Tag Archives: Jewish

I Wrote a Poem in Hebrew

Posted on June 29, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            It started as a song. I was in my car (on the way to yet another doctor’s appointment) and singing harmony along to some of the Israeli songs on my playlist, and I started to think about how I could write a song specifically for an alto (like me) where the harmony line becomes the melody of the song. But I was too busy driving to record what I was singing, and by the time I got to the doctor’s office and tried to record the tune on my phone, I’d forgotten most of it. But while I was in the waiting room, and then waiting again in the exam room, I wrote down some of the lyrics that had come to mind while I was singing, and the words kept coming, all in Hebrew.

            By the time I got home from the appointment, I had four or five pages of potential lyrics, but no music to sing them to, and no idea how to get the music back. I decided to keep working on the lyrics anyway, shaping them into verses and a chorus and a bridge, in the hope that the melody would come back to me; but I found myself writing a poem instead, without any strict rhymes or rhythms. And after ten or fifteen drafts, and some help from Google Translate, I ended up with a poem I was happy with, about returning to my online Hebrew classes after a year away.

            It took me a while to get up the nerve to send the poem to my current Hebrew teacher and ask for her corrections, though. I felt self-conscious about presuming to write a poem in Hebrew, and embarrassed to share what had turned out to be an ode, and kind of emotional and squishy (AKA not cool).

            My teacher made a few corrections to the Hebrew, but mostly she just showered me with praise. She told me how meaningful it was to her, after teaching through the past year in Israel, to see that her work was paying off and reaching people at such a deep level. She also asked if she could send it to some of her friends, who also teach at the school, and I jumped up and down for a while before I could calmly type back, Sure. It took me a few more days to get up the nerve to ask her if I could send the poem to our WhatsApp group, to share it with my classmates, but when I finally sent it I got some very nice responses, and I felt great for a whole minute, maybe even two!

            Then, of course, the letdown kicked in and I thought, ugh, I’ll have to keep writing poems in Hebrew to keep getting this much attention, and each poem will have to be better than the one before it or else they’d get bored and, really, over it. Or, maybe I could send the poem to new people, so they could be impressed, and then I wouldn’t have to write a whole new thing. And I thought, Aha! The blog! But, most of my readers are not fluent in Hebrew, so I would have to translate it, but I could also include the Hebrew, so they could be impressed in theory, if not in fact.

            And as I started to translate the poem I realized that, except for a few details, this poem could just as easily be about the blogging world, and the kindness and curiosity and love we share here, in this place that doesn’t quite exist in the real world, but is very real, for us.

            So, thank you for being such amazing, passionate, and compassionate people, and I hope you like the poem.

            Hinei! (Here it is!)

An Ode to Citizen Café Tel Aviv

A year ago, I thought I was done with this,

I thought I’d finished learning Hebrew

After two years in the Zoom rooms.

Maybe, I thought, this is my Hebrew

And it can’t improve anymore.

And so, I closed the door on this world.

But,

I still dreamt about the zoom rooms

That existed outside of space, or

I worried,

That didn’t exist in reality at all.

Those zoom rooms were closed to me for almost a year,

And what a year,

In which the world shattered into many little pieces.

I watched the news and said to myself,

Maybe the whole world is different from what I imagined

And there’s nowhere to go for comfort.

Finally I understood

That I missed the zoom rooms

That exists outside of space or that I’d imagined completely,

But,

I’d lost the key

Or I’d lost the path to the rooms

Just when I needed them the most.

I missed all of the weird sentences,

About the beach and the traffic in Tel Aviv,

And about Ross and Rachel from Friends

And about Beyoncé the queen.

I missed all of the speed dating questions that we answered in the rooms,

And I missed this place where love is in the air,

Love of languages, love of food, love of music and laughter,

Love of the land of Israel and the Jewish people.

And so I decided to return

Even if these rooms only exist in my imagination,

Because I remembered that here everyone believes in this world that we create together.

This world isn’t perfect, I know.

Here everyone speaks Hebrew with a different accent,

And they don’t agree on a lot of things.

One man believes in every word of the Torah, and one doesn’t believe in anything.

One woman believes in world peace, and one thinks it’s impossible.

But,

In these rooms, all that matters to us

Is to learn from each other and to support each other

And to create a different world,

A world filled with kindness and curiosity.

That’s why we’re here

From Barcelona, and New York, and Berlin,

And Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, and London,

And Argentina, and Toronto, and Arizona

To create a beautiful world together,

With all of our words and all of our love.

And because of this, our world, which exists outside of space, is real

For us and for always.

עוד (או אודה ל)סיטיזן קפה תל אביב

לפני שנה, חשבתי שמיציתי את זה,

חשבתי שסיימתי ללמוד עברית,

אחרי שנתיים בחדרי הזום.

אולי, חשבתי, זאת העברית שלי

והיא לא יכולה להשתפר עוד.

ואז, סגרתי את הדלת לעולם הזה.

אבל,

עדיין חלמתי על חדרי הזום

שהיו קיימים מחוץ לחלל, או

דאגתי,

שלא היו קיימים במציאות בכלל.

חדרי הזום האלה היו סגורים לי כמעט שנה,

ואיזו שנה,

שבה העולם התנפץ להרבה חלקים קטנים.

צפיתי בחדשות ואמרתי לעצמי,

אולי כל העולם שונה ממה שדמיינתי

ואין לאן ללכת לנחמה.

סוף סוף הבנתי

שהתגעגעתי לחדרי הזום

שקיימים מחוץ לחלל, או שדמיינתי לגמרי.

אבל,

פספסתי את המפתח

או פספסתי את הדרך לחדרים,

פשוט כשהכי הייתי צריכה אותם.

התגעגעתי לכל המשפטים המוזרים,

על הים והפקקים בתל אביב,

ועל רוס ורייצ׳ל מחברים,

ועל ביונסה המלכה.

התגעגעתי לכל השאלות הספיד דייטינג שעשינו בחדרים,

והתגעגעתי למקום הזה שבו אהבה נמצאת באוויר,

אהבת שפות, אהבת אוכל, אהבת מוזיקה וצחוקים,

אהבת מדינת ישראל והעם היהודי.

ואז החלטתי לחזור,

אפילו אם החדרים האלה רק קיימים בדמיון שלי,

כי זכרתי שפה כולם מאמינים בעולם הזה שאנחנו יוצרים ביחד.

העולם הזה לא מושלם, אני יודעת.

פה כולם מדברים עברית עם מבטא אחר,

ולא מסכימים על הרבה דברים.

איש אחד מאמין בכל מילה בתורה, ואחד לא מאמין בכלום.

אישה אחת מאמינה בשלום עולמי, ואחת חושבת שזה בלתי אפשרי.

אבל,

בחדרים האלה כל מה שחשוב לנו

זה ללמוד אחד מהשני ולתמוך אחד בשני

ולהמציא עולם אחר,

עולם מלא חסד וסקרנות.

בגלל זה אנחנו פה

מברצלונה, וניו יורק, וברלין,

ותל אביב, ויורשלים, ולונדון,

וארגנטינה, וטורונטו, ואריזונה

ליצור עולם יפה ביחד,

עם כל המילים שלנו, וכל האהבה שלנו.

ובגלל זה העולם שלנו, שקיים מחוץ לחלל, הוא אמיתי

לנו ולתמיד.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Can I Make Things Happen?

Posted on June 22, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            In a previous post I mentioned that I was putting the idea of what I want out into the universe, and ever since then I’ve been debating with myself over whether I really believe in this concept or not. I want to believe in it. I want to believe that by putting my dreams into words and speaking them outloud I can create some sort of alchemy that will bring these dreams to life. But then I worry that this is all “magical thinking,” which has always been a soft spot of mine, and something I’ve been told is somewhere in mental illness territory.

Logically, I can argue that you have to articulate your dreams in order to reach them, at least as a first step on the journey, because if you don’t know what you want you can’t work towards your goals. And I can also argue that telling other people what you hope for can be practical, both because they may have connections or advice to help you reach your goals, and because having friends remind you of your goals can keep you on track. And, if you strip away the wishful thinking part of the whole thing, it’s reasonable to assume that if you focus more on the things you really want in your life, you will start to notice the small opportunities you might have missed before, and therefore have more chances to reach your goals.

            But, I don’t think that’s what I really mean when I think about the power of putting an idea out into the universe, or “manifesting” as it seems to be called today. What I’m really hoping for is that God, or the universe, will give me what I want without me having to do anything.

            Early in life I learned about a version of God that actively does these kinds of things for us: pushing water out of the way so that my ancestors could cross the Sea of Reeds, or sending locusts to convince Pharaoh to let our people go. I loved this vision of God, but it was hard to hold onto it in the face of a much more disappointing version of reality. Then I was taught that even though God hears our prayers, and they are therefore never wasted, sometimes, for whatever reason, God’s answer is no; and we should trust that when God says no to our requests that means the best answer was no, even if we will never understand why. This has never been a satisfying idea for me, if only because I don’t really trust authority figures to judge what’s best for me. Even God.

And then, in college, I learned that it is reasonable to doubt that God has a plan as such and is choosing winners and losers, or even has a role in our everyday lives. Instead, I should see God in the Aristotelian way – as the unmoved mover, the one who got the ball rolling but then stepped back and left us to our own devices. And therefore we have to make our own fate, and fight and scrap for everything we want and never wait for luck to kick in.

            So, I’m split. I believe, deep in my heart, that there are powers and connections at work in the universe that exist despite my inability to see them. But I also believe, almost as deeply, that believing in such things is ridiculous.

Recently, my mother underwent a heart procedure where they were supposed to insert clips on her mitral valve in order to mitigate the damage to the valve, which was causing fluid to regurgitate into the left ventricle. She has had mild to moderate damage to her mitral valve forever, but a recent test showed that the damage had reached the severe stage and therefore needed to be addressed surgically.

Except, the procedure was unsuccessful. It’s not that the clips were unable to adequately close the holes in the mitral valve but that the doctor was unable to even deploy the clips in the first place, because of changes in Mom’s anatomy caused by her scoliosis. The doctor also discovered two other important things during this failed procedure: one, because of these changes in her anatomy the open heart surgery that would have to be performed to fully replace her mitral valve would be contraindicated (aka too dangerous), and two, the damage to the mitral valve isn’t actually so severe and therefore can be managed with medication.

After reading up on “manifesting,” I started to worry that my fears about the open heart surgery had caused this procedure to fail. I was asking God to make sure we didn’t have to do the open heart surgery, or anything that could put my mother’s life at risk, and what if, in response, God said, Okay, we’ll just stop it all right here. The logical part of my brain says that God didn’t do any such thing, and that this was going to be the outcome no matter what I thought or prayed for. But if that’s true, doesn’t that mean that my prayers are a waste of time in every case?

In the research I did on “manifesting,” I came across different interpretations of the idea. One said that having any negative thoughts causes negative things to happen, so, it really is all my fault. Another said that if you do affirmations a thousand or so times a day, you will draw your goals closer to you, with your vibrations. The most practical interpretation I read, though, said that the point of all of the thinking and hoping and focusing on your goals is to get you to start thinking of actions you can take towards your goals, and to encourage you to notice more opportunities than you otherwise would. There is still some magic implied in this interpretation, along the lines of “God helps those who help themselves,” but it’s a kind of magic I can almost believe in.

The reality is, you can argue for almost any world view you want to, and find plenty of evidence for your choice, but there will always be loose threads left unexplained, because we don’t, and can’t, know the whole picture. We are all guessing, or at the very least, interpreting the data we ourselves have access to as if that’s all the data that exists.

So, do I believe that I can manifest my dreams by saying them out loud? Maybe. I don’t know.

For now, I’m going to hope that the doctors can find the right combination of medications to help Mom manage her mitral valve, and allow her to have the energy to do more of the things she loves, for many years to come. And I’m going to keep looking at the stuffed puppy dog sitting on top of my computer screen, and hope that the real life version of him will arrive someday soon. I don’t know if God listens to my hopes and prayers, but I know that it feels good to put it all into words, and saying my dreams outloud makes me feel like I’m taking steps to make the world into the kind of place I can live in, just by imagining that it already is that place. We’ll see where it takes me.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Back in Hebrew Class

Posted on June 8, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            I’m back in my online Hebrew classes and it is such a relief. I didn’t realize how much I missed this imaginary place, this zoom class that exists somewhere outside of space and which I can get to without leaving my apartment. After almost a year away – and such a year – I feel so much gratitude to be back.

            Up until the moment class started, though, I wasn’t sure how I would feel. I was already feeling guilty for spending the money on this instead of on ten other things that seemed more important, and I felt needy and silly for wanting to be taught instead of teaching, and I felt ridiculous for not having been to Israel yet after so many years of wanting to go.

            And then, because I was out of practice with the time difference between New York and Israel, I thought the class started at 2:30 PM and was surprised when I checked my email and found out that the class had already started, at 1:30, and I was late. I still had to set up my computer and brush my hair and change my shirt (I wear my pajamas all day every day when I’m not at work) and log into the new learning system the school had created while I was away, and by the time I finally popped up on screen I was fifteen minutes late.

            But I was fine. No, better than fine.

            The class (or the screen) was full and there were some familiar faces, but mostly the faces were new to me, including the teacher. And yet I was able to keep up, and my Hebrew was much closer to the tip of my tongue than I’d feared. We didn’t talk about the news, much, instead we focused on the things we could control, like how to be kind and generous with each other and leave room for making mistakes. I’m a big fan of being treated like a big puppy dog when I make mistakes, instead of hit over the head with a hammer.

“No ouchies for me!”

            During my first week back in class I went to every practice group I could get to, which ended up being more than I’d gone to in the two years I’d spent in the program before. I wanted to challenge myself, socially and with my Hebrew, to get back into the stream as quickly as possible. And I didn’t realize until afterwards how easy it was, compared to even a year ago, to manage the social anxiety and fear of the unknown that comes with the practice groups – especially in week one when I had no idea who my teachers or fellow classmates would be. In our regular classes things are more predictable: you get a class list ahead of time, and an introduction from your teacher, and that’s your group for the semester. But in practice groups we’re dropped into breakout rooms with random strangers to discuss random topics and then we’re being tested on things we’ve learned in previous semesters, generally using vocabulary I forgot long ago.

I don’t think I’ll be able to do this many groups every week, both because I have doctors’ appointments coming up and other things I need to get done this summer, but I’d really like to work harder this summer than in the past and push myself and my Hebrew as far as possible.

            Except, despite all of the progress I’ve made on my mental health, somewhere around the third or fourth practice group the negative voices in my head returned: Why am I such a loser that I have to pay people to spend time with me and laugh at my jokes, why is everyone else so much more impressive and successful than me, why does everyone else get to be married and have children and travel around the world and have so much more energy and good health than me?

            I’m not sure why the negative voices were on pause for the first few days, but at least that gave me a few moments to revel in the joy of being back in class. But then the avalanche of pain made me realize that this was probably why I’d decided to stop taking classes last year. I thought, at the time, that I had run out of ambition to learn more Hebrew, but I think it was more that the classes were bringing up too much internal noise that I couldn’t handle and couldn’t drown out.

            The anxiety I used to be so focused on, around making mistakes and saying the wrong thing, seems to have been hiding a much deeper pool of anxiety around all of the things I want to have in my life and believe I can’t have. Being in class seems to bring up so much longing – to go to Israel, to have more friends, to be more successful in my career, and to be in love – and when all of that longing comes up to the surface, my deeply felt belief is that none of that is possible for me.

            In the past, when these feelings overwhelmed me, my answer was to turn off the faucet altogether, usually without realizing what I was doing. But now, it seems like my brain is telling me that I am ready for more, or should be, and therefore it’s time to let me know that I want more; but I still feel like the things I long for are impossible, and I don’t know why my brain believes I’m closer to ready.

            So, in the midst of seeing real progress, and feeling real joy, I’m also feeling awful at the same time, and it sucks. I’m so frustrated by how long it takes to make progress in my life, and how often I have to stomp the brakes to avoid falling off cliffs that seem to come out of nowhere. I wish I knew how long each step forward would take, and which goals would actually be reachable, because then I could plot it all out on a calendar and be comforted that it’s all going to happen when it needs to happen; but instead I have no idea what will be possible next week, let alone next year.

            My brain remains mysterious to me, and I don’t understand what it is about Hebrew in particular that has opened this door for me, but I am committed to continuing to go forward in whichever ways feel possible. So I will make as much of this summer of Hebrew as possible, enjoying the laughter and the challenges and the friendships, and I will also try to make sense of the pain and confusion that come along with them. And I will keep trying to remind myself that this is what progress looks like and feels like, for me, even if I wish it could be different.

“Hiding is always a good idea.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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What I’ve Learned So Far

Posted on May 25, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            With the end of the synagogue school year I always try to take stock of what I’ve learned, and what I need to hurry up and learn over the summer to be prepared for next year’s challenges. This has been a hard year, personally (with the loss of the dogs) and globally, but I’ve learned that I have to find hope, even if I have to manufacture it out of nothing, or else I won’t be able to function.

            My biggest take away from this year is that I love working with these kids, from the youngest to the oldest, from current students to kids I never taught but met along the way. And I love finding out that I made a difference in their lives; even a small one, even just as a contact point, a place where they feel safe being themselves.

            I feel like I’ve been doing a child development observation project for the past five years and I keep learning more and more about what works and what doesn’t work for different kids, and I keep learning the humility that comes with being wrong over and over again. And I find that I don’t mind being wrong and making mistakes (unless those mistakes are pointed out to me endlessly and highlighted in neon, then not so much).

            One of my favorite things is when I meet kids who are clearly being parented well, kids who are their full selves and self-aware and able to accept their own limitations and seek help when they need it and seek out challenges that allow them to grow. Of course, I identify more with the kids who are struggling, who are frightened or insecure or unable to even express the chaos that’s going on inside of them. But I love all of them.

            And now that I’ve been here a while, some of the kids I worked with at the beginning are now teenagers, and some of the teenagers who helped in our classrooms are now young adults, and they still come back to check in and update us on how they are doing. I can especially relate to the way the teenagers and young adults are trying to figure out who they are, because I’m still working on that project myself. I watch as they try on different identities and personas and philosophies and I try to be patient when they are insufferably overconfident or simplistic or combative about their newly discovered truths.

The one area where I’ve been struggling to be patient, though, is when what the kids are trying on is a new worldview wherein Israel is the cause of all evil. A lot of the students who are protesting on campuses are not lifelong supporters of Hamas, or even especially well-educated about the Middle East and the plight of the Palestinians in Israel and the surrounding Arab countries. Most of them are just kids who are trying out new ideas to see how they fit, and they are energized by the communal atmosphere of the encampments and the belief that they can be completely right about something and their parents can be completely wrong. Most of these kids, given time and education, will not be supporters of terrorism, or of any of the other political ideologies they have been flirting with in college, and what I’m learning is that my job as an adult with the honor of interacting with them is to educate, and to listen, and to support. I do not need to pretend that I am convinced by their sudden certainties about the world, nor do I need to argue with them, but I can’t abandon them either.

This is an encampment I might even join
(not my picture)

            I know from my own experience that certainties can help manage the extreme anxiety that comes with having no idea what the future will bring. They are still trying to figure out how to do their own laundry and yet they’re expected to plan out their whole lives: career, finances, life partners, belief systems, etc. The job of their teachers is to open new doors of thought, and present the available knowledge with a good dose of skepticism, and suggest questions worth asking, and teach a tolerance for uncertainty, but a small percentage of professors seem to see their role as becoming gurus who expect their students to swallow their ideologies whole.

With a Professor like this, I’d listen to whatever he had to say. (not my picture)

            I would have done better with less certainty from the adults in my life when I was in school. I needed my teachers to ask me questions and offer me compassion and patience, and then, gently, to introduce the complications to my black and white view of things. I didn’t need their admiration anywhere near as much as I needed their interest and curiosity in who I was and how my mind worked.

This was me all through school. Different hair.
(not my picture)

            I’ve been reminded all over again this year how important it is to be an accurate mirror for my students. Unconditional positive regard only works when it is based in the reality of the child or young adult in front of me. If an oppositional, argumentative class clown is praised for being well-behaved when he isn’t, that’s not helpful. He wants to be seen as he is. He’s being oppositional for a reason and if I ignore his reality I’m not helping him.

            It’s a relief to have the summer off so I can recharge and focus on my writing and focus on myself, but this year especially I know I am going to miss my students, so I will make an extra effort to carry them with me, as a totem, to remind me of how much there is to look forward to in the future.

But first, a really long nap.

This is not my picture either, but it looks just like me.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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Listening to Israeli Music in the Car

Posted on May 4, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            When Mom and I bought our Subaru Crosstrek last summer, the car salesman demonstrated how to link an iPhone to the car’s computer in order to answer phone calls hands free. But as soon as Mom’s phone was linked to the car’s computer, a podcast or a phone call or a voice mail came bursting out of the speakers at us, and we had to press every button in the car before we could finally make it stop. And as a result we decided, as we often do, that this latest technological advance was not for us.

            But then, a few months ago, when I was listening to music on my phone in the car because I was tired of hearing the same Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift songs on the radio over and over, I noticed that the battery was low and plugged my phone into the car charger, and suddenly my Spotify account was playing over the car’s speakers. And it was wonderful! So now, as soon as I get into the car, I put my phone on the car charger and open my Spotify app and my music fills the whole car instead of just the cup holder next to me.

            Of course, I still pay attention to the news, but only when I feel like I have the energy to deal with it because trying to make sense of the different narratives of what’s going on in the Middle East (and here), as reported by different outlets through varying lenses feels like trying to untangle a pile of fishhooks. But listening to Israeli music, with a playlist that has ballooned to over 300 songs, has become my sanctuary. Especially when I’m on my way to school to teach my students, listening to Israeli music instead of news about Israel helps me get into a mindset where I can have hope for the future, so I can be the person I need to be for my students.

            Alas, I only have a free Spotify account, which means I can only listen to my playlist on shuffle, and I still have no idea how Spotify decides to shuffle the songs. Luckily, even though my Israeli music playlist is ridiculously long, it is filled with songs I really like, so even if the shuffle decides I need to hear the same song on the drive to and from work, or jumps from one style of music to a very different style of music, it’s all good. And there’s actually something comforting about having the app choose which song to listen to next, because it makes me feel like I’m not really alone in the car; like there’s a tiny DJ in there, somewhere, keeping me company and telling me everything’s going to be alright.

Four songs on a theme:

David Broza - It'll be Alright – Hebrew with English Subtitles https://youtu.be/qtI7h5A9eEQ?si=EHnP_sG13WAKC92E
Yasmin Moellem – It Will Be Good - Hebrew https://youtu.be/qvdQ4mGMVkg?si=8SnxkJslFPMKPUfv
Cafe Shahor Hazak - It Will be Okay – Hebrew https://youtu.be/PQp2a_yunmM?si=KWPCfyJyFLvq0qbU
Lior Narkis – In the end it will be Okay – Hebrew https://youtu.be/SNsBoZLyIAk?si=Q3lf1MrHvXShQdwY
David Broza
Yasmin Moellem
Cafe Shahor Hazak
Lior Narkis

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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The Four Sons

Posted on April 27, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            As part of our preparation for Passover this year, my students and I looked at different elements of the Haggadah, the book used to guide the Passover Seder. We tried to figure out the mysteries of the ten plagues (What’s so terrible about frogs? Why do you need Lice and locusts? What does it mean that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart against letting the Israelites go and yet also sends plague after plague to convince him to let them go? Does this mean that God wants to cause Pharaoh pain? And if so, why must all of the Egyptians suffer along with their leader?); and we looked at the objects on the Seder plate (does anyone actually eat the parsley dipped in salt water? Couldn’t we just substitute pickles for the green vegetable and the salt water, all in one convenient package?); and, why is the Seder so freakin’ long?

I bought a roll of these stickers for my students last year. Lice was a favorite.

            But the part that always gets to me most is when we read about the four sons (the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who doesn’t know how to ask) and how the rabbis recommended we answer their questions.

            There are many reasons to find fault with this section of the Hagaddah, but first and foremost my reasons are personal: my father always chose for me to read what the wicked son had to say. He thought it was hysterical that every year he could call me evil in front of guests and get away with it. But having read that passage so many times has focused my attention on the question: what’s so wicked about the wicked son wondering what this whole Exodus story has to do with him?

            I’ve seen dozens of revised versions of the four sons: changing it to the four children to include the other half of the population; renaming the wicked son to the rebellious child; and imagining the four children as four parts of all of us.

            I actually love the idea that the rabbis thought to add a section to the Hagaddah where we are told to look at the children at the table and try to figure out how to answer their questions. It’s just that the rabbis gave terrible advice, and their method of categorizing the children is both vague and judgmental and still doesn’t really help us figure out what to say to them.

            Earlier in the Seder, the youngest child recites the official Four Questions, chosen by the rabbis long ago and usually answered before Passover even begins by your friendly neighborhood synagogue school teacher. Why Matza? Because the Israelites had to rush to bake bread the night they escaped from Egypt and the bread had no time to rise, or because we used to rely on sympathetic magic at this time of year to encourage the harvest, and preventing the bread from rising was a way to reserve all of the fecundity for the crops. Why bitter herbs? Because slavery is bitter. Why dip a green vegetable in salt water? Because the green vegetable (often parsley) represents spring and the salt water reminds us of the tears of our ancestors. Why do we recline at the Seder? Because free people are able to relax while they eat and somehow don’t mind the resulting heartburn.

            The recital of those four basic questions is supposed to be the beginning, and not the end, of the questions people ask at the Seder, and in the same way I wish we could portray (at least) four different kinds of children at our Seders in a way that would inspire us to be more curious about the actual children in our lives and to come up with ways to spark their imaginations.

            What if instead of labeling the child who agrees with us as wise, and the one who disagrees as wicked, we could listen to them long enough to figure out the who behind the concerns they are bringing up?

            In that spirit, I asked my students which children they would choose if they were writing the Hagaddah today, and they had a lot of ideas. They thought about the depressed child and the bored child, the discombobulated child and the hungry child, the happy child and the lonely child, the frightened child and the curious child, the constipated child (too much Matza), the self-absorbed child, and the brave child. And really they could have gone on and on. What they didn’t do was to describe the children in the judgmental and external ways the rabbis had done. They focused on who the child is to him or herself: she feels sad, he feels uncomfortable, she’s shy around so many strangers, and he wants to see what happens if he feeds horseradish to the cat.

             The central obligation at the Passover Seder is not to eat Gefilte fish or hide the Afikomen, but to re-tell the story of the Exodus, because we recognize the power of this story to help us find meaning in our lives: to teach us to have hope even in dark times, to learn how to stand up to bullies, to remind us that we can ask for help and that we should help others on the journey when we can. This yearly retelling also teaches us to remember our own individual traumas, and name them, and embrace the ways they have made us who we are today. If we pretend that life is beautiful all the time we won’t search for new ways to solve our problems and will remain stuck in Egypt. The mantra to “never forget” has been associated with the Holocaust in modern times, but the lesson is thousands of years old and stems from the Exodus story and the command to retell it. Our ancestors knew the power of memory and the need for storytelling to help us shape those memories into life lessons.

The Israelites are never portrayed as perfect people in the Hebrew Bible, they are intentionally portrayed as human and flawed so that we can see ourselves in them and learn the lessons they learned from their lives. The four children can be seen as part of this tradition too: the one who complains all the time (Manna? Again?!), the one who is always jealous of someone else’s share (why does Moses get to be in charge all the time?), the one who is afraid to cross the sea (why does everything have to be so difficult?), and the one who has the faith to take the first step and lead the rest to freedom. They are all part of the same whole; they are us.

Splitting of the Sea, from Chabad.org
Moses’ first try, from The Jew In You

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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The Trip I Want to Take

Posted on April 6, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            My synagogue had planned a big trip this spring – to Germany, Israel, and Jordan. It was originally planned for 2020, and then Covid hit; and it was rescheduled for this spring, and then October 7th happened. The plan for the trip was still up in the air for months, as the clergy watched to see how long the war would last, and what conditions would be like for tourism, but somewhere along the way the decision was made that they would just do the Germany leg of the trip this year, for the people who were still interested in going. A small group of congregants went to Berlin, with the same tour guide who was going to lead the big trip, to experience the different ways Germany has memorialized the Holocaust, and how they are dealing with Jews and anti-Semitism today.

            I was not planning to go on the trip this Spring, even if October 7th hadn’t happened, because I wasn’t interested in the Jordan and Germany legs of the trip, and because it was going to take place during the school year and I hate missing time with my students if I can help it, and probably most of all because it was going to be expensive and I am still paying off steep medical loans and I feel guilty being in so much debt at one time.

            But if the synagogue group had gone to Israel, in this post October 7th landscape, I would have been jealous of everyone who was able to go.

            I have wanted to go to Israel for a long time now, and I’ve gone over and over all of my internal conflicts around the costs, the weather, the social issues, the health issues, and the security issues, without really coming to any conclusions. But post October 7th the drive to go to Israel has increased tenfold.

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blind to the security issues, or to the parts of the country that are still off limits because they are under direct attack by Hezbollah; and I still have money issues, and health limitations, and I still worry about being lonely and feeling lost and alienated while I’m there. But the part of me that wants to be there, not to see the Western Wall or the Dead Sea or other touristy things, but just to be there in solidarity and offer my presence and compassion and love, feels newly strong. Maybe because, until now, I felt like I had nothing to offer my Israeli cousins; I even expected them to reject me, because of so many of the clichés about Israelis, that they feel superior and look down on weakness, be it emotional, or physical, or psychological.

            But on and after October 7th it became clear to me that Israelis aren’t really the image they project to the world, or at least they’re not only that; they are human like the rest of us. Yes they are courageous, but they are also frightened. Yes, many of them are adventurous and confident, but a lot of their bravado is a defense mechanism against lives lived in a very small country surrounded by people who hate them and keep trying to kill them.

            I wish, with all my heart, that this unveiling of their true selves had happened any other way, but I am truly grateful to feel more connected to them and to learn more about who they really are. There are, of course, some people who are so frightened and defensive, like Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow politicians on the far right, that they never let the facade drop, even on October 7th itself.

            I am also aware of, and overwhelmed by, the news about the war itself and how it is being conducted. It has been especially difficult to watch the news about the seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen who were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. It’s painful and disheartening to see something so awful happen to people who are there only to offer help to those who need it. And I don’t understand how a mistake like this could have happened when the aid workers and the IDF say they had deconflicted their itinerary ahead of time to keep the workers safe. But it’s also heartbreaking to hear people insist that this was an intentional, rather than accidental, killing. I don’t believe that the Israeli army would target innocent aid workers intentionally, but, given the complications of managing a war in this territory, with so many voices pulling in different direction, I don’t understand how the army hasn’t become more and more careful over time, and I don’t understand why mistakes like this are still possible. At the beginning, when they were first trying to figure out how to fight a war like this, the mistakes in targeting and choice of munitions that led to so many civilian deaths was horrifying, but maybe understandable. But now? I don’t know what to think.

            And yet, with all of my questions, and however conflicted I may feel about how the war is being waged, and interpreted, Israel and Israelis themselves are still very close to my heart. If I could plan the perfect trip right now I would want to visit my niece at her school and go with her and her friends to volunteer somewhere, picking clementines or folding uniforms or whatever volunteer activity the girls are doing now; and I would want to stay with my best friend from high school, and hear from her kids and their friends about what their lives are like right now; and I’d want to sit on trains and buses and listen to the conversations around me; and I’d also want to go to every concert in every venue possible; and visit my teachers in Tel Aviv, and finally taste real Chummus, since I’ve been told over and over that the Chummus I can get in New York is a pale imitation of the real thing.

            Knowing me, though, I would be too shy to really talk to anyone, or to ask the questions I really want to ask, and I would spend half my time beating myself up for not having the courage to go and do and say what I want. But that’s still the trip I’d want to take, if I could. Those are the experiences I wish I could collect and bring back home with me.

            For now, accepting my own limitations and the state of the war, my plan is to take another online class through the Hebrew language school in Tel Aviv, where I’ve taken classes in the past. That way I can continue to build my confidence in speaking Hebrew and listening to Israelis, for when I’m ready to go in person. And, through the zoom screen at least, I will still be able to make some of the connections I’ve been looking for, with my teachers and classmates, and through the music and stories and culture of Israel.

            As always, I’m listening to podcasts and music to try to understand what’s going on. The latest podcast episode of For Heaven’s Sake, hosted by Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevy, is an honest accounting of how things feel for Israelis after six months of war.

For Heaven’s Sake – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/for-heavens-sake/id1522222281

            And I’ve been listening to a lot of music by Idan Amedi, an Israeli musician who was injured while serving in the reserves in this war. He wrote a song twelve years ago about how hard it is to talk about the pain and memories of life as a soldier, even to the ones you love most, and the song still resonates.

Idan Amedi – The Pain of Warriors – https://youtu.be/cBlqSLXgZG8?si=j8WXSN0tt8lfOqEW

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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The Process of Grief

Posted on March 23, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            We had our yearly Women’s Seder at our synagogue recently (far in advance of Passover this year, because of scheduling issues), and the music was lovely, and I got a chance to sing with friends, but it was bittersweet because so many people I hadn’t seen in a while asked about the dogs. Some knew that Cricket had died, but not Ellie; most didn’t know about either one. And I found myself having to explain, over and over, that they’re gone and I’m heartbroken. Like a mantra.

            The fact is, I’ve had to go over their deaths again and again, just for myself, to remind me why there won’t be a dog at the door when I get home, or to explain to myself how I managed to get through a whole day without going outside.

            Kevin, the mini Goldendoodle in our complex, left a squeaky tennis ball on our steps the other day. I don’t know if he left it for Cricket, still hoping she would come out to see him, or if he just left it for me; either way, it felt like a gift.

            I’ve started to have more memories of Cricket from before she got sick; just glimpses, of her standing on my chest to wake me up, or bouncing around the yard with Kevin, or flying like the wind when she was younger, fitting as many sticks as possible into her mouth at one time. But I’m still haunted by Ellie’s last days. It’s very hard to remember happy Ellie, for now. I just keep seeing her struggling to breathe, looking to me for help but I didn’t not know what to do. I hope this stage will pass soon and I will be able to remember her happy years, her joy, and her peace.

“I could’ve fit more in there.”
“I was so happy, Mommy!”

            I’m trying to be patient with the grieving process, letting it unwind at its own pace, even though I wish it would hurry up. I’m still not ready to spread the dogs’ ashes and say a final goodbye. I think it took a year before I was ready to say goodbye to Butterfly, and back then we still had Cricket with us for comfort. Losing both dogs at the same time has been brutal.

            One of the families at my synagogue has an emotional support dog who comes into the sanctuary for services. He’s basically a smaller version of Kevin: a poodle mix with curly reddish gold hair. He’s very well behaved and knows how to sit on a chair by himself; looking as if he’s listening attentively. A few weeks ago he came to services wearing his new blue satin Kippah, with a Jewish star on it, and the cuteness almost killed me.

            I do my best to absorb my doggy vitamins from witnessing the joy of the dogs in my neighborhood whenever possible, and I watch a lot of dog videos on Facebook too, to take the edge off of the longing for another dog, because I’m not ready to start over again, yet.

            There’s something about the Passover story, the escape from slavery to freedom, that seems to fit this stage of grief. We tend to see the Exodus from Egypt as an ecstatic, completely positive moment; but how can it be? There’s so much fear and grief in leaving a familiar place, even if it’s full of pain, and there’s so much anxiety in going somewhere new and unfamiliar. I like that the Seder encourages us to sit with all of those feelings, and I love that we go through this process every year as a way to practice these difficult skills so they will be there for us when we need them. It makes me think of how tennis players practice their forehands and backhands, or figure skaters run through their programs endlessly, or football teams practice different plays so that it can all be automatic under stressful conditions, when it’s impossible to really think it all through.

            I like that the Passover Seder creates space for talking through the story of the Exodus, and asking questions and arguing about how the lessons of the past can apply today, but is also filled with physical experiences, like eating the maror, the bitter herb, with the Charoset, the sweet apple or date sauce, to remember that we can survive the bitterness, and this is how. I remember learning about a group of Sephardi Jews who would carry a pillow case filled with heavy books around the Seder table, to feel the burdens of slavery and then to experience the relief of letting the burdens go.

            I’m trying to use all of this practice now, to remind myself that I can handle this transition better if I take the grief in small bites, and with the help of some sweetness to balance out the pain. I’m trying, but each day the grief turns again to a slightly different edge, and it feels like I have to learn all of the same lessons all over again. Maybe the point of all of the practice isn’t that it will make these difficult transitions easy or automatic, but that it will give me a memory of having made it through to the other side, so I can have faith that I will make it across the sea this time too.

“We’ll always be here.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

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I Am Not Alone

Posted on March 2, 2024 by rachelmankowitz 





 





               In my adventures through Israeli music I’ve found one song title coming up over and over again: Lo Levad, or, Not alone.





               At first, I thought they must all be covers of the same song, because Israeli music is filled with covers and mash ups and duets, in a way that makes it feel like the whole country is one big Glee club. But when I listened to each recording, I realized that, no, they were all different songs, with different lyrics and musical styles and intentions. 





               Since loneliness is a feeling I’m very familiar with, I wanted to understand why Israel in particular would have so many songs on this topic, not just referenced in the lyrics but in the titles themselves. So, I chose three songs that I found particularly powerful, maybe only because they are “my” kind of music, to examine further.





Lo Levad – Jane Bordeaux https://youtu.be/H_gMtQ7BTo4?si=Obq-yjaSAL1Ry2yb





 





               Jane Bordeaux’s Lo Levad (written by Doron Talmon) was posted on YouTube soon after October 7th and is set at a kibbutz overrun by Hamas. A lone, burned tree is the first and enduring image of the song, but the roots of the tree are still strong, because of the people who are coming together to remember those they lost, and to rebuild. The melody is sad, but the message of community coming together is hopeful, and that melancholy contrast lingers long after the song is over. It’s not a big, banging rock song, or a cry for help; maybe it’s more like a folk song, the kind of thing you’d sing at a campfire, after a long day of cleaning up or picking clementines, to remind yourself that the effort is worth it. The basic message of Jane Bordeaux’s Lo Levad: some limbs of the tree may have been burned, but the roots are strong and with help the tree will heal and grow again.





 





Lo Levad – Aviv Alush and Omer Adam with Veteyn Chelkaynu https://youtu.be/EiYoDi7IwFQ?si=vX4tXZO1_EZxLzT-





               The second Lo Levad I chose was posted just before October 7th this year, and is performed by Aviv Alush and Omer Adam, and written by a collective of artists called Veteyn Chelkaynu, as part of a yearly project leading up to the Jewish high holidays, to inspire secular Israelis to return to religious study in some small way. The message of this Lo Levad is that you can always go home again, by which they mean return to God and to Torah (the Hebrew bible), which is very much in sync with the message of Rosh Hashanah, and the month of Elul that leads up to it. This is my favorite of all of the Lo Levad songs I’ve heard, and did the most to genuinely make me feel less alone each time I heard it, maybe because the idea of prayer and study, as part of a community, actually does resonate for me, a lot; though I wouldn’t limit it to religious study, because in my experience almost any group studying together, or singing together, and willing to acknowledge weakness and the need for comfort, creates this same powerful energy. I also like the contrast of the two voices, one gruff (Aviv Alush, a popular Israeli actor) and one sweet (Omer Adam, maybe the most famous and certainly the most prolific of Israel’s singers), and I like that in both the lyrics and the music, this song champions both crying out for help and reaching out to help someone else; there’s no sense that one role has more value or respect than the other. The basic message of Aviv Alush and Omer Adam’s Lo Levad: life is a difficult journey for everyone, with lots of choices along the way, but you don’t have to go on this journey alone, and you can find your way home, with help.





Lo Levad – Hanan Ben Ari https://youtu.be/6G_1fUcExJY?si=AB3rwHmRzwZDhqB3





               The third Lo Levad I chose is from Hanan Ben Ari (co-written by Roi Chasan), a popular Israeli singer/songwriter who sings a kind of pop/religious hybrid that really seems to crossover well. His Lo Levad, which is actually from seven years ago, is anthemic, built like an uphill climb, both in the music and in the lyrics (or what I understand of them, because the Hebrew here was hard for me in certain places). It’s written in third person, so it has that distance of speaking about someone else’s pain (even though it could be about him, who knows), and there’s a choir that jumps in when the song builds. The basic message of Hanan Ben Ari’s Lo Levad: even if you fall into the dark cavernous pit of loneliness, you can find the light and even the wings to fly.





               Together, all of these songs feel like puzzle pieces in the larger picture of how loneliness feels and how we try to combat it. Loneliness is certainly not unique to Israelis, but maybe their willingness to acknowledge it, and their focus on combatting it in community fits the Israeli ethos in particular. In the United States, where our most insistent value is independence, we have mixed feelings about acknowledging loneliness as a problem. We, maybe, see loneliness as a necessary price for the kind of rugged individualism we are supposed to strive for. But in Israel, where collectivist kibbutzim played such a big role in its beginnings, and mandatory army service brings people together from all walks of life, community is the key to survival.





               The loneliness theme also resonates in the physical isolation that is inherent in where Israel is located in the world, surrounded by Muslim majority countries that have, historically, seen Israel as a cancer that needs to be excised; and it responates with the long history of Jewish wandering that has led to being seen as the other by the majority populations of pretty much every place in the world.





               Wherever the loneliness comes from, though, it’s a relief to have it expressed, in music and in words, in so many ways; just the chance to hear about someone else’s struggle, and their attempts to find comfort, helps me fight off at least the bitterest edges of the loneliness.





               I didn’t include translations for these songs, because I wasn’t happy with my inability to really capture the magic of the words, and because I think it’s the music that is most powerful in these songs. There are, of course, other songs that have helped push away the loneliness, even when loneliness wasn’t even mentioned in the titles:





               Shleimim/Complete is performed by Idan Rafael Haviv (written by Avi Ohayon, Akiva Turgeman, and Matan Dror) and is a gentle love song about the kind of love that grows with every year together. https://youtu.be/kRy0xSsly_o?si=DKlSPPCyykkSRcdU





               Am Echad/One nation is written by Eli Keshet, Ben Tzur, and Omri Sasson and performed by a bunch of different Israeli musicians, and it’s a call for national unity in response to the current war, but also manages to capture the sweetness of coming together, even in hard times. https://youtu.be/u7CeOuIrxBM?si=8dtFFim9SZTnF9Bk





               Im Hayah Lanu Zman/If we had time, performed by Elai Botner and Noam Kleinstein and written by Elai Botner and Oren Jacoby is a re-recording of a song from a movie I never saw, about a different war, but Noam Kleinstein’s voice, even if I never understood the words, cracks me open every time I hear this song. https://youtu.be/mwPAlYxqLqE?si=uXKDfSQDW7xHKIXD





               As usual, I’ve been reading and listening to lots of voices about the war, and I found two people who were especially helpful in explaining the difference between the media coverage of the war in Israel and internationally: 





Einat Wilf with Eylon Levy – https://youtu.be/mHZyuposz3I?si=1rR7z-agkbHMt09o





Matti Friedman with Dan Senor – https://youtu.be/hZ3JGq5dxEE?si=I46SXBRex5B1ThRF





 





               It still feels pretty lonely to be Jewish right now, but all of these resources have helped in different ways, and writing the blog and hearing from my readers and fellow bloggers, helps immensely. I don’t need everyone to see things the same way I do, but I do need to feel like I’m part of the picture, part of the community of voices that are hearing and being heard.





               Thank you for helping me feel less alone.





 





If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.





            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?





 





               

					


	

		
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Translating Israeli Music

	
	

		Posted on February 17, 2024 by rachelmankowitz
	


	

				

            I’ve been obsessively listening to Israeli music for a few years now, but the obsession went into overdrive after October 7th, when I needed to feel a connection to Israel that wasn’t all about the news. And as the months have passed, Israeli musicians have been creating more and more music, and finding new meaning in songs that came out before October 7th, as performers have crisscrossed their small country singing at soldiers’ last minute weddings, at hospital bedsides, for evacuees from the south and the north of Israel, and really for whoever has needed comfort. David Broza and Hanan Ben Ari and Shiri Maimon and Ishai Ribo and Sarit Hadad and Omer Adam and Keren Peles and Benaia Barabi and so many others have been singing at small parties and huge vigils and everything in between with a generosity and humility that’s hard to imagine in American superstars. It’s as if the whole music industry in Israel has mobilized to try to help people put their feeling into words, and to fight off the isolation of grief.





            I wish the outside world could hear what I’m hearing, but because most of the songs are in Hebrew, they just don’t reach across the divide. And, despite listening to all of this music out of a desire to connect, I’ve actually felt even more isolated, because so few people around me are listening to the same music. Even at my synagogue, where the situation in Israel is top of mind, there are very few people who understand enough Hebrew to listen to this music and enjoy it. So, a few weeks ago, I started trying to translate some of the songs into English, in the hopes that I could close some of that divide.





            My goal was to try to make the music accessible to people who don’t know Hebrew and for me to understand the songs better myself. I’m certainly not the first person to feel called to do this; there are multiple sites online where amateur translators can upload their translations of songs from other languages (my favorite is lyricstranslate.com).





Some Israeli pop songs have been professionally translated: there’s a popular video on YouTube of Tamir Greenberg on Kochav HaBah singing an English version of Hanan Ben Ari’s Shvurei Lev/The Broken Hearted. And there’s a lovely half English/half Hebrew version of an Ishai Ribo song (with the Solomon Brothers) that manages to capture something of the original magic.





Hanan Ben Ari – Shvurei Lev/Broken Hearts – the original Hebrew - https://youtu.be/z27MZP_4P_U?si=Pbl5l_VobYY3pDop





Tamir Greenberg Singing Hanan Ben Ari’s Shvurei Lev/Broken Hearts - in English - https://youtu.be/Je6LCZH_wF8?si=6mLVIw-G1vnpnDH3





Ishai Ribo &The Solomon Brothers – My Way Back Home – English and Hebrew - https://youtu.be/WZ6HvzFh7js?si=fVRJ2guZL--PlP9e





            But more often than not, the English translations are awkward. The problem is that Hebrew has so many internal rhymes and rhythms, and English is so chaotic and free form that you can’t make the songs sound alike. So, when I approached my own translations I didn’t even bother trying to rhyme, and focused instead on capturing the rhythm and the emotion of the original Hebrew, to the best of my ability.





            The first song I chose is called Zeh Beseder/It’s Okay and it was a collaboration between an Israeli singer named Benaia Barabi and survivors of the Nova Music festival. It’s written in simple Hebrew, so I didn’t have to spend too much time on Google Translate, and it’s all about survivor’s guilt and needing to heal at your own pace, so it felt pretty universal.





Benaia Barabi and the Nova Singers – Zeh Beseder - https://youtu.be/WlBWOrLqErI?si=jNANaBBvWK4LWMza





 





Zeh Beseder/It’s Okay – Written and performed by: Benaia Barabi, et al.





(My Translation)





It’s okay that we’re not okay now





It’s okay to sing when it hurts





It’s okay to cry every morning





And even then to choose to rise





It’s okay to not feel normal





It’s okay not to say a word





It’s okay to dance ‘til morning





In a darkness full of hope





It’s easier to hide my face





To keep the pain in for a thousand years





The voices that keep screaming in my head





To pray for those small moments





When life is normal and we start to change





Only for my broken heart, I’ve tried to keep the faith





I want most of all to be together





To never have to be alone





To choose to sing at the top of my voice





And to reach out for your hand





We want most of all to live without fear





It’s okay to laugh just like that





Most of all I want to hug you close





Is it okay for me to love?





Most of all I want to hug you close





It’s okay for me to love





It’s okay to put on make-up and dress well





It’s okay to start to lose direction





Life keeps moving forward





So who am I not to go along?





It’s okay not to find the answer





It’s okay to need to pray for faith





It’s okay to ask a thousand questions





Of whether to be or not to be





It’s easier to hide my face





To keep the pain in for a thousand years





The voices that keep screaming in my head





I want most of all to be together





To never have to be alone





To choose to sing at the top of my voice





And to reach out for your hand





We want most of all to live without fear





It’s okay to laugh just like that





Most of all I want to hug you close





Is it okay for me to love?





            The second song I chose is called Habayta, which literally means, “Towards Home,” about wanting the hostages to come home. The performance of the song, by Raviv Kaner, captures everything, even if you don’t understand any of the words, honestly. And if it were a song in English, about Americans being held hostage, it would probably be on American radio 24/7.





Raviv Kaner – HaBayta - https://youtu.be/Kgv7LNME33s?si=msXRuCH4nT_RSgo5





HaBayta/Return Them Home – Written by: Raviv Kaner and Elnatan Shalom





(My translation)





My father’s up, he’s already awake





My mother’s here, her pain just never ends





Mom and Dad go back to sleep again





Maybe it’s Shabbat and not Sunday





Surrounded by the noise and the chaos





There’s nothing left, there’s no point





Return him home to me right this moment





There’s nothing left, there’s no point





Return her home to me right this moment





Return them home





It’s dark now, turn off all the lights





Maybe for a day or two, at least





Because between despair and hope, I dream





When it’s over, I will breathe again





Surrounded by the noise and chaos





There’s nothing left, there’s no point





Return him home to me right this moment





There’s nothing left, there’s no point





Return her home to me right this moment





Return them home





There’s nothing left, there’s no point





Return them home to me right this moment





There’s nothing left, there’s no point





Return them home to me right this moment





Return them home





            Maybe, in the end, I’m just doing these translations as a way to spend more time with music I love, but it would be really nice to share it with other people.





            Let me know what you think.





Bonus: Two versions of a Jewish prayer (that didn’t need translation) that has become popular for months now, because it asks for the release of captives:





Acheinu Kol Beit Yisrael – With English Subtitles - https://youtu.be/MYXr6wk19rA?si=tEZqQMmv4_LhyVIu





Lior Narkis and Avi Ohayon’s version (my favorite) – https://youtu.be/vYoQpKNt4II?si=LDwqbZrereSKGP73





If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.





            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

					


	

		
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