Saying Goodbye to the Ulpan. Haifa, Israel

We started our trip last July in Guatemala where we studied Spanish five days a week for four weeks. Six months later (January 2011), I began classes at the University of Haifa’s Intensive Hebrew Ulpan. The term “ulpan” came about shortly after the creation of the state of Israel. Jews with tongues from around the world returned to the Holy Land and began to converge their dispersed, cultural and religious lineages by learning the "language of the book" in intensive language learning programs called ulpans. Hebrew, a dead language for more than a thousand years, was reborn.

Approaching my ulpan experience, I expected my classmates to be predominately visiting and immigrating Jews. Although some were, I soon found out that most were Christians (of those I met). There were hundreds of students divided into different classes by skill level. I was in the lowest class with about 17 other students (I say “about” because I didn’t really consider this one guy a student… He kind of just sat in our class for the entire four weeks attempting to learn by osmosis). I met some older students outside of my class; for example, a retired 60-something rabbi from Utah and a 30-something Catholic priest from Austria.

In my class, however, I felt like “the old guy.” Our age difference became very evident a couple weeks into the class when we were practicing numbers. We were going around the class asking each student to say the year of his/her birth in Hebrew: 1988, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1989, 1991, then came my turn… 1982!

Age is no barrier to friendship though. I feel that, for myself and those who came to be many years before and after me, we have much to learn and much to share. These people make me laugh and make me wise. My classmates at the ulpan were no exception. They were so interesting, so interested, so present and forward-looking, so honest (with themselves and others) and their hearts were bigger than bears.

Most of my classmates were taking advantage of study abroad programs at U.S. universities (the most common school was Boston University).

Here are some action shots from our class.

Bryan and Hannah

Bryan is a very calm, funny and observant fellow. He brought much humor to the class and he was one of the best students. Bryan studies at Fordham University (FU) in NYC.

Hannah is the young lady with Bryan in the picture above. She has her eyes wide open to the world. She also brought a lot of laughter to the class.

Michael and Janneke

The blonde lady in the picture above is Janneke. Just a year younger than me, she was the only other classmate that joined me on the other side of the age gap. Love brought Janneke to the ulpan. A couple years ago this pretty Dutch lady met her handsome Israeli man at a discotech in Cusco, Peru. A year later, he spent months with Janneke in Holland. The relationship grew so well that now she’s living with him in Israel learning Hebrew and looking for a job. He’s studying architecture and she has a health science degree. They don’t know where the future will take them, just that they want to go at it together.

Michael is the fellow in the picture above with Janneke. Michael is a good man. He brought a lot of good energy to the class. He’s into music and often carried Arabic spices with him. His mother immigrated to the U.S. from Belize and his father from Jamaica. He’ll be a great doctor one day.

Yakov, Kelly and Mary Jo

Yakov has the right idea on life. He truly lives for happiness (for others, then his own). Yakov’s parents immigrated to Denmark from Cypress so he speaks Danish, English and Turkish. He studies Middle Eastern history and is taking a semester abroad at The University of Haifa.

Kelly (picture above on the left) trains seeing eye puppies back home and Mary Jo (picture above on the right) has the sweetest of hearts.

Bryan and Caroline

The intensiveness of the ulpan made for strong bonding (like war buddies… but not really). Every day we sang Hebrew songs and performed skits using our developing vocabulary.

Gabby and Kelly working hard

Daily skits in Hebrew to practice new vocabulary
(the funny group: Michael and Hannah)
Musical-chairs-like vocabulary exercise

Our teacher, Sara Lee, was the best language teacher I’ve ever had. She gave the most of everyone.

Sara Lee

One night I invited everyone out to eat and have beers on this street with a small cluster of neat cafes, bars and restaurants.

Classmates and Cerveza Quilmes in Haifa

After four weeks of singing, laughing, learning and bonding, we had to say goodbye. Well, I had to say goodbye (everyone else is staying at the university for the rest of the semester, except Janneke). On the last day of class, the teacher had us paperclip paper on our backs and asked us to write messages to each other (like signing yearbooks).

Writing messages to each other on the last day of school
(like with yearbooks)Group shot on the last day of school

Just a couple days after the last day of class, I invited all my classmates to Sheer’s parents' home so that Yakov could prepare and serve us pizza from scratch. Yakov’s father owns a pizzeria in Copenhaggen and as the years pass he lets Yakov know more and more about the secrets of great pizza making.

Pizza night coincided with my brother’s first night in Israel. My brother, Keven, came to spend a week in Israel with me and Sheer. Keven arrived at about 6 AM nearly a whole day after he left Houston (after a missed connection in London) so, needless to say, he was jet lagged. We walked the streets of Haifa a little before it became very clear that he wasn’t going to be able to hold out for the entire night. In other words, he needed a nap. I’ll write all about Keven’s visit in the next blog entry.

Soon after we woke up Keven from his nap, the pizza gang arrived. I was so impressed with the pizza making. They appeared to be thoroughly trained. They came in through the door and immediately picked up tasks. Dough rolling, pepper chopping, eggplant chopping, garlic dicing and sauce stirring were accomplished with minimal direction.

Yakov and Mary Jo preparing pizza

I served beer and wine and talked with Bryan about music and kesef, while Yakov and the helpers worked continuously to keep hot pizza popping out of the oven about every ten minutes.

Sheer, Hannah and Michael

Hannah, Bryan and CarolineMe, Keven and Sheer

The pizza was dee-licious! I was very impressed. I thought that maybe Yakov’s dad owned a so-so pizza shop but boy was I wrong… this was excellent pizza!

Sheer’s dad took an immediate interest in Yakov. He asked him what’s in the sauce among many other questions. After her dad commented about how much work it takes to keep the pizza coming (Yakov didn’t have much time to visit with everyone. He was too busy), Yakov said, “It makes me happy to make people happy.” This is how Yakov lives, you can see it in his face and it is beautiful.

Thanks to Yakov, we had a great pizza night

I’ll miss all those folks but I'm glad that we had such a good goodbye.

Birthday, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem

This year I celebrated the last birthday of my twenties in Israel. It fell on a Thursday and in Israel Thursday is the beginning of the weekend and Sunday is the beginning of the work week (in other words, it’s “thank God it’s Thursday” and “it looks like someone has a case of the soon-days”). So on this special Thursday I woke up at 5:30 AM to enjoy some coffee and breakfast while studying Hebrew. When the time came, I packed my notes, pens and books in my backpack and headed out the door to catch the city bus that runs to the university. At school we had some lessons as usual then took our midterm exam. I finished up the exam and walked out of the class with a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time. I felt post-exam relief. It’s a special feeling of freedom. It felt like society expected me to refrain from studying for at least 24 hours (instead, society expected me to consume many a cold beers). So it was with this feeling and on the bus ride back home that I started thinking about what was to come for the weekend of my birthday. I thought, “I wonder what Sheer has planned for me.” I knew that Sheer had made some plans for my birthday but she kept a tight lid on the all the details (which, if you don’t know, is really difficult for her to do). I got off at my stop and walked up the hill and stairs till I arrived at the door of Sheer’s parents' apartment, as usual. This time, though, taped on the door to greet me was a picture of a bulldog with a cone-shaped hat, “Happy Birthday!” the translation said. I walked in the apartment with a smile. We had a nice lunch and good cake. As gifts, I was presented with pajamas, slippers, peanuts and a note.

New pajamas for my birthday

The jammies and slippers were great gifts (the nights get colder than I expected in Haifa!), the peanuts were worthy of kings and the note said, “You and me. One weekend in Tel Aviv. Let’s take the next train!”

So Sheer and I packed up and took the next train to Tel Aviv!

In Tel Aviv we were overcome as usual by our affection for the city. The relationship between beach and city is much like it is in Rio de Janeiro where you can enjoy beautiful sand and sea and within moments walk to home, work or café. The beach is part of many people’s daily routine and the people bear the celebration for what they have and make as home behind their eyes and in their step.

Partly cloudy day at Tel Aviv's beach

Pedestrian and bike friendly Tel Aviv

Cafe culture, dogs, babies... Tel Aviv

Sheer's plans for us in Tel Aviv included a two night stay at an artsy-fartsy hotel,

Artsy-fartsy hotel

dinner at a Thai restaurant (first Thai in over six months!),

I was very happy with my Thai dishSheer's soup

wine, walks, electric car test drive at Better Place,

Sheer's electric car test drive

movies and we got to see Sheer’s hipster cousin rock and subsequently roll at a dimly lit music venue.

Sheer's cousin, Gal, performing in Tel Aviv

We had a nice weekend in Tel Aviv and returned to Haifa to continue the remaining two weeks of my Hebrew classes.

During the week and on the weekends, Sheer and I (and often her parents) would explore and revisit areas in and around Haifa.

Here are some shots around Haifa.

Older Haifa buildings

The Baha'i Gardens

A couple of cats

Fish building, port and old couple walking in the park

Shameless cat

Sheer walking down Haifa's paths

Sheer and I visited Jerusalem too.

We walked the Old City of Jerusalem

Arabic spices for sale in the Old City

We hiked up Mount of Olives.

View of Jerusalem from Mount of Olives

We went to the Israel Museum which, among many other notable items, is home to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Here’s a model of the Old City at the museum.

We passed the Knesset on the way to the museum

We were lucky enough to enjoy Jerusalem's Tree Festival for Tu Bishvat too!

The Tree Festival on Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem

Tree Festival elves discussing elvish matters

Band at the Tree Festival

And of course, according to our tradition, we smoked shisha and ate popcorn at our favorite hookah bar.

This is a very beautiful country. I love its cities, hills, beaches, history and culture. I wanted to spend more time exploring but my classes kept me at bay. Soon, however, my classes would end, my brother would arrive from Texas and we'd set off on a week-long tour of Israel.