The weekend is here (on a Friday)

I tend to wake up here at about 6am because it is light and it's nice to go out on to the balcony. But that means I am tired of course by the late afternoon. So I was hoping to have a lie-in this morning (it's Friday, so it's Saturday, if you see what I mean). However the dust cart came very noisily at 6.45 so I am up. Tonight I am going to a shabbat potluck dinner with some of my fellow students, all of whom are American and are celebrating July 4. We have to bring red white and blue food (I am taking lentil and tomato salad) and it should be fun, though they are all (semi seriously) concerned that it might be some sort of day of mourning for me as I am British.

As a European, I feel it would be lovely if some of my fellow Jews here had similar concerns towards the Palestinians living in Gaza. I am sure they do but so far I haven't really had that conversation. My colleagues here are liberal, compassionate and intelligent people but I suspect many would see the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as a necessary evil. The danger - and I am talking more about the general Israeli reaction to Wednesday's attack rather than specific conversations I have had with friends - is that anxiety can make people simplify the situation and it is easy here to imagine that it's a case of some sort of amorphous and homogenous group of enemy Arabs surrounding Israel and a lot of heroic IDF soldiers keeping them at bay. People are surprised that I spent time on the way here in Syria, for example, and found the place hospitable, even when I said I was Jewish and on my way to Jerusalem.

That said, I also see the world here through pretty cloudy lenses - I find liberal, post colonialism a powerful influence on the way I think; and I'm pretty caught up in romantic ideas about the underdog and freedom fighters, for instance. So maybe I am missing the point too. And I am having to face up to some questions that feel more academic when you are reading the Guardian in London over a cafe latte in Tinderbox. I would fight intellectually, for example, for almost everything Israel stands for. But would I (literally) fight Palestinians in Gaza? Or, as a colleague asked me yesterday when we were talking about the Israeli army, would I find Belgian forces who were invading Britain and threatening to push Britons into the sea? (It's a slightly arresting image and probably for all the wrong reasons.)

Yesterday, a group of us were talking about the safest ways (in terms of avoiding terrorist attacks) for us, as Jews, to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv - bus, shared minibus or taxi. It's like some bizarre sort of parlour game that I guess is just part of daily life here. Bus came top because there are metal detectors at the bus station but, then again, we felt the shared minibuses were pretty good because they tend to be driven by Arab Israelis so they might be more immune to attack. (I think both are pretty safe to be honest and anyway who would have thought the Circle Line would be at risk of attack?) I then asked, rather idly, whether we thought a group of Palestinians wanting to travel from, say, Hebron to Ramallah might be having the same conversation and what conclusion they might come to. I think they thought the question was just mad but I am allowed to have crazy ideas like this because I am European.

My Hebrew is coming along well. I am in class Aleph Plus, which means one up from total beginner level, and that's about right. Now I am in that babbling stage where everything is kind of right but the wrong tense, wrong pronunciation, wrong grammar. We did directions (right, left, straight ahead) in class the other day and, to my delight, in the evening someone pulled over and asked me the way to a nearby street. I confidently told him, "straight on, straight on, left then right", until, later, some friends pointed out that I had confused "yashar", straight ahead, with "yafe", beautiful, and so probably said something like, "Hey beautiful, you go left and then right." I thought he accelerated away pretty fast.

I am just about managing to persuade people to speak to me in Hebrew in shops and cafes - which is hard as everyone speaks perfect English and I guess it's frustrating for them when I can't understand what they say. The other day I was totally stymied when a shopkeeper asked me if I wanted my new coffee pot gift wrapped. But people indulge me, just like they indulge my crazy European views (see above).

Today I think I am going to go to the beach. We have a choice of the Med (about an hour west) or the Dead Sea (about 30 mins east). I haven't really got my head round how close things are but really you can pop to either place and easily be back (as I want to be) in time for the start of shabbat in the early evening. But first I am going to investigate Jerusalem's big public pool which is very near my flat. I haven't been swimming since I left London and there have been quite a few kebabs and beers since then.

Hope all's well. It's lovely to hear from you and hear your news. And I hope the sun is shining back in Blighty.

Dx

PS
I thought this looked interesting. I'll try to catch it, though I am going to need subtitles.