Christmas Eve in Bethlehem

Dear Friends, Dear Family, Dear Reader,

A Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you have survived the holidays!

On Christmas Eve, Trine (that is my girlfriend) and I went to Bethlehem. I don’t really know why, because there is nothing really to see there in the middle of the night, but we went there. It is about a 5 to 6 km walk from my house, just down the road, through the security checkpoint and then up the hill to the church where the Jesus man was supposedly born.
So we started walking at around Midnight and arrived at the border crossing / checkpoint an hour later. At that point I realized that I had not brought my Passport, just another photo-ID. I asked my girlfriend about her Passport, and she told me, that all she had on her was her VISA Credit Card. So, we thought about turning around and getting our passports, but I thought we might give it a try. We went to the checkpoint together with a German Christian group. They all showed their passports and everything was fine. Then it is Trines turn. The man ask for her passport and she puts a VISA card on the desk. He looked very puzzled at her and told her, that it did not cost anything to go the West Bank, but that she needed a passport. She gave him the VISA card again, since her name was on the card. He starts laughing, makes a joke with his colleague, then picks up a phone and calls his commanding officer. Two minutes later she is clear through the checkpoint. She did not sign anything, not did she leave the VISA card, nor did they want any further information. So far I am still looking for the infamous tight security control at the border-crossings, since we were able to cross with a Credit Card as ID.

...closed during the holidays...

Dear readers,

On monday I will be in Ein Gedi and will not be able to keep you updated. So this comes ahead of time on Christmas Eve.

After my stay in EIn Gedi at the Dead Sea i will visit Masada and ultimatly Eilat. So I can finally refresh my diving-skills.

I will cover the whole story for you, when I am back next Saturday.

...delivers the news, right into your house...

Hello Dear Readers,
Welcome again to our Weekly update of the situation in Israel.

Newsflash:

- My girlfriend has arrived from Norway and we spent the weekend in the old city of Jerusalem.

- The german ambassador visited our organization today and had a chat with the volunteers.

- Weather is ranging from 20 at daytime to 0 at night, clear sky.

What is more interesting is my meeting with Ulrich Sahm a Middle-East Correspondent for the Television Channel NTV.
We went to his house this Saturday. Somewhere hidden in the outskirts of Jerusalem. We get off the road, past the parking lot, down the long staircase and then enter his house. Ulrich greets us with the words: "Let me just grab a pullover". He runs off, returns a minute latter with a worn-out shirt and invites us to sit down in his studio. We follow him through the house and shortly after find ourselves in a 3 times 4 meter room, stuffed from ground to ceiling with equipment, monitors, cables and books. So here he works. Ulrich sits down in a somewhat comfortable chair. In the monitors behind him, Al Jazeera on one screen, joined hand in hand by BBC next to it. I ask him about his job, where his cameraman is living, where do they make the shoots? Is he using a satellite to transfer the pictures?
He looks at me smiling, pushes a button and a screen rolls down from the ceiling. On it is a picture of the old city of Jerusalem. He reveals a camera opposite to it.
"This is our strength, you know, very convenient. I get a call and I am on the air with my statement in 1 minute. Live from Jerusalem."
If he is ever going out into the real world and delivering actual footage from the scene? "No, you don't have to. We are using Reuters, like every other news channel."
At this point something in my naive mind collapsed, my clear idea scattered. Maybe I had an idea, that every news channel in the world has 50 camera teams in Israel, right on the spot, whenever there is something going on. No news channel can afford that. Only Reuters can. The images are then sorted by the camera team at the spot, who decide what is worse filming and what not. Streamed to Reuters office, they sort again, distributed to all the clients, (including our NTV), they select the best (the bloodiest, most hardcore) part and use this unique selection in their program. And while this footage is then aired on tv, all our correspondent has to do is comment, live, from the hotspot, in Jerusalem.
And switching the Television Station also doesn't work, cause they all work the same. Try the new Al Jazeera in English. Don't mind the BBC look, they got all the old guard reporters and news speakers from there.
Lets say thank you to Ulrich Sahm. He explained a lot to me. Now I need to get this thing out, else it will be a Tuesday blog and I hate Tuesdays even more then Mondays.

Ivrit-English-German (Ivgerenglit)

I am working in a daycare center for elderly people! I had the expectation and was afraid, that I would not learn any Hebrew at all during the year, because these old Jeckes would just speak german! How wrong I was. On my first day at work, I was greeted by the crowd in Hebrew. I seated myself next to an elderly man and tried to start a conversation in Hebrew and quickly moved over to English! Well, he did not understand a word but was listening modestly. I then said, meefo ata (where are you from)? And he said Romania! So I had the option of learning Romanian or our conversations would end up being monologes.
I kept looking, but wherever I went they would only speak Hebrew and Arabic, mostly coming from Marocco and Jemen.
So I had to learn Hebrew to communicate… which is nice! However in the beginning I had to speak with words, hands and feet! That was fun, however not easy! And it really made me think about my parents, so now my father is a doctor and my mother a nurse, since describing ergo therapist and Works Counselor with your hands gets really complicated!

Another day, I was in the kitchen at my working place getting some coffee for the elderly people that I work with and I had a discussion with Jamima, our cock!
Well, we had the “cosher control” (a group of rabbies, which inspect the kitchen, whether the cosher rules are followed and then provides a certificate) in our house the day before, and everything was approved. The only thing not cosher was probably me, the goi (a not jew) preparing the food!
Anyway, so I asked her if it is ok to prepare meat and diary in the same microwave and so we got into this long discussion, where she explained to me, what is cosher and what is not and she listed all the animals, which were cosher and then she ended up saying: Adam Rishon did not eat bazaar!
Since Jaminas english is still in the improvement phase and my Hebrew as well we usually speak our own mixture of both. So this is the way we spoke. Adam Rishon did not eat bazaar! (Adam Rishon = First Human; bazaar = meat)
I figured she meant the first human beings. My mind started thinking and I saw my ancestors 30.000 years ago, sleeping in caves, hunting wild beasts and then not eating the meat! Why would they then hunt in the first place? Well this confused me!
So I then asked out of curiosity, When did mankin start to eat meat?
And she said: Well after Noah!
Noah right… Noah, that guy from the Bible, that Noah?
I think I must have looked at her very interesting! I felt somehow she was pulling my leg. I looked at her for another 10 seconds! And then I realized… man… we are even fighting over the history of the Prehistoric Age!

Thank God it's not Monday

Monday, once again! Like every week!
In Israel, the Monday needs to be changed into a Sunday, since the weekend ends on Saturday!
Monday (or Sunday) thus marks the end of the weekend. And weekend that is usually referred to as fun, excitement, relaxing, something off the usual. Thus Monday morning, usually at 8.00 schoolchildren mourn the beginning of a new day at school! "I don't like Mondays", a famous quote shows just how far the dislike can reach!

But Monday is also the beginning of a new week! You don't continue the work of the day before, you embark on something new, usually marked by the 9.30 Monday morning meeting with the boss. The things you thought about during the weekend you can finally start working on. New vivid ideas start flourishing!

How do you experience Monday?

This Blog is meant to inspire you to think about the Monday, as well as tell you a little bit about the life of me, Felix Müller, currently working in Israel as a Volunteer.