Good To Be In Woods Hole

My kids just left the house with Alen at 4 am to fly to Woods Hole for a month.  This trip was planned since last summer and though I am going to miss them a great deal until I join them in two weeks, I could not be happier that they are going.

Growing up I had two anchors:  Judaism and Woods Hole.  I had the enormous privilege to spend every summer in Woods Hole, and it really was almost like another, non-competing, religion.

The values of Woods Hole began with reverence for Nature.  Louis Agassiz said, "Study Nature, not Books," and that was the motto of the Children's School of Science where we learned each summer.  During the day time the town is criss crossed by groups of kids with buckets, nets, and sometimes cameras, learning from the sea, earth and sky.  Seashore Life, Marine Biology, Oceanographic Electronics, Invertebrate Zoology, Advanced Marine Biology were some of the courses I took.  I'm grateful I had a great biology education before I met my sexist high school biology teacher Mr. DeMarco (maybe I'll write about him one day).  If you know Alen and her work you can understand how deeply I "get" what she does from this amazing aspect of our Woods Hole education.

Woods Hole, of course, is home to adults who study science as well, but my experience was from a child's perspective.  Adults worked in labs, attended lectures, spoke on the beach about their research.  Kids went to science school.

Though there was no synagogue in Woods Hole, there was a "rabbi", Phyllis Goldstein.  She was my childhood hero and even as an adult I held her in awe.  The religion she taught was democracy and human rights, reverence for all cultures and for history, and of course the joy and value of music.  She taught it through folksinging every Tuesday night, each summer for forty years.  She was a living role model who had lived through tragic loss and risen.  She was incredibly charismatic - at times stern (to keep kids quiet) and almost always smiling and laughing.  She seemed like a walking encyclopedia of history and music.  She taught us about the evils of slavery, the music that accompanied the fight for freedom, the labor movement, the history of whaling and New England, songs from Africa and elsewhere around the world, languages and more.  We used to sing "Everybody Loves Saturday Night" in about 20 languages.  The message of her songs was that all people have value, all people have songs and stories, all people can care for and about one another.  It's a message that never grows old.

(I wrote more about Phyllis here when she passed away in 2011.)

So now a terrible war is on, and my kids are getting on a plane.  I smiled and hugged them and reminded them that although they are leaving, they are going to be "mini-me".  With tears in my eyes I remember how we traveled to Woods Hole in 2002.  We had made aliyah during the intifada, and for 20 months had not returned home.  We went back to the US at the end of a year we had spent in Jerusalem when 200 people were killed in terror attacks in Jerusalem and the death toll from the intifada on all sides climbed over 2000.  I remember seeing Phyllis and talking to her, and I remember the look in her eyes when I told her I was living in Israel.  It was a look of incredible compassion, and a moment in which I understood that she felt the pain of what I was living through and she believed in me to continue to stand up for the values she had taught me, even when their realization seems hidden.

Jeremy Korr continues to sing Phyllis's songs in Woods Hole with a new generation of children.  And my kids (who met Phyllis when they were young) are going to sing and to feel the earth, ocean and sky.  And just maybe, they too will find their an anchor.

Who am I in this war?

I wrote this to some colleagues and family and I was asked to share it here.

I was asked to keep writing, both by colleagues and by people outside, so I am trying.  The longer this goes on, the scarier things get, the less sure I am of what to say. 

More than 80 students have just completed the first summer session at the Conservative Yeshiva.  About 50 are leaving now, while another 80 are due to arrive to join us for a bigger second session.  I am working to quickly regain the skills I used in 2001-2003 to support (and recruit) students in Israel during very difficult times.  I am incredibly grateful for my partner and for the wonderful team of people I work with.

Yesterday at our closing program, I gave a dvar Torah along these lines:  These have been very difficult weeks.  During these weeks, I and our whole program have focused on Torah, Avodah (prayer) and Gemilut Hasadim (deeds of kindness).  These are the foundations of our tradition and can always be counted on. 

Our students have been volunteering around Jerusalem, many working with and tutoring children in a mixture of programs at Kol HaNeshama, YMCA, the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and Merkaz Klass.  They have been working at a community garden and a wonderful group have been going with me each week to the Idan Hazahav nursing home (where RRC grad Alex Lazarus first introduced me 13 years ago).  Yesterday, the atmosphere of heaviness was palpable on both floors we visited.  We talked and sang, gave and gained strength.  Shortly after we left, a siren went off. 

Last week we sent 25 students to Tel Aviv for a program with Bina to learn about asylum seekers in Israel.  This week, more than 45 people attended a program with Ronit Sela, the East Jerusalem director for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.  More than 20 of our students have been learning a new Torah of Human Rights curriculum with Dr. Shaiya Rothberg.  Our center is currently collecting supplies for soldiers and for people in the south.

On the Avodah front, we have been holding a vibrant daily minyan.  As part of mincha, we include special memorial days of study and this week we gained strength hearing about a wonderful “rebbetzin of the old school”, a couple, parents of a colleague, who owed their longevity to either junk food or procrastination (or both), and the burning of the Gogol Street synagogue in Riga, Latvia, on 9 Tammuz 1941, a memorial donated by a man whose family came from Latvia to the US in the late 1800s who wanted to memorialize this community.

I got up on Wednesday after the sirens here and could not remember how to start my day.  My son reminded me to start my day with Tehilim (Psalms).

I ended my remarks by speaking about 1 Chronicles 10-15.  I am more and more holding the idea that the land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.  We don’t know what we are doing here.  I came here because I wanted to be part of the experiment when the Jewish people came back to their ancestral land.  Now that I am here, I am just one of all the people who belong to this land. 

“David blessed the Lord in front of all the assemblage.  David said, “Blessed are You, Lord, G-d of Israel our father, from eternity to eternity.  Yours, Lord, are greatness, might, splendor, triumph, and majesty – yes, all that is in heaven and earth, to You, Lord, belong kingship and preeminence above all.  Riches and honor are in Your hand, You have dominion over all, with You are strength and might, and it is in Your power to make anyone great and strong.  Now, God, we praise You and extol Your glorious name.  Who am I and who are my people, that we should have the means to make such a freewill offering, but all is from You, and it is Your gift that we have given to you.  For we are sojourners with You, mere transients like our fathers, our days on earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.”

This last line, which ends on a stark note, is the one I have been carrying with me the past few years.  I heard last week (and may have written here) that hope is a beggar.  Hope can help you walk through things.  But faith can help you jump over them.  So I am digging deep for faith today. 

My facebook feed is full of the words of politicians, and many of us are searching for the right political interpretation of these devastating events, but I don’t have a job in politics.  My job is (still) to be a mom and partner, to recruit students to come to Israel and support them while they are here, including raising funds for their scholarships, and to teach Torah and be a religious leader.  I am praying for the strength to do that job in these times.

Geography of present and past

I still don’t completely understand the geography of the murder of 3 boys who were hitchhiking and killed, but I spent a good deal of time with google maps today.  As far as I can tell, from what I read in the Times of Israel, the boys were hoping to head down route 367, out of Gush Etzion and down to Aviezer, reaching route 375 and heading through Beit Shemesh to the center of the country.

I drove down route 367 once.  It’s a long, winding road.  It was daytime.  I was coming from the funeral of Avraham David Moses in 2008 after he and 7 other boys were shot at the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva.  I did not feel safe on this long winding road, passing by few towns, mostly all Arab towns, and finally a checkpoint, and then Neve Michael and Aviezer.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the familiar route 375 and headed home, and I promised myself if I travelled to the Gush again I would go up route 60 and the main road to Alon Shvut, through the more travelled area at the top of the hills.

Near Aviezer, at the base of route 367, is Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed Hey.  The village was established on 16 August 1949 by demobilised members of the Daled Company of the Palmach's Harel Brigade, and was initially named Peled (an acronym for Plugot Daled, lit. Daled Company). It was later renamed after the 35 Haganah soldiers killed in a convoy to resupply the Gush Etzion kibbutzim during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (Lamed-Heh is 35 in Hebrew numerals).

We drive near here often to go to the pool at Beit Guvrin.  We go down route 375 to Tzomet HaEla (corner of routes 375 and 38) and down route 38 to route 35.  But if you head east on route 35 from Beit Guvrin, you’ll be in the West Bank in about 2 kilometers, and you’ll pass Tarkumiya.  That was the home of the men who killed Christine Logan when she was hiking with a friend in the woods near our house in 2010.  Near Beit Guvrin, the road (Route 35) heads into the hills west of Hebron. 

Further north, route 375 heads up to Tzur Hadassah where I live, past the Hanot mosaic (Roman, now destroyed by vandals).  The path from the mosaic (thought to be a Roman roadside shop), heads down to Mayan Mata, and the ruins of an Arab town, I believe called Hanot.  That town was probably abandoned/evacuated/destroyed in October 1948 when most of the Arab towns in this area were attacked/cleared/vacated.  On the path going down is where Christine was murdered.  Before you head up the hills of route 375 coming from Emek HaEla, you can also see Roman pillars, collapsed, on the right side of the road. 

Somewhere between routes 375 and route 35 is where the boys bodies were found yesterday.  From what I saw in pictures, it seemed it was a hilly area, but maybe towards the lower end of the hills.  One article said it was terraces.  If you look on the map, you’ll see between routes 375 and 35 a pretty big and hilly area, and route 367 cuts diagonally through it heading northwest.  The Green Line cuts pretty sharply West here, meaning that the wide area inside the Green Line near 375 (we live at the northeast edge of it), narrows to a much smaller western area within the green line as you go south.  I don’t know what happened here in 1948-49, or to what extent the Green Line is following the contour of the hills.  I do know there aren’t really any Jewish settlements on route 35 between Beit Guvrin and Kiryat Arba (next to Hevron).   But south of route 35, I had not realized, is Tapuah, a settlement known for radical views and Kahanist politics.

Karmei Tzur is also in this area, but pretty far East near Route 60 and closer to Hebron/Kiryat Arba.  It’s important historically because it’s on the site of Beit Tzur, which figures heavily in 1 Maccabees as a southern entry point to the area of Judea.

Looking at the map now, it’s striking to me how this southern West Bank area is isolated from other areas – for both Arab and Jewish populations.  This southwest corner looks both empty and cut off.  For the Arab population, it is at quite a distance from Jerusalem and Beit Lehem, and farther still from Ramallah and Jenin in the northern West Bank.  There would geographically be connections from here to the low lands, the Ekron plain and the places ruled by Philistines in the past along the lowlands and the coast, all the way to Gaza.  Trade routes of Nabateans cut across this far north I think.  Idumeans were pushed out of the south-eastern areas and made their capital Maresha, near Beit Guvrin, in the second Temple period.  Earlier, in the time of the prophet Micah, Assyrians came down the coast, attacked these same areas, and pushed eastwards toward Hebron, across but maybe just across what is now the Green Line.  At the same time, the hill culture will have been different from the coastal culture.  (See the Geopolitics of Israel, Stratfor.)

One last geographic point – Rav Steinsaltz recommended we read Psalm 142, which is linked by tradition to David’s flight from Saul into the caves of Adulam.  These also fall in this region.  The Adulam caves park is found just east of route 38, near Nehusha, within the Green Line, north of route 35 and south of route 375.

May the memories of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach be blessed and their souls elevated, and may we all take time to learn more about the geography and history of the lands in which they lived and died.