Pre-Spain Shabbat

This was a really quiet Shabbat. Most people in the village were away or at home so Boaz and I made our own dinner. Shoko took me on a few walks in Dimona. I don't usually take him on walks because he is outside most of the time anyway, but I think I'm going to start doing it more often. It very relaxing and gives me time to think. When we got back from the first walk, I grabbed a book and took a seat outside, looking off into the darkness of the desert. Shoko sat next to me for a little while and then went off to try and catch the moths flying around the lamps.

Today I slept pretty late (finally caught up from all the allnighters I've been pulling). Most of the day I was reading, either inside or outside.

At one point, I was in my room and Shoko started barking like crazy in the living room. He saw 3 Bedouin on horseback coming into the village.

So I put down Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," and went outside to say hi.

"Shalom Aleichem," they said.

"Wa'Aleykum Salaam." I responded.

They said they were friend with Udi, one of the managers of the village. He wasn't around, so I gave them some water and we spoke for a little bit. Then they watered their horses and rode off. I love living here.

Now I'm just trying to get everything in order before I head to Spain. We're taking a bus up to the airport from Be'er Sheva at 1:30 am and there a just a few things I'm trying to take care of before I go. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures, so next post will have more of me and less of Shoko.

Done!

After weeks of translation and furious writing, I have finally finished and submitted my last paper of the semester! That means I am just a few short months away from my degree and can now actually enjoy my week off before classes start up again.

This should be a pretty quiet Shabbat. Not so many people are staying in the village this weekend so Boaz and I are making dinner ourselves. I thought about going to Be'er Sheva, but I wanted to spend the day with Shoko before I left for Spain, which I'm doing at 1:30 am on Saturday night! I'm very excited. I'm busy warming up my video camera!

Other than that there isn't so much to tell. I doubt I'll be able to blog next week, but we'll see. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Shoko and his buddy Ganja the cat.

Arabic Down, Benny to Go

This Shabbat wasn't the most relaxing. A few people stayed in the village and we had a really nice communal dinner. That night, I took Shoko out for a long walk in the city. But Saturday, after lunch, it was all business. Orr and I sat down to go over more Arabic in a bid to prepare ourselves for the final.

I woke up early and took the bus to campus to get some more studying in before the test. In the end, it wasn't too bad. I'm just glad it's over now.

It has been taking me a little longer than I thought it would to translate my documents from the archives, so I was able to get an extension on my paper for Benny Morris' class. So that means that the next few days are going to be a little crazy, with sleepless nights spent around the computer, hugging a dictionary, trying to figure out if I'm getting the right translation or if what they're saying is code (for the record "bird" is not a good code name for airplane! I thought the Haganah was smarter than that. Although, from what I've been reading, the Palestinians barely had the capabilities to defend themselves, let alone intercept communications.)

Back to work. Here's some pictures of my study buddy:

The End Is Near

This hasn't been the most fun week. I've spent it mostly studying Arabic and working on my paper for Benny Morris.

Today, I woke up early to go to campus to return some books to the library and fix a problem with my Arabic class. With both of those taken care of I then grabbed a bus back home and passed out since I barely got any sleep last night or the night before. When I woke up, I took care of some work for the conference I'm organizing for this summer. Keeping straight the information of over 50 different academics is not as easy as one might think.

Then it was off to Arabic. Orr and I are in the same class so we've been studying together. The class focuses on translation so we work with short stories and some articles from al-Jazeera. It's pretty cool, but tough. Very different from an Arabic class in the States. Also, since we're studying in Hebrew, I'm not just learning new words in Arabic.

We went over the longest story today. It's called "Muhammad and the Spider." In the story, Muhammad and Abu Bakr are fleeing from the Meccan pagans who are trying to kill them. The two hide in a cave but are worried they will be found. But when the Meccans come, they see the opening of the cave is covered in spiderwebs. They knew they were close behind Muhammad and Abu Bakr so there wasn't enough time for the spiders to weave webs over the entrance to the cave. They give up and look elsewhere; they are saved by this miracle.

Cool story. But I can't help but thinking it sounds incredibly like the story of King David when he was fleeing from Saul. He also hid in a cave whose entrance was subsequently covered in spiderwebs, which saved him. This of course doesn't mean that it didn't happen to Muhammad as well, if anything it shows the strong parallels between the histories of Judaism and Islam.

While we were studying, all of a sudden, Hannah walked in. Apparently the new group of Overseas Students were taking their tour of the Negev and stopped by the village to check it out, like we did last summer. Na'ama was giving them the tour and I tagged along and translated for her. But then it was back to studying.

I've been trying to teach Shoko to lay down this week. He's getting the hang of it. Now I just need him to learn to do it when I say it and not just from the hand signals.

The other night, someone brought their dog to the village and Shoko brought him home for a while. It was going great until the other dog started to eat some of Shoko's food. Shoko wasn't happy when I put the other dog outside so we could go to bed.



Shoko always does this when playing with other dogs. It's like he's peaking over them.



These two are of Shoko trying to steal the spotlight and keep the other dog out of the picture.





Shoko got distracted by food, but still managed to keep his tail in the picture.

Shabbat with Ari and My Night with the Basij

Ari finished staffing his birthright trip on Thursday but extended his trip a few days so we could hang out. On Friday, while I was busy working on my paper on the Basij, Ari made his way down to Dimona from Jerusalem. Of course, he had to come during the rainy season, so it was pouring when he got here, which made running errands oh so much more fun. Long post today, but there are pictures of Shoko at the bottom so stay with me!

Or and Yifat invited us over for lunch. They picked Ari's brain a little but, Or showed us some pictures of her from the army and then it was time for me to get back to work. I kept working on my paper and Ari played on the Internet and helped cook food for dinner. But while I was working, the electricity in the village kept going out! I wanted to kill someone. Boaz said that even though the village was approved and even designed by the government 5 years ago, our electricity hook up is not permanent. Doesn't make much sense to me, but hey, I don't live in the Middle East. I'm just passing through. Far be it from me to judge their dysfunctional governments. I mean sure its a region filled with unaccountable dictatorships and Israel is the one democracy that happens to have a government that is completely unaccountable to its citizens due to a ludicrous parliamentary system that hasn't work in years, but I guess no place is perfect right? Who need accountable governments or permanent electricity when the Arabs can blame all the problems on Israel and Israelis are too distracted by reality TV to notice that their government is completely out of control. But I digress.

Of course Shabbat started before I got as far as I would like with my paper, but there wasn't much I could do about that. We got dressed for Shul and I took Ari on a tour around Dimona. Not on purpose, but I was so used to walking to the high school that we got halfway there before I realized we were going the wrong way. So we wandered around for a little while before we finally got to shul. Afterwards we came back to the village for dinner. We ate at Racheli's with Inbar, Stav, her boyfriend, Rotem, her friend Estar (not Esther) and Omer. It was a lot of fun and I think Ari enjoyed himself.

After dinner, Ari can I ran back to my place where we huddled for warmth in my room next to my heater. Contrary to popular belief, it does get cold in the desert. Very, very cold at times. Did I mention that it hailed here on Thursday? That's right, hail. At least we only had to deal with rain and the cold on Shabbat. I forced Ari to stay up for a while to tell me all about what's going on back home but he passed out pretty quickly. Poor little guy was run ragged by his birthrighters.

The next day we woke up and went back to Racheli's for lunch. We then took Shoko on a walk in the desert. But Shoko thought it would be more fun to run off and play with some Bedouin sheep-dogs. So I had to run after him because he would have followed them all the way back to their village. I finally caught up with him. The dog's belong to a Bedouin boy named Sahar who was grazing his sheep with his little brother who was too shy to tell me his name. He wasn't too impressed by my Arabic. But he did seem to think it was funny when I asked if he named his sheep. Sahar then asked if he could keep Shoko and that was my cue to go. I said goodbye, picked Shoko up and we made our way back.

We finally got back to the village and Ari and I sat down and took in the scenery. The clouds had completely cleared up by then and we could see all the way to Jordan. Not a bad way to end the day.

Unfortunately for me, that wasn't where my day was going to end. After Shabbat, Ari and I cleaned the caravan since it got incredibly muddy from all the rain and Shoko. We made some dinner and then I got to work, while Ari perused the Internet. After a little while, he had to get going and start his trek up to Ben-Gurion Airport. It was too bad he came for the Shabbat when my papers were due, but we still had a good time and got to talk a lot.

Then I was left alone with my paper on the development of the Basij. It's interesting, I had never thought about the democratic nature of Iran before. The Iranians really got screwed over by history. After years of direct imperial intervention, they got a few decades of indirect imperial intervention through the Shah. They then rose up against him and created a democratic system. But then the most radical revolutionaries took over and pushed through a constitution with three very important aspects: 1. A Supreme Leader who can overrule the President. 2. The Council of Guardians that can veto not just legislation, but even elected officials. 3. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which deals with popular threats to the revolution. So even though they elect the President, if he wants to do something, lets say grant more freedom of the press, the Supreme Leader can say "no" and it doesn't happen. If the Majlis tries to pass a law that is perceived to threaten the status quo, the Council of Guardian (who of course are unelected) can veto that legislation. They actually also vet the candidates who are able to be elected, so even if a true reformer is able to sneak through their vetting process, the Council can make sure they aren't able to get anything done. Then there is the Basij who are run by the IRGC who now tackle domestic security threats (read: democratic-minded Iranian citizens). So when thousands of people came out into the streets last summer to protest the fact that Ahmadinejad stole the election, the Basij were the ones dispatched to crush them.

But during the Iran-Iraq War the Basij were mainly a source of cannon-fodder for the Iranian military. The recruited people who, by and large, were too young, too old or too illiterate for the standard army, gave them a plastic key that they were told would open the "gates of paradise" and then sent on suicidal missions, like running through minefields or running directly at the Iraqi frontlines, often without weapons. But they were effective, even if they did have a very high casualty rate. But after the war, the government saw that there was little threatening the country from the outside, and recognized that the greatest threat to its power was from Iranian citizens. Since the Basij were trained in an ideology that made them extremely devoted to the revolution, they were the perfect people to call on to protect it.

After writing all night, I was finally able to finish my paper and send it in! I also sent in my historiography final! Now I just need to study for my Arabic final next Sunday and finish my paper for Benny Morris and I'm halfway done!

Staying up all night to finish a paper isn't so fun, but it was pretty cool that this was what I saw when I let Shoko out in the morning:



As promised, here are some more pictures of the puppy:

Work Work Work

Yesterday I got up early and went to campus to do some work in the library. When I got there I ran into my friend Yoni. We studied together for a while and I looked over a bunch of books. After a few hours, we headed over to Maura's to go over Historiography. I had most of it done already, I figured it couldn't hurt to be thorough.

Andrea and Yishai were there also. Andrea brought cookies. Yum! When we were done, Andrea, Yoni and I went out for lunch. We went to this great Shwarma place nearby. But then it was time to head home.

By then it was pouring rain. I then did some one-on-one English tutoring with one of the kids from the local high school. It went pretty well and honestly the thing he needs most is just practice. Hopefully he'll take my advice and do some work at home, unlike my other students.

Today has been a fun work day so far. Oy. It finally stopped raining, so I'm getting some natural sunlight, which is nice. But that of course is after the massive hail storm we had this morning. Poor Shoko was outside when it started and was too afraid to make a run for it back to the caravan. He must have been under a porch. As soon as it let up, he bolted for home, I opened the door, he ran inside and slid right into the wall. What a good puppy.

Tuesday

I forgot to mention the cabbie from yesterday. The cabbie who drove me to see Ari was very interested when I told him I was studying the Middle East. When I asked him his thoughts about the situation he said, "They're [the Palestinians] retarded and us, we're even more retarded." His words not mine. "The problem is, they want more land. Gaza is like a closed pot. They're just fighting us for some land. But the thing is, if we give them more land, they will want even more. It's like if they ask for part of your finger; you give them the tip and they want the whole thing. We need to give them more land without them asking for even more. But that can't happen so we're all screwed." Taxi drivers can be pretty insightful.

Today I pretty much finished my Historiography final. I should go over it again and add some more to the last question, but it's pretty much done. So that feels good.

After I finished that, I went over to the Ayalim urban village to help out with a Tu BiShvat program they were doing for some local kids. We planted some flowers and tea and some kids put on a play of "The Giving Tree." An interesting part of the scenery that probably isn't part of most neighborhood hangouts was the Beit Midrash in a Bomb-Shelter. But of course that didn't phase any of the kids, they climbed on top of it and played soccer right next to it, as though that is something that is supposed to be normal.

This posting was my break from work. Time to get back to it!

Ari and Archives

Ari's Birthright group was in the Negev today and they had a rest stop in Dimona. Well, not really in Dimona, but at the rest stop on the highway right in front of Dimona. That's the closest most people get to the city. Anyway, I took a cab over and got to hang out with him and his group for a while. It was great to see him. He caught me up on the goings on back in New York and we were able to trade some stories. We'll be able to talk more this Shabbat when he comes to my village. Apparently, Ari's co-leader is from Fair Lawn and lived in the Ayalim Dimona's urban section that is in the city. Small world.

Last night, my documents from the IDF archive finally arrived, so today I was able to do some serious work. It was funny because Kobi - one of the guys in charge of the village - came to my caravan with the package and was like "Matt, you got something from the Ministry of Defense. What did you do?!" I had read over most of the documents while I was at the archives but now I'm really able to go through and translate them and sift out the less important stuff. Now I can focus in more on the specific villages that were effected by the operation and see what really happened, or at least what the official IDF documents said happened.

I just translated an aerial recon. message of several villages along the Tel-Aviv Jerusalem road. It was basic stuff (no movement in this village, armored cars in this one...) but it's still pretty exciting. I'm assuming that will tapper off the longer I work at this. But I keep on coming across little bits of information and being like "that's so cool!" Go Nerds!

**Update: I have come to a line that I am clearly not translating properly. How do I know that you ask? Well, roadblocks aren't made of fruit, nor are they domesticated. At least I don't think they are.