Chance Encounters

Here´s a shot of my niece and nephew at La Mercat near La Rambla in Barcelona. I meant to post this yesterday.



After I finished posting yesterday´s entry, I came out of the internet cafe and ran smack into Marie, a colleague of mine in the History Department, and our specialist in medieval Spain. We knew we were going to be Spain at the same time, but thought that our trips to Barcelona wouldn´t overlap. As it happens, she forgot something and had only returned to Barcelona that day to retrieve it. She was just heading to the train station and so we briefly chatted along the way. I have a great shot of the two of us, but it didn´t upload yet, so I will try to post it tomorrow.

I asked her if she could recommend a good restaurant, so she gave me two. We chose the closer of them: Origens. Their menu is like a cooking magazine, with each entree featuring small photos of all the major ingredients and a brief recipe of how it´s made. We all loved our meals and my father wants to go back to try other things.

Afterwards, we walked up to see some Gaudi buildings. This famous building by Gaudi is part of the so-called "Discord Block" on the Passeig de Gracia.





My mother describing the history of the building to my niece and nephew:



After we got back to the apartment, Matt and I went to see La Sagrada Familia at night. Matt wanted to see it lit up. Here we are in the park in front of it:



We came back as a group this morning, walking about 15 minutes from the apartment to get to it. We waited about half an hour in line, vigilantly defending our spot against a group of French tourists who tried to cut in front of me. We walked around the outside of the cathedral (which is still under construction), and then went inside. Apparently, they´ve made a lot of progress with the cathedral, including finishing about a third of the stained-glass windows.



We knew that my other nephew, Josh, would be in Barcelona today, but we didn´t know what his schedule would be. He´s traveling through Spain, France, and Italy with his 10th grade class. Sure enough, we ran into him at the cathedral:



One of Matt´s friends, Ben, was also on the trip with Josh, so Matt and Ben had a chance to catch up:



Matt was pleased to see his 9th grade Spanish teacher:



Matt, Shayna, and I decided to take the lift to the top where we could see the cathedral under construction, and the spectacular views of Barcelona:



Afterwards, we came back down, found my parents and left.

After we left La Sagrada Familia, we walked a block away and had lunch. It was too hot to sit outside in the sun, and almost all the covered tables were taken, so we ate inside. I have to say, I wasn´t that thrilled with the meal, but everyone else was pleased.

We took two taxis to Parc Guell, a Gaudi-fantasy construction on a hill top above Barcelona. The entrance has the "Hansel and Gretel" houses, which give you a sense of the overall style of the place.



We made our way up the site, ultimately resting under some umbrellas and watching the crowds and the view. At one point, all the guys selling trinkets started to run as a mob past us. Apparently, the police had arrived. Eventually we made our way back to the entrance. We tried to get a taxi that could accommodate us all, but they wouldn´t take us out of the queue. In the end, we walked down the hill and grabbed a bus.

When we reached the intersection of Passeig de Gracia and Valencia, they all headed back to the apartment, while I walked down and picked up The International Herald Tribune. I walked to the cafe by the apartment, got a cappucino, and read the paper.

Tonight, we´re going to the theater to watch some a flamenco dance and music, so they´re all napping.

Barcelona

I´m using an internet cafe in Barcelona, now that my laptop has decided to check out of this trip. I´m hoping the university computer tech people can fix it when I get back. In the meantime, I´m using an internet cafe and downloading my iPhone photos to upload them here.

The flight from Ben Gurion was beyond awful. Instead of flying Iberia, we ended up on their brand new, even crappier discount air service: Vuoling. To save money, not only do they not offer any complimentary meals, they don´t even offer complimentary snacks. When I went in the back, I saw they had poured some glasses of water, which were free, but only if you happened to go to the back of the plane. Even worse, they apparently feel that as long as they keep the cabin temps just below 80, they don´t need to be any cooler. Despite all that (and three people behind me who held a loud conversation while the rest of the plane tried to sleep), I managed to get nearly 2 hours of sleep.

I took the express bus from the airport to downtown Barcelona and then checked in my luggage. I love the beautiful buildings

The tree-lined streets (this is La Rambla):



I put my luggage in storage and stopped at a Tapas bar for lunch. This is Qu Qu:

Afterwards, I walked to the apartment building where my parents had rented a place for the week, and waited for them to arrive. My niece and nephew were completely surprised.

After we settled in, we walked to a restaurant my mother liked on her last visit, but it turns out they aren´t open on Sunday evening. Instead we went to Divinus (next to Qu Qu). My father and I had the cod, which was excellent.

My mother had the chicken and veal paella, which she loved:

Both my niece and nephew had the seafood paella:

This morning, I got up and shopped in the market near our apartment for some rolls, butter, jam, and watermelon:

After breakfast, we walked down La Rambla and stopped in the big market:

They sell all sorts of stuff here:

My niece and nephew:



In the old part of Barcelona, we stopped to see the Temple of Augustus

Shayna was sitting off to the side:

A street in the oldest part of the city:


I´m nearly out of time. I´ll write more later.

Computer Problems

I've been having some problems with my laptop; it keeps crashing whenever I turn it on. What that means is that I can't post updates until I'd fixed. It's just too hard to type these entries on my iPhone.

Lach(ut) Tel-Aviv

There's a famous hasidic song, "Lach Yerushalayim," meaning rejoice in Jerusalem. But with a slight modification, "lach" becomes "lachut," meaning "humidity." For nine months of the year, Tel-Aviv is gan Eden (that is, paradise), but for the three months of summer it is Geihinnom (or hell). Well, summer is here.

I left Jerusalem Friday morning. The hotel said it was unable to refund the final day (I left a day early), but instead is giving me "credit" of one free night for a future stay. I'm not happy about this, but what I can I do? Took the bus to the central station, and then the express to Tel-Aviv, reaching Ofer's apartment just before noon. I went down to the bookstore cafe beneath his building called Tola'at Sefer (Book Worm) and had a fabulous open faced "toast" with onions, tomatoes, and squash, all on crunchy bread.



I took Ofer out to dinner Friday night at Brasserie (across the square from his place) to thank him for his hospitality. We both ordered the sole meuniere, which was excellent.



Ofer:



For dessert, we split the crepes suzette, which was also very good.


Then, we walked back and met with a friend of his and a visiting Turkish professor she knows, who had been speaking about Antisemitism in Turkey. We had a long conversation about politics, etc., all over some good cheese and fruit, and a very nice Riesling.

By 11:30 pm, the temperture had fallen to about 25 C (or high 70s F), but with the humidity and the lack of a breeze, I was dripping with sweat. I took a shower to cool off before going to bed, but it really only helped as long as I was in the shower. Even with the fan above the bed, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. It reminded me of the first time I came to Israel and stayed with my grandfather in Holon. I had never experienced such humidity before.

I really couldn't sleep in because of the heat, and I decided to go see a film since the theater would be air conditioned. The nearest interesting film was The Door, a new English-language film by Hungarian director Istvan Szabo (who made Sunshine and many other films). It starred Helen Mirren, who was excellent, but I felt the film really missed the mark. It isn't just that he doesn't, in my opinion, know how to end his films, it was that important "reveals" were treated casually, while the big "reveal" of what was behind "the door" was more of a "meh." I also don't like his habit (in this and Sunshine) of showing scenes in which important historical documents and photographs are burned. I suppose it's just the historian in me.

I tried to say in air conditioned places as long as I could, but by 3 pm, I was back in Ofer's apartment. I showered again to cool off, but just sitting indoors was leaving me covered in sweat, so I thought I might be cooler off outside. I went for a long walk and then showered again. For dinner, Ofer and I went across the street to Gusto, an Italian place with what Ofer thought was the second-best pizza in Tel-Aviv (the best is kosher and wasn't going to open before 9 pm). The pizza was actually excellent; the best I've had in Israel.



My flight out of Israel leaves at 5:10 am, so I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 1 am. I could have waiting an hour, but I figured I'd rather be waiting in an air conditioned all than in a hot, humid apartment. Also, Ofer's wifi causes my computer to crash, which is why I'm posting this update today.

I have about an hour before my flight boards, so I logged onto the wifi system at Ben Gurion and uploaded my revised papers to the "cloud," so if I lose my computer before I get home, the most recent version will be waiting for me. I still have about 100 shekels in bills, so I'm going to buy some more euros while I still can.

Last Day of Research

Today was my last day of research on this trip. I headed back to the Israeli State Archives and I had no problems whatsoever. They had the file I requested; I quickly copied it; and then I was on my way to Yad Vashem.

Today’s session was labeled “Special Interest Groups,” and I missed half the morning panel because of the hour it takes me to get from one end of the city to the other. I didn’t find the latter two speakers on the panel all that interesting. At the lunch break, I had a long and interesting conversation with the head of the Hebrew program in Pittsburgh. We spoke some Hebrew for awhile and I apologized for my poor accent. I was very pleased to hear her say that I didn’t have a strong American accent in my Hebrew, but surprisingly a slight German accent. The funny thing is that I’ve been told I have a slight Hebrew accent in my German (particularly in the way I pronounce the “ch”).

After lunch, I went to the panel on teaching the Holocaust in universities and secondary schools, but again, the conversation really didn’t apply to my own work, and so I left to tour one of the special exhibits on Holocaust art.

This is a fascinating collection of portraits of Jews, mostly prisoners, done by other Jewish prisoners who were artists. Most hid their sketches and recovered them afterwards. Here are two examples done in Theresienstadt (Terezin) of prominent Jewish composers, later murdered in Auschwitz.

Viktor Ullmann:

Franz Eugen Klein:

The next session was an opportunity to hear a survivor’s story. I decided to hear the story of Yehudith Kleinman, who was born in Venice, Italy, in 1938. Her father disappeared the day the war broke out and she lived with her mother and grandmother in Milan until 1944 when her mother and grandmother were summoned to the police station by the Nazis along with a Christian neighbor. At age 5, Yehudith was asked who she wanted to go with her mother or the Christian neighbor. Seeing her mother’s expression, she chose the neighbor and lived.

The neighbor took her to a convent, which agreed to hide her. After great difficulty, she agreed to cross herself and perform the Christian prayers, while she waited for her mother to come for her. In 1945, when she was 7 and a half, she was told a man and woman were waiting for her with the mother superior. Sure it was her father and mother come to claim her, she raced to the office only to find two people from a Jewish organization, come to take her to Israel. As the Jewish representatives argued with the mother superior, Yehudith had to choose whether to stay in the convent or go with the two strangers. She hoped her mother was waiting for her in Israel, so she chose to leave.

She’s written a book about her experiences called The Girl Behind the Eyes.

At 4 pm, they had a reception with desserts and fruit, so I went there and ended up talking with a German teacher from Bochum and an Israeli whose family came from Berlin. At one point we were all speaking German, and the German remarked how odd it was to be speaking German with two Jews in Jerusalem.

The final session wasn’t really anything worth writing about.

I headed to the center of the city to change some extra shekels into euros. On Sunday, I’m leaving Israel for Europe and I didn’t want to try to change a lot of money at the airport after midnight.

There’s a bookstore/coffee shop in the Nahalat Sheva neighborhood called “Tmol Shilshom that I really like and hadn’t visited this trip, so I stopped there for a large kafe hafukh.

After that I walked next door to Shanty and tried one of their daily specials: homemade fettuccini with roasted peppers, shrimps, and cream sauce.

It was getting late and I wanted to get back to watch the game, but I made my way through the alleys of Nahalat Shevah for one last visit:

My last stop was the place formerly known as “Babette’s Feast.” I asked what their current name is, but they haven’t decided yet. I ordered one last waffle: half vanilla cream, half dulce de leche. It was excellent:

I returned to the hotel, dropped off my stuff, and then walked down to Baka to watch the quarter final match between Portugal and the Czechs. I watched the first half on Israeli tv at a bar with a big screen tv set up outside. After the break, I came back to the hotel and am now watching the second half on the German tv channel in my room.

Tomorrow morning I leave Jerusalem for Tel-Aviv. The hotel won’t refund me my last, unused day. Instead, they told me, if I come back, they will credit me with a free day. I can’t believe I’ve been in Israel only three weeks. The work part of this trip is over; now I’ll have a short vacation in Europe before I return to the States in a week.

Much Cooler

For the first time in two weeks, it was cool enough last night that I could open a window. Today was much nicer than any weather we’ve had almost since I arrived. I arrived at Yad Vashem just before the morning session began. Today was called the “pedagogy day,” and was devoted to new teaching approaches to various aspects of the Holocaust. Before it began, though, the organizer got up to issue a disclaimer: when Prof. Yehuda Bauer spoke last night about the Museum of Tolerance, he was speaking only for himself. Yad Vashem, he emphasized, has a good working relationship with the Wiesenthal Center and will continue to do so in the future. I turned around and asked the guy behind me what Bauer said. He paraphrased him saying that “he’s afraid of what he might find if he went into the Museum of Tolerance.” I could only laugh. God, I wished I had heard him last night rather than go to the avant-garde Israeli film.

The opening session was a two-hour panel discussion about the relevance of the Holocaust in the 21^st century. I didn’t feel that I was really learning anything, so I left about two-thirds of the way through. Luckily, the smaller workshops were far more interesting and valuable.

I started off with Rafael Medoff’s talk on teaching the Holocaust through editorial cartoons from the period.

The cartoon Medoff is using in this slide is from a Jewish paper in Palestine in the ‘30s. The text reads, “where are you going Reb Yehudi?” “From the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and back.”

He’s working on a new book, using mostly American and British cartoons (including a striking one from Dr. Seuss), and it got me thinking how this might be an interesting way to get more class discussion. I could open each class with an editorial cartoon related to the subject of that day (including some Nazi cartoons), and use it to get the students to engage more with the material.

I spoke to Medoff at the lunch break about inviting him to Long Beach to speak. He asked if it would be for Yom Hashoah, and I said not necessarily (I can’t commit the other institutions that organize that in Long Beach). But I do have the funds to bring him out myself and I think I could easily find a class on campus to host his talk to students, while then having him do something similar or less academic in the evening to the whole community.

He was followed by Tali Nates from South Africa, who reviewed the materials she uses in teaching the Holocaust in the S. African school system. She had a few quotes and materials I could easily see using in my class, so I got her email to correspond with her afterwards. Strangely enough, her family came from Nowy Targ, the same small town where my grandmother’s family is from. We joked about being cousins and she promised to get me some of the material she’s collected on the ghetto.

The second pedagogical session I went to was divided into thirds, but it was only the middle third that interested me. This was given by Dr. Navas Jaat Aafreedi, an assistant professor in the Department of History and Civilization at Guatam Buddha University in India, and his topic was teaching the Holocaust in India. He turned out to be a rather excitable young man who tried to cram an hour’s worth of material into just thirty minutes (unsuccessfully).

I’m not sure what to make of his talk because a lot of what he said was rather shocking and highly political, and he was speaking so fast, I was basically just scribbling notes as quickly as I could. When I get back, I need to check with some of my colleagues who do India Studies to verify his claims.

He began by stating that neither Jewish history nor the Holocaust are recognized as academic disciplines in India and can’t be taught openly. He then proceeded to make a serious of equally provocative claims, including:

1) Most Indians are unaware of either the Holocaust or Jews

2) Hitler is becoming an increasingly popular and admired figure in India

3) These two facts will have a detrimental effect on Indian perceptions of Jews and Israel

4) All of the above is conducive to the spread of anti-Semitism in India.

He should the results of several surveys he’s conducted of students in his college. In response to the question, what does the word “holocaust” mean, most students were able to answer correctly that it concerned the genocide of the Jews, but this was only true, he claimed, because of his efforts over the last two-three years. A discernable fraction thought it meant “heat,” while others suggested “homeopathic medicine,” and “a chemical compound for killing.”

When asked who Jews are, only slightly less than half said they were a separate religious community. About a quarter of the students thought they were Christians, while about a fifth thought they were Zoroastrians, and a slightly smaller number thought they were Muslims.

He then discussed a scandal involving how until 2002, the “standard X history textbook” in Gujarat didn’t mention the Holocaust. Even after complaints, they only added that Jews were killed, but they’ve never tested on it.

From there he segued into how Hitler’s popularity is growing in India. These include:

1) Growing sales of Mein Kampf

2) More and more young Indians are putting Hitler or swastikas on their Facebook pages

3) The appearance of film and tv characters named after Hitler

4) The use of the term “Aryan” in Hindu society and culture

5) Open admiration of Hitler by Hindu hardliners

6) The attempt to open a Nazi-themed restaurant in Mumbai in 2006 (called Hitler’s Cross)

7) The sale of a brand of bed linens called “Nazis.”

8) Some Hindu hardliners have been quoted as saying “Hitler did the right thing with the wrong people.”

Some Indians, he claimed, look on Hitler has having aided Indian independence by weakening British rule.

He then very briefly reviewed how he has infiltrated Holocaust education and Jewish history into the curriculum, by never openly listing it on the syllabus, but by using vague code phrases.

Who opposes Holocaust education? According to Aafreedi, it’s a combination of Hindu rightwingers and Muslim anti-Semites. When he held the first Holocaust-related film festival in India in 2009, the two leading and most widely distributed Urdu-language daily papers issued front page stories denying the Holocaust.

All this was a lot to take in, and as I wrote above, I want to verify these claims with my colleagues who do India studies.

The final talk I went to this afternoon was on bi-national meetings of young people as a pedagogical method. This talk was given in Polish with a translator. What they’ve been doing is bringing over a hundred high school students from Israel to Poland every year to meet with Polish high school students. He then described the various ways they organize this and both the benefits and risks. I took a lot of notes, since I try to do something similar when I take college students to Poland on the Holocaust study abroad trip.

After that I went back to Jaffa Road/Ben Yehuda and did some shopping and had a kafe hafukh before heading back to the hotel. I went back to the Grand Café one last time and ordered their mix mushroom open lasagna one more time. It’s very good:

When I left the restaurant it was cool and breezy. It was the nicest weather I’ve had in Israel so far. Walking to the restaurant, I passed a street that had been closed off by the police and there was some sort of carnival at the far end. I decided to check it out after dinner, but the carnival was gone. I could still hear music though, and as I approached Ein Gedi street, I could see the carnival had moved. Only it wasn’t a carnival at all, but some sort of religious event.

I thought at first it was maybe some sort of missionary work by Habad or the Breslovers, but instead it was a big ceremony to welcome a new torah scroll to the synagogue.

According to one of the electronic signs, the new scroll was named in honor of a certain person “of blessed memory.” I can only assume the family commissioned the torah in his honor.

As I came up, I could hear someone on a loud speaker saying “first, we will say the ‘Shma,’ then blow the shofar, and then sing ‘Mizmor l’David’ as we bring in the new torah into the synagogue.”

Based on the shape of the torah containers, this is a mizrahi community (they also had a mizrahi accent in their Hebrew and melodies. After they blew the shofar, they started the procession of the Torahs into the synagogue.

One man was throwing candies at the torahs, the way I’ve seen family members do to the bar mitzvah boy at a mizrahi bar mitzvah.

So tomorrow is my last full day in Jerusalem. I head down to the Israeli State Archives in the morning one last time to make one last photocopy. After that, it’s off toYad Vashem for the last day of the conference. On Friday, I leave Jerusalem for Tel-Aviv, and then on Sunday, I have a 5 am flight out of Israel. The work part of my trip is almost over.

Conference, Day 1

The heatwave eased up a bit today; instead of a high of 36 C (98 F), it was only 33 C (or 91 F). We got the mini croissants again this morning, but they tasted a bit stale, as if they were leftovers from yesterday. I ate quickly and caught the 8 am bus. 1 hour and a transfer later, I reached Yad Vashem.

No problem getting my badge or finding a seat. The conference tent was fully air conditioned, so it was pleasant inside.

Since I had only heard about this conference two days ago, I was sort of unclear on what its purpose is, but that’s now come into focus. This isn’t the sort of conference where scholars present papers about new research to other scholars; instead, it’s about training educators from around the world about how to teach the Holocaust. In that sense, it’s a much larger version of the five-day workshop we’ve created in Long Beach.

After an opening talk by Michael Marrus about how we can’t expect to learn “lessons” from the past, since most of these so-called “lessons” are just believes people bring with them to the subject. Instead, he told us, we must try to listen to what the past is telling us.

I chose to go to hear Dinah Porath on Antisemitism and Nazi Racial Ideology.

I took a lot of notes, but instead of summarizing them here, I’m just to going to jot down a few things that stayed with me since this morning.

First, was her argument that Nazism was a kind of religion. That the oath Germans swore to Hitler, bound them before God. That while there was a political meaning to the term “Third Reich,” there was also a religious one: each “Reich” represents a covenant between man and God. The first was the covenant with the Jews; the second with the Christians, and the third with the Nazis.

She also emphasized how much Nazi ideology was premised on the fundamental inequality of man. Since Jews were seen as the promoters of the ideal of equality, they were seen as a major threat. This resonated particularly with me, since my soon-to-be-retired colleague in Psychology, repeated blames Jews in his writing for promoting the ideal of human equality and driving advocates of racial inequality, like himself, out of the scientific arena. She quoted from the book Conversations With Hitler, in which the author asked Hitler if he really believed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, since it was a notorious forgery. “Even if it were fiction,” Hitler replied, “there would still be truth in it.” My colleague has posted statements recently on the internet that come quite close to this position.

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch, but there was for me today. I sat with some educators from Connecticut, Atlanta, and Australia, hearing about their programs. Then I went to the library to find some additional material for my article on children and the Holocaust.

This also was the first of the smaller workshops that I went to after lunch, in which Shulamit Imber discussed how to use diary entries written by children before and during the Holocaust to teach the subject in schools. I jotted down a few ideas for next semester.

There were fifteen of these small workshops in the first session, and fifteen more in the second. I chose to go to the Allies and the Holocaust, but it really was just a general overview of the subject. I jotted down a few things new to me, but I didn’t really take away all that much from the presentation.

I skipped Yehuda Bauer’s talk to race to the Jerusalem Cinemateque to see a new Israeli film produced by a friend of a friend. I hadn’t read the blurb all that closely, so I didn’t realize that it was a documentary, not a feature film. Furthermore, the director and his girlfriend and their relationship was the subject of the film. What that meant was lots and lots of close up shots of people talking into hand-held cameras. The bane of my movie going existence. I started feeling nauseous after the first half hour. Luckily, the film was only 60 minutes long.

Because I was already in the German Colony, I stopped by Caffit, where my parents, aunt, and I had lunch last year. I sat at the bar and ordered relatively bland food to calm my stomach. Then I headed back to the hotel. Even though it’s the coolest it’s been in over a week, I had to change my clothes when I got back to the hotel. I really don’t like coming to Israel in the summer. Fall, winter, spring, are all lovely seasons, but summer is just too hot for me.

Sherav

I learned a new Hebrew word today: sherav. It means “heat wave.” Israeli tv and newspapers are describing it that way. This is some of the hottest weather of the year. I think it definitely affected my brain yesterday, and I think my blog entry probably reflected that. I woke up this morning with a headache, either from mild dehydration or from sleeping under the air conditioner, probably a bit of both.

Because of the heat, I didn’t want to walk far for dinner, so I just went down the hill a bit to Baka and ate again at the Grand Café. I ordered the “open mushroom lasagna” and it was quite good. I wasn’t sure what “open lasagna” meant, but in this case, it was as if instead of stacking the layers, they set them side by side on an oval casserole and then put it under the broiler. It was very good.

Even though it was only a five-block walk back to the hotel, I was sweating pretty heavily. I drank some water (though apparently not enough) and tried to stay up to watch the soccer match. It was Holland vs Portugal, and when Holland scored in the first 11 minutes, I figured I’d seen enough and fell asleep. Apparently, I missed quite a game, and Portugal scored two goals and won.

Since I hat a lot to do today, I got up early and came down a little after 7. Breakfast isn’t until 7:30, and it’s generally pretty quiet. It gives me time to check my email. Today, however, the place was packed. Not only that, but today we had all sorts of new and interesting breakfast items I’d never seen in my two and a half weeks here: mini croissants, danishes, three different quiches. Ma nishtana haboker hazeh…? I’m not sure who the group was, but they got quite a spread. I’m hoping there’ll be something similar tomorrow.

It was already in the 80s F when I caught the bus to the Central Bus Station at 8 am. From there, it was just across the street to the Central Zionist Archives.

This is one of the nicest places for researchers to work in Israel: clean, large, air conditioned, and quiet. I ordered my files and instead of photocopying what I needed, they encouraged me to photograph them with my digital camera. I had to keep track, however, of how many photos I took, as I would have to pay them 40 agurot a photo. I took 71 photos, but for simplicity, we rounded it down to 70.

After a very successful trip to the CZA, I caught the bus to Tel-Aviv, where it was somewhat cooler. Even though it was only a 15 minute walk, I took a bus to the Tel-Aviv Public Library. As it was noon, I decided to get lunch right next door at the Heder Ohel restaurant, my parents, aunt, and I ate at last year.

I ordered a lafa with chicken shwarma, which came with arugala, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes, as well as a nice side salad.

After that, I walked to the library, where it turned out the copies they had were the same one I had already seen in Jerusalem. I give up. I’m beginning to wonder if this book even exists. I’m going to have to write to Dan Porat when I back in the States and ask him where he found his copy.

By the time I left it was starting to get hot in Tel-Aviv, so back on the bus for the short trip to the station, and then on a nice, air conditioned bus to Jerusalem. Everything was going great until we approached the ascent into the hills; then all traffic came to a halt. Our driver decided to take a short cut, so off the freeway we went in the direction of Bet Shemesh. But instead of taking that route, which climbs to Jerusalem via Ein Kerem, he made a u-turn and went back to the freeway. It turns out he was just trying to bypass a portion of the jam (maybe 4-5 kilometers).

We spent the next half an hour creeping slowly up the road. In the past, these sorts of jams are caused by one of two things: 1) car breakdowns from the heat; or 2) protesters closing the entrance to Jerusalem. Thankfully, it was only the first option, as two cars had either both broken down in the no pass area, blocking the road or had gotten into an accident in the same space. Once we passed them, the road opened up.

It was still like a furnace in Jerusalem, so I took a bus to Emek Refaim and camped out for an hour in my favorite coffee shop. Eventually, though, I still had to walk up the hill to the hotel. Even in cooler temperatures, and sticking to the shade whenever possible, I again was soaked by the time I got to the hotel. I drank several cups of water, changed my shirt, and waited half an hour before heading out for dinner.

I just couldn’t face heading down that hill again, even if only to Baka, so I decided to try the hamburger place two blocks away. Called “Daisy,” and at the corner where you turn off to the Haas Promenade, it was probably the best hamburger I’ve ever had in Israel. Unfortunately, this is a very low standard to reach. They still put too much salt in the meat, but other than that it was pretty good. The fries, which were nice and crispy, were actually excellent.

On the way back, I stopped at the makolet (a kind of mom and pop store) to pick up a candy bar. Unfortunately, the woman in front of me was doing what looked like her weekly shopping: 5 kilo of pears, 4 bags of pretzels, 6 liters of milk, etc. As I waited, I watched a rather unkempt older gentleman walk in with a two liter bottle of soda and stand in between me and the woman who being run up. He had money in his hand, and I just knew he was going to try to pull the “I just want to pay for this one item” routine, so knowing the first rule of shopping in Israel, never show any mercy, I walked and stood directly in front him, blocking him from approaching the register. At that point he turned and walked to the end of the line.

With my research basically complete, I have the opportunity to attend the 8^th International Conference on Holocaust Education, being held this week at Yad Vashem. I had no idea it was happening now, but by a happy coincidence I’m here. The only problem is that I’m on the opposite side of Jerusalem from the conference, so I have to leave here rather early to get to it on time (it’s about an hour commute from here to there).

I only have two dilemmas. First, tomorrow night’s speaker is the famed Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, who will be speaking from 6 to 7 pm. The problem is that I had intended to see the new Israeli film All Happy Mornings, produced by Ofer’s friend Arik. I had spoken to Arik about the film and I think he’s going to be at the screening tomorrow, so I guess I will have to hear Yehuda Bauer some other time.

The other problem is that I still need to go to the Israeli State Archives one last time to photocopy the questionnaire and report that will be the basis of the article I will write this summer. This is really just back up in case I lose my camera with the copy I photographed. That means I have to skip the beginning of the conference on Thursday, but I think it’s better to be safe than sorry.

"Unseasonably Warm"

I decided to check out Focaccia Bar, a nonkosher restaurant open every day in the center of the city. Right next to it I found an Aroma Café that was open, so it turns out there is at least one that remains open on Shabbat, but it’s too far away to be convenient (besides, this was my last Shabbat in Jerusalem for this trip).

Focaccia Bar was full, but there was space at the bar; all the tables and the patio were full:

I ordered the chicken fettucini and it wasn’t bad, not heavy the way it can be in Israel. The place was packed and afterwards, I walked down to Babette’s Feast for one last waffle. I got there around 9, but they hadn’t opened yet and there was a line. I decided to try half with chocolate sauce and have with vanilla cream. The chocolate sauce went everywhere, making a mess, but the vanilla was very good. I’m tempted to go back to try what they call “butterscotch,” but sounds a lot more like “dulce de leche.”

This time I took the right bus back, but it dropped me off in Emek Refaim and the walk back up the hill in the heat left me covered in sweat.

Today I knew the weather was going to be bad. The forecast high for Jerusalem was 35 C today (same for tomorrow), hotter than at any point of the trip so far. “Unseasonably warm,” was how Israeli tv put it.

Lots of success at the Yad Vashem archives; I managed to get all the remaining articles I needed from them. I noticed that they are having an international conference on Holocaust education starting on Tuesday, so I asked if I could attend. The answer was yes. I have the schedule.

Since I had some free time, I took a more leisurely tour of the new revised exhibit at Yad Vashem. Here's the model of the revised layout:

It’s large and overwhelming, with many moving exhibits and artifacts that are really striking if you know the history of where they came from. I still wish, though, they were more universal in their presentation.

When I came out of the archives, I noticed lots of soldiers who had arrived, sitting in groups or getting ready.

I saw them again on the tour, each small group with a guide leading them through the exhibit.

By the time I reached the hall of names, I just started crying uncontrollably. I felt a little self-conscious among all the soldiers in there, so I managed to stop and walked toward the exit.

They wouldn't let me take photos inside, but I could from just outside:


And the view of the hills of Jerusalem from the museum:

As I approached, I could feel the waves of heat coming through and I thought for a while if I wanted to go out into it. I walked a short way to the gift shop and bought a new book on hidden children that I had done a quick review of for the article I’m submitting at the end of the month, and which I thought was excellent. Then I went to the art section where I managed to sneak a few pictures. Given the low light and my inability to focus the cell phone camera, these may be a little bit blurry.

This is Felix Nussbaum’s The Refugee, from 1939. Nussbaum went into hiding, but was later captured and murdered.

These are set designs from performances in the Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto:

I really didn’t want to go back outside, but I made my way to the Central Bus Station where I went to the Central Zionist Archives. Unfortunately, they had closed for the day about a half hour before, but now I know there schedule. I caught another bus and got off in the city center to check out a used book store to see if they have the textbook for which I have been searching. The owner is sure they have it, but he couldn’t remember where. The place has books stacked floor to ceiling three rows deep, so after an hour I gave him my email and left.

In the meantime, Tel-Aviv public library emailed me to say they have the volume I need and it will be available to me until the end of the week. I’ve decided the following:

I’m going to the Central Zionist Archives first thing tomorrow morning and order the two files I need. After I copy them, I’ll walk across the street to the Central Bus Station and go to Tel-Aviv. From there, it’s a short bus ride to the Tel Aviv City Library. If it turns out they don’t have the volume I need, I’ll submit an electronic request to the National Library and see what they say. Then I’ll return to Jerusalem.

With any luck, by tomorrow night, the only item remaining on my to-do list will be to try to photocopy the documents I already photographed at the Israeli State Archives. Then I will be able to enjoy the conference presentations without anything to worry about.

I’m waiting for it to cool down (according to the weather service, it’s currently 30 C (about 86 F) at 6:45 pm). Then I’ll go to dinner.