Rosh Hashana: Part One

I had no idea what to expect when we arrived in Ashkelon. In fact, I wasn't exactly sure of the sequence of events that had brought me to the ancient port city in the first place. As far as I knew everything I had been told was little more than hearsay; hardly enough to stand up in a court of law.

Standing outside the train station on a breezy Friday afternoon, Ryan and I awaited our ride.

Earlier in the week, Ryan had been approached by an Israeli girl on campus who was looking for directions. Being the well-mannered individual that he is, Ryan decided that he would walk her to her destination. When it was all said and done, Ryan had been invited to join her and her family in Ashkelon for Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year). He was told to bring a friend.

"You're nervous."

"Yea, you know I didn't say anything on the train, but I'm really nervous," Ryan admitted.

"You didn't have to say anything for me to figure that out," I replied with a laugh. "It's going to be fine, dude. And if worse comes to worst and they hate us, then we can always call Joey and go stay with him."

Ryan shrugged and nodded. Joey, our fourth roommate, has been a rare fixture in our dorm for the past six weeks. Hailing from Philadelphia, his devil-may-care attitude has been good for more than a few laughs. He tested out of the Ulpan before coming over and has spent every night hitting the bars and the clubs. This of course has resulted in seeing Joey intermittently in just two stages of his life: preparation for a night out and recovery from a night out.

The thought of staying with Joey apparently did little to allay Ryan's fears. I shuffled my feet a little and popped my mp3 player into just one ear.

"Besides, they're going to love us," I added, trying to sound confident. "And they're really going to love me."

Ryan laughed.

This of course was probably a true statement. I've become like the circus sideshow for just about everyone over here. This is not to say that people don't take me seriously, but rather to suggest that whether I succeed or fail in a social setting is entirely irrelevant because either way it's amusing. The accent does all the work.

A white Suzuki pulled up on the primary road beside the Ashkelon train station. A tall, lean young man got out of the passenger side and waved at us.

"I think this is our ride," Ryan said.

We hefted our bags over our shoulders and approached. Ryan shook the man's hand.

"Shalom. I'm Ryan."

"Noah," he replied tersely.

"I'm Drew."

"Drew?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yea."

"Noah," he replied. "Just throw your bags in the trunk."

Perfect English and his accent is pretty American 'neutral.' Interesting.

After throwing our bags in the trunk, we slid into the back seat and strapped in. In the driver's seat, a young girl with curly brownish-blond hair turned around and smiled.

"Hello Ryan!"

Rock on, Ryan. She's a looker.

"Hey Dafna. Thanks for inviting us."

"You're very welcome!" she said excitedly. "Hi, I'm Dafna."

"Drew. Thanks for..."

"Droos?" she asked quizzically, turning toward Noah in the passenger side.

"Drew," Noah said for me. "Like from Andrew, right?"

"Right."

"Oh, okay. We are very happy to have you join us."

The car wheeled away from the train station. Dafna hit the highway at a clip that would have put even Caroline Wren to shame. We zipped past two cars and accelerated down the ramp toward her house. For the first few minutes, Dafna engaged us in simple conversation about school. Her English was decent but she clearly had difficulties with pronunciation. Noah leaned back in his seat, utterly relaxed and calm as Dafna, being an all too typical female, chattered away and narrowly avoided collision.

Some things are universal.

"So how old are you, Noah?" Ryan asked.

"Twenty-two," he stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Oh, I didn't know you had a brother the same age."

Dafna and Noah looked at each other. The first sign of what would come to be Noah's devilish sense of humor started to emerge in the form of a wry smile.

"He's not my brother," she responded. "My younger brother is twenty."

"So wait, you're not brother and sister."

Dafna is olive-skinned with brown eyes. Noah is lighter skinned with green eyes. Clearly they're not related which means...

"He's my boyfriend," she said with a laugh.

Ouch. Better change the subject.

"So Noah, are you in school, too?" I asked. I turned to glance at Ryan. He seemed to have taken that pretty well. I had no idea if he had any "other" aspirations for coming. If he did, they had just been hit by a 500-lb JDAM.

"No. I'm in the army. I've got a little over a year left."

"Noach's an officer in a combat unit," Dafna added, clearly proud.

Jackpot. We're going to be friends, Noah.

"That's awesome. Ryan did ROTC for a while," I proffered.

"Oh yeah?"

And from that point onward the conversation became very smooth. There were a few hiccups where Noah had to translate for Dafna what we were saying or had to give her a word in English that she was trying to say, but either did not know or could not properly enunciate. It turned out that Noah could have left the IDF a year earlier, but had opted to serve longer than necessary in light of the situation in Gaza and the looming Iranian threat.

These Israelis are different from those in Tel Aviv.

As we drove, I noticed that we were heading south of Ashkelon proper. Ashkelon was only ten miles from Gaza and had been the site of several Qassam and Katyusha rocket attacks over the past few years. The terrain was mostly farmland and small communities. It looked a great deal like rural Alabama. That is to say Alabama minus the ever present threat of radical jihadists.

The barbarians were boxed up in their cage just a few miles to the south.

We pulled into a small schoona (neighborhood) and took our third right. All the homes were similar in structure, but seemed very nice and well maintained. A massive metal gate ringed the entire neighborhood, separating it from the rolling countryside of coastal Israel and serving as a reminder of the first rule in Israel: security.

We unloaded our stuff and made our way inside. The house was immaculate in its cleanliness. Dafna's mother was ironing clothes in a small alcove to the right. Ryan and I had brought gifts, a bottle of wine and some chocolates. We introduced ourselves and gave them to her. She was a slender woman, very pretty, with the same curly hair as her daughter. I instantly could tell that she was pleasant and kind and would be nothing short of our mother for the next two days.

Dafna took us upstairs and showed us our room. Two twin beds had been prepared for us. We dumped our stuff down and ran in to Dafna's younger brother, Eliaz. He had a buzzed head and a scruffy, close-shaved beard. He was grinning as if he knew something we did not. I knew before he even spoke that his English was going to be hit or miss.

"Hello," he said, still smiling. "I'm Eliaz. Just...uh...just...put your bags in the...uh...room. I clean everything. It will be perfect."

When we walked back down the stairs, Dafna's father rolled into the main hallway. He was a solidly built man with a barrel for a chest. He wore glasses and was grinning as Ryan and I emerged. When I say that he rolled into the main hallway, I mean it quite literally. Dafna's father was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Hello!" he said. "I'm Samuel but...the uh...friends call me Schmuley. Please make yourselves at home. You're trapped here now, no?!"

His laugh bellowed throughout the entire house.


***

"You have one?" Eliaz asked me.

He pointed to the kippah on his head. I shook my head. Eliaz tilted his head and gestured his hands in an "it's all good" fashion. He jolted upstairs and grabbed a half dozen and brought them back to me. Ryan had bought one in Jerusalem weeks before and had thought to bring it with him. I was making no bones about the fact that I wasn't Jewish. Ryan seemed to prefer for people to assume that he was in order to avoid any unnecessary hangups.

I picked out a blue and white one (when in Israel...) and popped it on my head. I looked utterly ridiculous, but to refuse one on Shabat and Rosh Hashana in a clearly religious household and community would have been insulting. Mom taught me better manners than to insult one's hosts.

We followed Schmuley and Eliaz through the gate in their backyard toward the bet knesset (synagogue). As dusk set in and a cool breeze carried through the evening air, the streets became filled with people heading to synagogue. At sundown on Yom Shlishi (Friday), Shabat officially begins and does not end until sundown of the following day, except on Rosh Hashana, which doesn't end until sundown on Yom Rashon (Sunday).

We followed Eliaz into the synagogue and went upstairs. I caught a sneak peek of Orthodox Jews through the windows of a room in the bottom floor. They were fully draped, white clothes covering their head down to their waist. A massive shovar (ram's horn) sat on the table in the center.

Upstairs, Eliaz escorted us to an aisle at the back. Schmuley took the elevator to the second floor and joined us at the end of the pew. The first thing I noticed was that the entire room was filled with just men. The women were sitting in curtained-off areas on the right and left. Only the tops of their heads and their general silhouette could be seen from where we were seated.

Eliaz retrieved two books for Ryan and I. Akin to hymnals and written in Hebrew, these books were little more than hand decorations. I might as well have been holding a candlestick or a copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

The service lasted little more than an hour and consisted of similar things one would find at an 11:00 Sunday service back home. A few traditional Shabat songs followed by a few Rosh Hashana songs and then a brief sermon by the local rabbi.

Aside from the kippahs and the white cloths draped around their shoulders, the men were dressed very similar to how men dress to go to church back home: slacks, a collared shirt, and a tie if one is so inclined. One fellow had a pink tie with a matching pink kippah. He was clearly representing the "metro" wing of the Jewish community. Don't knock it if you can rock it.

The story is the same for the women as well. All the girls had on Sunday dresses. The married women wore their head-coverings. This is a part of Jewish custom and denotes public devotion to the union of marriage and to the family. These coverings are not akin to the hijabs worn by Muslim women. Think more along the lines of a modernized "Rosie the Riveter."

Following the end of the Shabat service, we returned to the Lanksner house for the first of three Thanksgiving sized meals that we would endure over the weekend.

Dinner was absolutely phenomenal. We were joined by another family from just down the street. All in all there were twelve people. Five from the Lanksner household, five from the Avner household, plus Ryan and myself. Schmuley took his place at the head of the table and began the Rosh Hashana proceedings. Pamphlets were passed out to everyone so they would be able to follow along accordingly. It is a custom for the head of the household to start each "offering" during a Shabat dinner.

Ryan and I were able to discern most of the various dishes, all traditional, that we would be eating despite having to read it in Hebrew. Unfortunately I was unable to catch the meaning of each dish.

The first course of dinner consisted of bread dipped in honey (something done only on Rosh Hashana), pomegranate, figs, fish head (yes, a raw fish head), and apples. As the fish head came toward Ryan, I flashed Dafna an intensely skeptical glare. She laughed and said we didn't have to eat it. I was about to pass on it until Eric (the father of the Avner family) and Schmuley announced that anyone who eats the fish head is said to be a leader for his people.

Aw hell...

"On to victory it is then," I said as Ryan passed the fish my way.

Eliaz and Dafna were getting a hearty laugh as Ryan and I choked it down.

The second course consisted of salad, which in Israel is little more than diced tomatoes and cucumbers; two things that are horrendous enough by themselves much less together, a healthy serving of rice, more bread, and soup with almonds.

I was quickly learning that when you're the guest of honor in a Jewish household, going away hungry is considered a criminal offense.

By the time the third course came around, I was nearing the point of exploding. Aside from pouring everyone a glass of wine (L'chaim!), Mrs. Lanksner felt compelled to assault us with baked chicken, steak, and...wait for it...cow's tongue.

I will be the first to admit that I never thought I would ever dive into a pair of bovine lickers. After eating it, however, I can honestly say it is one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. I apologize for anyone feeling weak in the stomach, but it is the truth. If you've never had it, I encourage you to give it a try.

As dinner entered into its third hour, Eric was explaining his job as an Israeli police officer and seemed genuinely intrigued that Ryan and I were in a program that required both Arabic and Hebrew. Eric was an extremely fit man for someone in his forties. Ryan would later tell me that he recognized Eric from the Shabat service earlier in the evening because of the Beretta 9mm situated at the small of his back. I didn't realize it at the time but Eric was authorized to wear the weapon into the synagogue should anything have gone "awry."

Security, security, security. That is life in Israel.

I complimented Mrs. Lanksner on her skills as a cook, but also lamented the fact that I now had to tell my mother than I've had a better home-cooked meal. She laughed and told me that I didn't have to let that one out of the bag.

Dessert came in the form of ice cream and coffee. Ryan and I looked like we had been forced to kill a puppy. I didn't think it was possible to be so full as to feel sad, but it was a point that both of us reached. Ryan ended dinner on a good note when he went into a secret passion of his: Fiddler on the Roof. This resulted in mass excitement that the two Ameriki knew anything at all about Fiddler on the Roof. Schmuley ate it up and revealed a secret love of his: Ray Charles. He started singing "Georgia On My Mind" and asked me if we sang it in Alabama.

Not since they started stealing our water, Mr. Lanksner.

Dinner lasted for a solid four hours. Afterward, Dafna, Ryan, and I met up with some of her friends on a street corner a few blocks down. Almost everyone in the town was out for a walk. Everyone had eaten more than they could handle it seemed.

We caught up with Dafna's boyfriend Noah, a girl named Miri (short for Miriam), and a friend of Noah's whom I will refer to as Gideon. There are two reasons for using an alias for Gideon. The first is that his real name is exceedingly hard to pronounce. The second is that he is a member of the Special Forces in an airborne unit.

The contrast between Noah and Gideon was like summer and winter. Noah is fair-skinned, green-eyed, very relaxed, and radiates a "Cool Hand Luke" aura. Gideon, on the other hand, is dark-skinned, brown-eyed, and fully energized. His English was basic, but being in a Special Operations unit demanded that his language skills include understanding and conversing in English.

Gideon seemed genuinely thrilled to meet both Ryan and I. He was grinning from ear-to-ear when I told him I spoke Hickbrew.

"Alabama?!" he exclaimed. He quickly turned to Noah, who had a smirk creeping onto his face. They both spoke in rapid-fire Hebrew. I picked up next-to-nothing.

"Ah! Alabama! You drink whiskey, yes?!" Gideon asked excitedly.

"We drink whiskey, shoot deer, ride dirt roads, watch cars go 'round in little circles, occasionally secede, and take pride in killin' terrorists." I deadpanned.

Noah threw his head back in laughter. Dafna was laughing but asking Noah for a translation. Ryan smirked and shook his head. Miri seemed more or less nonplussed. Gideon threw two thumbs up, beamed, and waved.

"Let's go then! Yalla!"

We had to sneak into Gideon's house. His parents were already asleep and as part of Shabat, observers were not allowed to make anything. That included tumblers of whiskey and plates of cheesecake.

Ryan abstained from the whiskey. I figured I'd give it a try. It wasn't much and I didn't want to besmirch Gideon's hospitality or dilute the already established stereotype I had worked so hard to craft.

Gideon blew up a beach ball that happened to be a globe of the world. He walked over and asked me to point out Alabama. I spun it and showed him approximately where Alabama was located since the state lines were missing.

"Boormingham?" he asked.

"Yea. Wow. Is that on there?"

He pointed to Birmingham which was written in Hebrew. I did a brief double take and nodded.

"Yea, that's Alabama. Kinda cool seeing that written in Ivrit."

Gideon gestured for us to take a seat in the living room. We discussed what we had experienced thus far, the recent death of Asaf Ramon, an Israeli fighter pilot who was the son of Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut. Ilan Ramon died in the 2003 Columbia disaster. Asaf, his son, and a pilot prodigy himself, was attempting to pull a maneuver that required pulling too many G's and had crashed over Hebron the previous week. Asaf's death has been the topic of many conversations throughout Israel over the past week or so.

As it approached 1:00 in the morning, we departed. Gideon promised we'd hang out the next day and told both Ryan and I that he enjoyed meeting us.

During the walk back home, Ryan and Dafna got caught up in a conversation which allowed Noah and I to talk a little more. Earlier in the day, Dafna had told us that Noah had been born in San Diego and had lived there until he was eight years old. He had then moved to Israel. This made Noah both an American and Israeli citizen.

We talked a bit about America and the contrast between there and here. Knowing he was both American and Israeli helped explain why I observed earlier in the day that his English exhibited a neutral tone.

"I've been meaning to ask you this. It's just something I've noticed since I've been here today. Dafna's father referred to Tel Aviv as "a fantasy world." Is there a divide between urban and rural Israelis?"

Noah grinned. It was one of bemusement. There was some slight hesitation, but it waned. I could tell that his cool demeanor masked a perspicacious mind.

"For sure. During the 2006 war in Lebanon and during Cast Lead in Gaza, you had Israeli citizens and soldiers getting chopped up along the borders and in the small towns. I mean here, too. Look around. It's all small villages and farms. But in Tel Aviv, they sit in their little coffee shops, ordering their white mocha lattes, feeling secure enough to dismiss their fellow citizens and to criticize every move we make," he replied.

Just like back home. The pretentious liberal elites on the East and West coasts. The hard-working and resentful conservatives in "fly-over" country.

Noah expounded more on Operation: Cast Lead. He had been training new soldiers during the three week pounding of the Gaza Strip last January. Most of his friends had been boots on the ground (including Gideon). He admitted that a lot of civilians had been killed and that unpleasant things had occurred, but as he articulated, what was the IDF supposed to do when Hamas was setting up rocket launchers in "retirement homes," booby-trapping pre-schools, and maintaining their headquarters in the basement of a hospital.

"Let me give you an example. You have some journalist take a picture at a precise moment. And it looks like that Israeli soldier is pointing his gun at that child with the rock in his hand. But if that picture had been taken a second before, you would have seen him shooing the kid away as he was beginning to turn around. If the picture had been taken a second later, you would have seen the soldier walking away. They're masters of propaganda."

"The same stuff is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. There was footage of a Marine executing a jihadi in a mosque during the Battle of Fallujah. The media wanted to bury this Marine underneath the prison. They offered it as evidence of a war crime. It turned out that the jihadi was reaching for a grenade and was wearing a suicide belt," I said in disgust. "He was acquitted of any wrongdoing, but it was too late. It was already ingrained that he was a bad guy and that Americans were committing war crimes."

"Exactly. But it's different here in Israel," Noah continued. "Because this is the battlefield. Our homes. Our families."

"Israel has friends. Don't ever forget that," I replied.

"Not many. And for how long?"

"Well, I'm not going to discuss American politics. It's not my place to do that right now. But I will tell you that I worked for Senator McCain."

Noah walked a few steps ahead of me and turned around, his kippah standing firm despite the speed of his turn. A brief smirk emerged at the corner of his mouth, but quickly faded away.

"Then I will tell you that I voted for the wrong man last November," he said as he glanced down at the sidewalk. "I'm sorry."

Me too...