Hazel's final thoughts

I got lots of sugar on this trip, lucky me. I wonder if I have a sweet tooth? Munch, munch, munch.

I liked Israel. Things weren’t crowded. There was one thing crowded – the shuk. It was interesting there, there was nothing usual. There were lots of bracelets, earrings, mostly things for women, hardly anything for men. It was noisy there. Lots of people yelling, talking, bargaining. I could hear water, carts running, foot stomping. Saw little women in the shuk selling grape leaves.

The best parts of the trip was going to the fair, eating the ice cream there, getting new soccer shoes with the number 7 on them, the tunnel with the water in it. I was kind of scared of that – it had one really deep part and dark, which Elazar carried me through. Aya and Elazar were nice – and they gave me these star-rainbow earrings. It was nice to have family there.
They had an accent – most of them.

We went to this archeological dig. And we found part of a cup and a plate. I think they purposely put them there for us to find.

There were a lot of people who had things on their heads. I think they were Arab women. There were a lot of Jews, but I couldn’t tell the Jewish women. Mostly the people didn’t have headdresses on them, so I couldn’t tell if they were Jews or Christians. Mostly there were Muslim and Jewish men.

It was really hot, that’s why I wanted to go the pool like every minute of the day. But then it was really annoying that they closed it because of the bar mitzvahs, weddings, and any old party. We do not recommend that hotel – Mt. Zion [mom disagrees]. At the pool in our hotel, I kept trying to stand on this rope. And Julie kept trying to take pictures of me, but she kept getting pictures of my feet, because I would stand up and keep falling down.

And we saw these lions everywhere. Lions are the symbol of Jerusalem. And we went to the City Hall and I drew pictures of the 12 tribes of Israel.

I wanted to go to the big dome of the rock. I didn’t get to go to Palestine. If I only said Israel, it wouldn't be fair because it's their land too. They own part of it.

I went to a lot of grown up parties and our Rabbi was at them mostly. And we also went to Mohamad and Jumana’s family. We went to see the camels and I thought they were going to spit at me.

It felt good to be coming back. I couldn’t even remember what our house looked like and I wanted to come back. I didn’t like the security people – they were everywhere, absolutely everywhere.

Concluding Thoughts

We leave Israel today with what seems like a cease-fire going into effect tomorrow. I pray that it lasts and that Israel can find a way to both achieve peace and regain some moral high ground some time soon, since it loses more and more of it on so many fronts, hurting us all. Most people on all sides want peace and are willing to share the land. I have no idea what it will take to achieve that in any lasting way and am not leaving with any less confusion about a true solution to it all, although I still believe in a single, secular state, however unrealistic that may be.

But there are a few things that I have greater clarity and/or commitment to, upon departure from this trip and they are:
1. The continuing settlements on the other side of the green line must be stopped and almost all of the existing ones must be dismantled as soon as possible. Where they have or will negotiate certain settlements to stay as part of Israel because of historic or whatever reasons, then fine, but the vast majority need to go. It is stolen land—clear and simple. From the US, we need to campaign against the money that feeds the settlement projects from here.
2. The wall is not a “security barrier”-- it grows hatred because it unjustifiably restricts human movement and hurts the families, education, and health of an entire people. The route of the wall is clearly about unilaterally annexing even more Palestinian land and trying to make it part of Israel. We need to support the groups in Israel who are fighting against the wall on the legal and popular levels.
3. Residents of East Jerusalem must be allowed to legally build homes for their families. Home demolitions must stop. The groups on the ground that are working against the demolitions, working to include East Jerusalem in the planning process for the city, and re-building homes need to be supported.
4. As Jews, we must have the courage to speak out against the injustices done by the State of Israel and work to make that country one we can be proud of. As US citizens, we need to force our government to get out of the way of peacemaking in the region. Particularly progressive Jews need to not abandon the issue because it’s so uncomfortable and complicated; we need to not look for purist positions and handle the contradictions of our positions; and we need to find ways within our Jewish communities to stay engaged. The right has become the mainstream Jewish voice and it’s our responsibility to be part of a different voice.
5. The mainstream Jewish community needs to become more tolerant of criticism of Israel so as to not continue to alienate and marginalize those of us on the left who care about Israel too.
6. Our children need to learn about each others cultures and have more opportunities to mix with Jewish and Arab families together and become friends. Unlearning hate needs to be a top agenda item for elementary school kids.

The activists from the left who I met with are increasingly less confident in the viability of a two-state solution, as the settlements and anger grows. There aren’t a lot of alternative options put forward, except perhaps the “two-stage” solution that gives Palestine whatever land they can get, and then create a confederation of states idea that includes Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and perhaps even Syria and Lebanon, however far-fetched that might seem right now.

With all of it’s problems, and while wishing for a secular state, I must admit that it feels like a good thing for there to be some place in the world where Jews aren’t a tiny minority. Whether that’s tribalism, Zionism, or just wanting to feel a sense of bigger belonging, it’s a deep feeling. I just wish that the Jewish norm would act consistently justly, and make room for the others for whom it is also a homeland.

It’s funny to look back on the agonizing decision to go or not to go. I learned a lot just by people’s reactions to it. There were certainly safety concerns and a general befuddlement about going to what was considered a war zone and especially with a kid. But I really appreciated those who politically understood and supported our going. Yes, it was a great act of entitlement to know that Jerusalem would be safe for us, while so many others were not safe, particularly in Lebanon. And there were many who thought it was just ridiculous to be looking at gay rights at a time like this. Certainly looking only at gay rights would have been wrong now or any time. There were those who felt so opposed to the war, that they could not understand going there now in what would seem like support for the Israeli government. But I’m glad that we went, and would have gladly stayed longer, if I didn’t miss the rest of my family so much. I don’t know if it was the “right” thing, but it certainly wasn’t wrong. People genuinely appreciated our being there, and not just the gay activists, but the leftists, Palestinians, and Arab-Israelis too. It was a hard time in society there—for all. It was a meaningful time. And in the end, I think it was a great introduction for Hazel. It was a great bonding time for Micky and Hazel and was a very sweet introduction of Hazel for him to his family. And it was certainly a huge support to the gay activists who I had made a commitment to. I look forward to returning soon.

I look forward to Jerusalem Open House being able to get beyond the Worldpride phase of their work (even though they still have a postponed march to hold now that there is a ceasefire), and in particular move forward with the expanded Palestinian program and ease into the new leadership of Noa and new board members. The gay community is vibrant there (and those drag kings are hot!), but it is the seat of religious intolerance that will need to be challenged for a long time forward. One activist suggested that perhaps the ultra-orthodox have latched onto fighting against gays now because they have more or less lost the settlers movement (which didn’t appear to be the case yet) and want to at least control what they can inside of a smaller Israel. I’m not sure about that, but I certainly see the connection between these issue, and hope that others can too.

Ir Amim

Thursday, August 10
Started the day with the synagogue groups’ Ir Amim tour with Amos Gil, which tries to create a "dignified divorce" between Israel and Palestine. It was an East Jerusalem/separation wall study tour, with an excellent little map that really tells the story all by itself. We started in the south and moved north, although had to cut the tour a bit short because of time. Amos did a very good job helping people get the context for the information and they try as an organization to stick to the facts and not get too political. Although they are clearly on the left, it’s a lot tamer message. But truthfully, it isn’t inconsistent with any of the information from the other groups we’ve met with. They have specific criteria for whether there is good enough rationale for the wall and so are for it in some places and against it in others.

The tour began up near Gilo, where they actually think the wall is justified. (I don’t). He pointed out the olive groves that belong to Palestinians who live on the other side of the wall and now can’t come to work their own fields. And even with that, they think there is enough of a security reason for the wall to be there and the wall more or less follows previously negotiated borders. They clearly think that the wall is unjustifiable in most places around Jerusalem, and that for the most part, the green line should be adhered to. But they also point out how each little spot in Jerusalem is it’s own problem in terms of history and borders.

Olson-Dorfs in the news

From Michael Luongo's Notes from Jerusalem on PlanetOut.com:

Activists hailed from quite a few places, and they included Julie Dorf, the other co-chair. Julie Dorf brought her daughter, a gorgeous little 7-year-old named Hazel. I asked Julie if her other mom was here too, and she said, very nonchalantly, "no, but her sperm donor is." We both then started to laugh. Even in Jerusalem, it was the kind of conversation that could only happen when you get a bunch of gays and lesbians together in a room.

CheckPoint Watching in the West Bank

We joined a really wonderful activist from Machsom Watch and drove to Atara - a village north of Ramallah to observe the checkpoint there. It's the only way out of Ramallah currently if you are a Palestinian, because the other major checkpoints have become "terminals" where only Palestinians who are Jerusalem residents are allowed to pass. On the way to the checkpoint site, we drove about 40 kilometers and passed scores of settlements. It was truly sickening to see how a couple of trailers set up over night can get water and electricity set up the next day with Israeli army protection on stolen land -- not to mention the economic settlements, which are simply considered "neighborhoods" by Israelis. The ideological settlements are paid for by US Jews. The checkpoints are slightly different than I expected - it is clear that they are not checking for bombs or for real security threats, they are only monitoring and harrassing freedom on movement within the West Bank. They only look at identity cards, not inside trunks, or in bags, like they do when it is for security.

Aya, Hazel and Elazar after lunch.
Coming home from the protest.

Protest for Tolerance gets Queerupted

Not enough time to write about everything that's been going on, but tonight's demonstration ended unfortunately with the police arrests of two of the members of "Queeruption" who had some great messages about the war and the occupation, but provoked the police in a way that ended up cutting the entire demonstration short and was a really disappointing end for the Jerusalem Open House organizers, as well as very damaging for their future ability to obtain police permits.

For Belle-Belle

Palestinian Solidarity Rally at the Wall

Israel Museum With Hazel

The Israel Museum has a really wonderful youth wing, with lots of hands-on exhibitions for kids. Hazel learned how to grind wheat into flour and then make bread from different traditions. She also dug in an archeological tell and found pieces of pottery. Wish we had more time...

Rabbis For Human Rights

As part of the WorldPride Human Rights Day, we joined the Rabbis for Human Rights tour of East Jerusalem, where we studied the issue of Palestinian home demolitions. The Rabbi's group is a wonderful organization that is made up of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Rabbis who use the torah as their basis for fighting against human rights abuses here in Israel -- on both sides of the green line. They are modeled on Abraham Joshua Heschel's philosophy "Few are guilty, but all are responsible." We visited with a family whose home was destroyed, after putting 25 years of their life savings into building it.

City Hall Opening of Human Rights Day

Hazel enjoyed seeing the symbol of Jerusalem all over town and in this case riding on top of her.

Monday, August 7

We walked along the old city walls this morning from the Jaffa Gate to Herod’s Gate, coming down into the Muslim quarter where we wandered around a bit more, coming out into the Christian quarter. As we were walking through the Muslim section, we saw an orthodox couple walking through with their own armed security guard. Ellizar, who like many Israelis, is left on many issues and not on others. But he explained that it makes him really angry that the state pays for the armed guard to accompany these settlers, who are living in the Muslim quarter of the old city. I finally realized that all the apartments that had Israeli flags hanging out of them inside of the Muslim quarter were settlers. Like so many things here, it makes me want to cry. A few minutes later, when we walked out through the Jewish quarter, a young Jewish guy tried to sell me a credit card that supports the State of Israel with every purchase. When he didn’t take no for an answer, I asked him as politely as I could to go away before he hears my real answer.

This evening was the opening of the Human Rights Day of WorldPride. The event tonight was held at City Hall at the invitation of the openly-gay member of the City Council, Saar Ran Netanei, who is a member of Meretz party and was quite well-spoken. I was among a bunch of speakers there, with most of the invitees from the various foreign delegations and some locals.

Here is what I said more or less:
It’s great to be here and I thank Noa and Hagai in particular for this incredible honor of working together and learning together over these months preceding WorldPride. Israel is very lucky to have such thoughtful and courageous activists leading the LGBT movement.

….Because of my work with IGLHRC, I have been to scores of international conferences and events—LGBT, AIDS, human rights conferences. The best ones are when the local organizers have a clear political agenda. And although clarity is a hard thing to maintain in this country, I see clearly how and why the Jerusalem Open House wanted a loud, internationally supported message of tolerance to emanate from this city of Jerusalem.

We sit here in City Hall, where the mayor—elected by the people—officially calls us “provocateurs” and did everything he could last year, until the Supreme Court of the land had to shut down his homophobic actions. This year’s anti-gay activism took a different form—one that still threatens to pull off the world’s largest public anti-gay protest ever when the march is rescheduled. Not to mention the police’s denial of the permit for the WorldPride march itself, while allowing other large public events to take place this week. And this morning Noa told me that we got a police permit for the Palestinian solidarity rally at the wall (which by the way is Wednesday, morning at 8:30 leaving from liberty bell park parking lot), but we still can’t have the gay rights march yet. Is the message from the government that it is less threatening to be pro-Palestinian than to be gay?

This is certainly discrimination that needs to be fought and it is the official action that represents the religious intolerance that fills this city.

I say all of that as a longtime defender of LGBT rights internationally. But as an LGBT rights movement, we CANNOT just look at the rights of one group and focus on our single issue. Especially not now, not here during this horrible war in Lebanon that is killing innocent civilians on both sides and demolishing the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon. And not now while Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live under Israeli occupation, which continues to undermine a viable two-state solution. As activists we must internalize that LGBT human rights are not less important—not expendable until after “more important” human rights issues are resolved, but they must be understood in the local context.

For me, WorldPride was never a celebration, never a parade. It was a protest march against religious bigotry and for a tolerant Jerusalem. Tolerant for gays and straights, religious and secular, Arabs and Jews.

As this is the opening of the Human Rights Day, I hope you will all join us tomorrow for one of the five study tours and on Wednesday morning for the Palestinian solidarity rally at the separation wall. I want to thank the staff and board of Jerusalem Open House in particular for organizing this rally and for seeing Worldpride as a voice for progressive moral values, inclusion, and pluralism—and for addressing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict directly.

I hope that all of us find the inspiration this week to recommit ourselves in our own individual ways to seek justice—not only for ourselves, but also for the others around us; to look for the connections between justice movements; and to promote nonviolent solutions to our conflicts.

Thank you.

Day 3

Day 3 Sunday, August 6

Without the melatonin, I didn’t sleep quite so well. Woke up at 3, thinking I heard gunshots, but everything was quite outside. Re-awoke at 6 in order to meet Jeff Halper from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and pick up a group of 10 fellow congregants from the Sha’ar Zahav delegation for a very truncated political tour of East Jerusalem. You don’t have to go very far to see the occupation. The group from the synagogue was a mixture of people who heard a hard message from ICAHD, which is that even a two-state solution isn’t viable any longer. They promote a new concept of a European Union-like confederation of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and maybe Syria, and Lebanon. I can’t do justice to their analysis on this blog, but I thought he made a very compelling argument and he really showed us, how hard it would be for a viable Palestinian state to be created from the hodge-podge of land that is broken up by settlements that are so permanent at this point. We saw a few versions of settlements in East Jerusalem and beyond in the West Bank, as well as the wall up close. We saw a demolished 7 story apartment building in east Jerusalem, that went along with the explanation about housing, the lack of building permits, and the consequent housing demolition.

ICAHD, like most of Israeli’s seem to think the answers and the resolution to their conflict will come from outside the country. Clearly there needs to be international support and leadership for a peaceful resolution to, not just the current war in Lebanon, but also to help birth a Palestinian state. And clearly, the US had a disproportionate influence on Israel, but there is something so irresponsible and wrong about the stymied development of their own sense of autonomous statehood. I have heard so many times references to waiting for Bush and/or Rice to make them stop the war. Their sense of themselves as a nation is more like a child in relationship to the US, than of a grown up. But this child has the might of a giant.

After the tour, we went swimming again and then met up with Micky’s great niece Aya and her husband Elizar, who are the sweetest people. They came to Jerusalem to help take care of Hazel for some of the time, when I’m busy with worldpride stuff. Elizar grew up in the old city in an orthodox family, the second youngest of 12 kids. He left orthodoxy and is a social worker with at-risk youth up in Haifa. Aya is the granddaughter of Micky’s sister Hanna, and she is a student in Haifa. We met them a few years back when they were visiting San Francisco, after spending a summer as camp counselors in the States.

Then we took a cab out of town to a village called “Neve Shalom – Wahat al-Salam” to meet Mark Reisbaum from San Francisco for a tour of this Jewish-Arab cooperative village. They have a “peace school” as well as a bilingual elementary school. We sat down with Achmad, the person from the village who showed us around and we quickly realized that we would be meeting up again in a few weeks at Camp Towanga for the annual family Peacemakers camp of Jews and Arabs. Then as we walked around, I realized that the playground was build with funds from a Bay Area woman who I had just interviewed for a project I am doing for Astraea. The endlessly small world. Neve Shalom was really beautiful, not just physically, but in it’s entire concept and vision. They have 250 people living there, with over 500 families on a waiting list wanting to live there. The state won’t give them any more land, but the local authorities have given them a bit more land which they will be building on a bit. Such villages should be the way of the future for this country.

After getting back, we went down to Emek Rafaim for dinner and a bit of strolling around. It’s an amazing little neighborhood—considered trendy, with lots of religious Jews. There was even a restaurant called “Cool” which was kosher. I’ve never seen those two words put together before. On the way into the restaurant where we ate dinner, Hazel asked me why there was a security guard with a big gun checking our bags as we entered. I said it was to make sure it was all safe, and the guard says, “because there are people who want to bomb this place.” I tried to get him to not say it so loudly in front of her, and he just replied “but it’s the truth.”

The truth is that the number of soldiers and people with guns hasn’t really seemed to bother Hazel, although she clearly notices it. Today she asked me how a gun works, and then what’s inside of a bullet, etc. I realized that I didn’t actually know anything about gun powder, etc. But she hasn’t been freaked out about any of it directly. Nonetheless, I notice her being a bit more scared in outdoor settings than usual. Holding my hand a lot and generally being a bit more dependent.

The Wall Photos

Tour with ICAHD and Sha'ar Zahav Group

Couple Photos from our first days

Day 2

Day 2, Shabbat August 5
Woke up to a fabulous Israeli breakfast buffet and the sounds of and Orthodox Shabbat morning service. Feeling quite secular in the midst of a shomer shabbos crowd, we got out of the hotel to get our first walk to the old city. Hazel’s been whining, “MOMEEEE, can we PLEEEZE go to the western wall now!?!” So off we went, a lovely walk through the Zion gate, through the Armenian and Jewish quarters to the wall. Of course, we enter the women’s section, sit down among praying women, and my cell phone rings. Hazel wanted to disown me right there. But I don’t yet know how to work the rented thing, so I just ran out (turning my back to the wall – also not done) and eventually found the off button. Really, we’re Jewish. We were wearing our skirts and had our heads covered and everything! Got back into the mood of the place, said a little prayer for peace, and went back to our tour. This time, we went out the Muslim quarter, since it’s the only thing open on Shabbat and Hazel was loving the shuk, with all the fun things to buy. Being the expert and experienced negotiator that she is, I would have expected her to walk out of there with bargains galore, but she was too shy on day one.

The old city doesn’t change much and it’s always an amazing sight to see really religious Jews and Muslims living and working in such close quarters and managing to coexist. It shouldn’t be so hard to do outside of those walls.

The place is fairly deserted of tourists, so we got ripped off for lunch. Micky is more bothered by it than I. When I asked the waiter why weren’t there more locals eating, he said, “with this war going on, no one has any appetite for food.” Walking out the Damascus Gate, we picked up a cab back to the hotel. The Muslim driver (who had been to Milwaukee!), said we were his first customers of the day (at 1pm) and that the entire city was like that.

In the afternoon, we visited with Micky’s half sister, Hanna, and her husband David in a mixture of German, English, and Hebrew conversation. Micky was born in Haifa and moved to Austria when he was 2 with his parents. But his mother, Trudy, had had a first husband here in Palestine when she moved here in the 20’s from Berlin. When they divorced, Hanna stayed with her father. Later in her life, Micky’s mother began coming back to Tel Aviv for six months at a time, and eventually reconnected with Hana and her very large family (she’s about to become a great-grandmother). Then when Trudy got older and couldn’t really live on her own, she moved up near Naharia, where she died 4 years ago. Hanna claims that her kibbutz is “safe", but then they let slip out that on Friday there were sirens and a rocket fell in a nearby field. It’s not clear if we’ll be able to get up there to visit Trudy’s grave or not. We’ve been a bit cut off from the news, since the internet hasn’t been working in our rooms yet. It’s an insanely other reality here in Jerusalem, where one cannot really tell there is a war going on, except by people’s moods and conversation.

Day One

Days 1 Friday, August 4
We arrived safely on our Air Canada flight (which was quite empty for a summer flight) to Ben Gurion Airport a bit after noon. I haven’t been here since I was 18 years old and I definitely don’t remember such a beautiful airport back then with a huge water fountain in the center. It was a very strange sensation getting here, a similar feel that I sometimes have at Hazel’s school, which is a strong feeling of being touched inside. It’s undeniable , even if sometimes feels a bit cheesy and almost embarrassing, like crying at a Pamper’s commercial. Okay, I’m premenstrual, but I have to admit it felt really good to be in Israel and that it was the right decision to come.

We grabbed a shuttle to Jerusalem and got to the The Mount Zion Hotel. On the way, Hazel, clearly still awake from pure excitement, kept saying “there’s another man wearing a kipah.” She certainly has a sense of herself as a minority at home as a Jew, usually brought on during the Christmas season, but it’s interesting to watch her slowly realize she’s in a country where Jews are a majority. I notice it by the number of strong beautiful women (often bossing their husbands around) with wavy brown hair.

We got our connecting rooms (although the internet wasn’t working until this morning) in this lovely hotel (formerly Turkish), beautifully situated on the hillside where East Jerusalem meets West. On the first look out of our window, you can see an East Jerusalem valley and on the other side on the horizon, the “separation wall” is visible. Hazel keeps asking if we’re allowed to go across. Who decides? What’s it like on the other side? All good questions.

We arrived and it was hot, so we went swimming. The hotel is filled with Israeli families from the north of the country, and a big Israeli Bar Mitzvah party. We barely could find a seat by the pool. We then joined the Sha’ar Zahav group at a synagogue for Friday night services at Kol Haneshama, which featured a congregation with great voices – kind of a hybrid between a renewal and reform. It seemed like a good idea to get a little spiritual grounding at the onset of this trip. Hazel slept through most of the service, but we woke her to go to dinner with Noa and Hagai from the Jerusalem Open House. They took us to a lovely place (the colony) where we had a great meal and got oriented to the WorldPride updates. Hagai, the Executive Director looked a bit haggard. Not only has the poor guy endured a very politically challenging time, but his own health is not great, his mother died a month ago, and his younger brother was just called up on reserve duty the day before. Noa’s brother is also in the army, but is stationed in the Golan. The stress of life here is quite something. And still they manage to joke and stay positive.

Walking out of the restaurant, we got our first sight of posters that are hanging throughout Jerusalem which is a secular, youth-focused anti-gay gathering at a stadium which holds 20,000 people. It had very strange graphics, but is clearly trying to attract young people through music to protest the “homosexual agenda” at the same time as the youth day events WorldPride is organizing.

Enough for one afternoon in Jerusalem – and we went to sleep after a chapter of Harry Potter and a good snuggle.

Olson-Dorfs in Jerusalem

The flight was long, but because of many empty seats not too strenuous. Took a minivan to the hotel in Jerusalem and Hazel and Julie went right to the pool. (Julie will tell you more about our first evening.)
This morning we walked to the Zion Gate and took a stroll through the Arab Quarter to the Western Wall, looking at lots of stores in the Suq and even buying some little things. Then lunch… and back to the pooooool.
My sister Hanna came to visit us from the North and we sat around on one of the hotel’s many terraces, enjoyed the shade and drank tea. Before you knew it, it was time for dinner. Hanna, and her husband David, drove up to Tel Aviv and we went to a wonderful restaurant, Rivlin, on Rivlin Street. Julie had a flash back, as this was the neighborhood she used to hang out in 25 years ago. It’s busier now. Hazel bought more things in an all night open air market and then it was back to the hotel for a good night sleep.
Tomorrow will be another exciting day.