Returning, Bethlehem, England vs. Israel

Constant emails pouring into my inbox have been asking me to resume the blog. So my apologies to those who use my blog as a welcome 10 minute relief once a week from the horrors and pains of day to day office life.

I've been busy, or super busy as they say in the Panama. I've been all over the country and tomorrow am off for a week to Egypt, to see the pyramids and hopefully climb Mt. Sinai. I'll be sure to bring back little imitation tablets that say "Moses climbed Mt. Sinai and all I got were these stupid little tablets."

Some of my travels have taken me to Bethlehem. 6 miles and an entire world away from where I live now in Jerusalem. Bethlehem is one of the major cities in the West Bank and is one that has, for a plethora of reasons, really suffered since the outbreak of the second intifada. It's now shut off from Jerusalem by a rather massive and truly ugly separation wall which depending on your view either shuts off Palestinians from their livelihood and prevents a steady flow of tourism (Jesus was believed to be born in Bethlehem) or protects Israel from suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism. To be honest, it probably does both.

The trip to Bethlehem was called encounter and attempted to provide my group with a better sense of life on the other side of the separation wall, we had a few tours, met with some speakers (including the former mayor of Bethlehem) and had some small group dialogue with students and other young people from Bethlehem. It was a very powerful trip, probably didn't change my ever changing views so much, but I'm quite glad that I went and it was remarkable to get to such an important city which is so close. Unfortunately, after coming back from Bethlehem it's hard to be optimistic that a peaceful end to this conflict is on the horizon.

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Also headed out to a rather big big soccer match. England vs. Israel in a qualifier game for Euro 2008 - probably the second biggest soccer tournament in the world. The game itself was rather sloppy and not all too exciting, it finished 0-0, but the atmosphere was spectacular and it's fun to have seen some of the best soccer players in the world on the England team. England looked very rusty and couldn't really figure out how to play together and Israel seemed content to play defense and settle for a tie. The highlight was spending the afternoon on the beaches of Tel Raviv hanging with the loyal England faithful that traveled to Tel Aviv for a game. Israel has never seen so much beer consumed in a single evening. I went with a couple friends from HUC -- i've attached a few photos. I have some more photos and anecdotes from the game but thought that you would probably enjoy these mores. Two of the people on the left are in my class, can you guess which one isn't?


All else is well, Passover is going very nice and it's great to be on a vacation, I promise you it is well deserved and popular to contrary i'm not on "vacation from vacation", even though I guess I could see how one would think that. I spent a couple of days in the north, hiking around and am now back in Jerusalem. I'll try and post a photo of me sitting on top of one of the pyramids.