Finally an update from me! The title for this post is based on a discussion had a few weeks ago with my friend Adam about great titles for blog posts - I have taken the liberty of changing the last items in this list to apply to something relevant.
This post is mostly about my life recently in the context of the many rallies happening around me, however for the sake of the title. Did you know that this country smells? Sometimes it smells good, like the bushes of rosemary growing all over the place, but often it just smells plain bad, like the cloud of garbage I had to walk through as I passed a garbage truck this morning. It's quite funny when you're walking and suddenly the air just stinks, at this point I laugh and sigh: oh Israel.
There is also a lot of joy here, and hopefully the joyous things will surface throughout this post as opposed to me singling them out in a tiny paragraph.
Now that that's clear on to the happenings of the past 2 weeks since I posted something of substance. A running joke here is that you will always be told that you've come to Jerusalem at a very interesting time. Well, I HAVE come to Jerusalem at a very interesting time. In the past 2 weeks I have seen the Jerusalem Pride Parade, multiple tent cities sprout in the middle of the city, and 2 HUGE demonstrations.
As school has become a regular part of my schedule, I have become very busy with homework and reading. We take three courses over the summer - Hebrew, Biblical History, and Cantilation - I also have my Education Seminar, which runs through the entire year. I will probably discuss these classes in future blogs, but all you need to know right now is that they are all interesting and I am enjoying attending them and adjusting back to a studious routine. However, it is definitely difficult.
Amidst all this work, there has been some time for fun along with exciting happenings in the area. Last weekend my friend Shayna came to stay with me for four nights before returning back to Toronto. On the day Shayna arrived, I walked out my front door to find rainbow flags lining the street lamps as far as I could see. Apparently my street is a great parade route. By 5pm my street was closed to traffic and Shayna and I stepped outside to watch the Pride Parade. This parade was nothing like what you might expect, there is a parade in Tel Aviv that is more like that of Toronto's, but this was something unique and very special. Jerusalem is a holy city and, as such, there are a lot of feelings with regards to respect of the population and the place. This was more of a march than a parade. It was joyous and colourful and carried a message. Naturally there were religious protestors, with disgusting signs of opposition, but they were kept a safe distance away and out of sight. It was really cool to stand in the middle of Jerusalem and watch an event like this, that could not take place in any other country of this region, go past.
In Hebrew class, we've been reading a lot of news about the protests revolving around the fight for affordable housing. As we're reading about this, literally 5 minutes away a tent city is being built. In many locations around this city and the country as a whole there are now tent cities filled with people who want the government to provide more affordable housing. The cost of rent and ownership in the cities is far more than what a student can afford and this is leading to major problems. The tent cities expanded to nightly protests - marches to the PM's house that I could hear from the window as I cooked dinner and grew in to full blown rallies. This past Saturday and last Saturday there have been huge demonstrations in the major cities, this week drawing crowds of 350,000 people - the biggest demonstrations Israel has ever seen. In Jerusalem, they start at Kikar Soos at the top of Ben Yehuda, and where do they go? To Kikar Sarfat and Azza St., less than 2 minutes away from my apartment. It's been fascinating to discover just how amazing my location is, I'm just around the corner from Bibi (Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and thus in a very exciting place.
I'm definitely enjoying seeking out more information about these events as they unfold around me, I encourage all of you to search for and read articles about it too. So often we spend time focussing on the peace process and defending Israel, we rarely look at what else is affecting this country and discuss our opinions about domestic issues. What do you think the Israeli Government should do?
I'll try to get back in the routine of updating more regularly, I apologize for leaving you waiting so long, I hope it was worth it.
Lylah Tov!
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