Week 3

Well, this has been a great week. I finally was able to meet with an Israeli scholar over here and he was marvelous. He is a grad student so he is still excited about all of this stuff! He is working on Israeli documentary film and several of his professors wrote the articles I am reading. We spent several hours in a café discussing Israeli cinema. He was able to give me lots of background information that explained a lot of what I had been reading. (What Aliya was….The problems between the Ashkenazi and the Mizrahi Jews etc…) eventually segued into politics and finally into complaining about our students. He was saying practically word for word the same things I do, right down to complaining about student evaluations! And we both said that it was good to know that it wasn’t just us. So the problem with students who don’t want to learn is international...I don’t know if that is more comforting or worrying!

I’ve done some more exploring of the city this week, primarily during my attempts to track down the Israeli movies I need. I’ve been to Opera tower, Dizengoff Center and many many may streets in between. I was able to get about 8 of the films so that’s a good start. Also picked up some Israeli techno music, which is apparently big here. Did some shopping, had a yummy lunch, which was called cheese toast but was really a tasty grilled cheese sandwich at a sidewalk cafe (where I had collapsed in heat exhaustion during my last attempt to find the video store…finally found it and had passed by two times! I can only blame the sunstroke.) Had another yummy lunch which was potatoes and mushrooms in a big bowl of cream and cheese. Double yum.

Last night Deb and I went out to dinner with some of her friends from the Embassy. We had a very nice dinner and an even nicer time with her crew. They are very funny, intelligent, really nice people. Laughed all night. I’m really looking forward to Sunday’s party now.

Today’s plan is to go back to Carmel market and Sheinkein. It’s supposed to be super big on Fridays so I wanted to go back and explore on a Friday, and I need to buy supplies for Friday's party. Tomorrow….the Dead Sea!