into another area) who would have very little time for my way of living, praying and being Jewish. In fact I'm not sure if they would consider me Jewish at all.