I just returned from a trip to Israel where I served as tour guide for a small group of people all involved in the Society for Humanistic Judaism.\u00a0 Though I travel to Israel fairly frequently, circumstances conspired to prevent me from going since 2009.\u00a0 With one of my children planning to study there next year, I will probably visit at least twice in the next twelve months.<\/p>\n
So how is the place these days?<\/p>\n
Well, Jerusalem was a little less horrifying than I expected.\u00a0 With all of the talk of the exclusion of images of women \u2013 and of women themselves \u2013 I expected worse.\u00a0 I was pleasantly surprised to see the usual advertisements in all of the shop windows of women in fashionable clothing, even at the Mamilla Shopping Center just outside of the Old City.<\/p>\n
Jerusalem has never been a favorite of mine.\u00a0 Even when I studied there in the eighties I always felt that the city was closing in on me.\u00a0 There\u2019s just too much religion and religious conflict and not enough restaurants open on Saturday.\u00a0 But it is a center of Jewish history and, I must admit, it\u2019s looking fairly good these days.\u00a0 The streets are clean, the trees are pretty and the stones are well lighted.<\/p>\n
My favorite moment there was when we happened upon a women\u2019s demonstration in the style of a \u201cSlut Walk.\u201d\u00a0 Unlike those protests in some other cities, Jerusalem\u2019s version takes on additional significance in the wake of religious attacks on women.\u00a0 One American-Israeli woman held a sign reading, \u201cThis is what I was wearing when you threw rocks at me.\u201d\u00a0 And believe me, what she was wearing was pretty darn conservative.\u00a0 They also handed out bumper stickers that said, \u201cHow am I dressed? Dial 1-800-It\u2019s None of Your Business.\u201d\u00a0 That one is already up in my office.<\/p>\n
Whenever I have the freedom to plan my own group experience in Israel, I never take the traditional route of finishing up in \u201choly\u201d Jerusalem.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather start there and do the history thing followed by a tour of the rest of the country, culminating in Tel Aviv.\u00a0 With a group of Humanistic Jews this was the right approach.\u00a0 We\u00a0 began at the Western Wall and ended at Tel Aviv\u2019s sea wall.<\/p>\n
Guess which one we liked the best?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just returned from a trip to Israel where I served as tour guide for a small group of people all involved in the Society for Humanistic Judaism.\u00a0 Though I travel to Israel fairly frequently, circumstances conspired to prevent me from going since 2009.\u00a0 With one of my children planning to study there next year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,39],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-israel","tag-secular-humanistic-judaism"],"yoast_head":"\n