Month: June 2008

“You are a Jew?”

The Jerusalem Post, June 13, 2008

The Jerusalem Post- International Edition, July 11, 2008

One wrong turn and I am standing alone in an alley in Marrakech, deep inside the medina, the dusty red wall of Palais de la Bahia on one side of me, a row of closed stores to the other.

“You are looking for the mellah?” a young Arab man asks me.

The swastika I saw spray-painted on a wall in Rabat flashes through my mind, and I hesitate to answer, wondering if it’s wise to admit that I am indeed looking for the mellah, the Jewish quarter.

“No, I’m OK,” I reply, puzzling over the map in the Lonely Planet guidebook. According to the map, the mellah should be right here, I should be standing right next to it. But all I see on the empty street is shuttered doors punctuated by a handful of open stalls, bored men sitting in the entryways.

The young man – dressed in a crisp, white polo shirt, a navy blue Nike baseball cap, navy blue Adidas warm-up pants and clean black Nikes – persists. “You are a Jew?” he asks.

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Meeting God in the middle

The Jerusalem Post, June 6, 2008

Say the words “secular yeshiva” to most Israelis and they’ll scratch their heads. A secular yeshiva? What does that mean? The words shouldn’t appear so close to each other in a sentence. Maybe they shouldn’t be in the same sentence at all.

And yet, a secular yeshiva exists.

Adjacent to the Central Bus Station in south Tel Aviv sits a small, nondescript building, unremarkable in this area of bland buildings, save for its warm golden-peachy hue. But this building is truly remarkable… it is Bina’s Secular Yeshiva, the first institution of its kind in Israel.

Bina, which means “wisdom” in Hebrew, is an organization that seeks to breathe new life into Jewish identity at the very time that identity seems to be struggling for air. Bina hopes to bring together the many pieces of Israeli society by using Jewish texts and values as the uniting element. Furthermore, Bina recognizes that many young Israelis are completely alienated from Judaism – making up a large fragment of Israeli society that is deeply fissured from its Jewish roots – and seeks to help repair this rift through education and social action. The Secular Yeshiva, and its location in south Tel Aviv, is a vital component of Bina’s work.

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