How I spent my Sukkot vacation.

Hebrew lesson of the day: “zeh lo tov,” which literally translates to “this no good.”
So, I’m in Israel on a community service program, but for some reason about half of us chose to spend our Sukkot break doing extra volunteer work because we like to believe that the country needs our help. We signed up for this trip for Israeli college students to go up to the mountain town of Kiryat Shmonah, which I had been told is so far north that you can actually see Lebanon, but I hadn’t realized that this wasn’t just an exaggeration – the town literally backs up to a hill that is half Israel, half Lebanon. I’m talking, you could stand in Lebanon and if you spit with enough force, you could actually hit the circus tent we slept under. (We camped out on the grass at a swim center that was closed for the “cold” season.) By the way, I’ll be living in this bull’s-eye of a town from November to February, and it’s decidedly way too soon to make Katyusha jokes while I’m there.
Anyway, the first day we were in Kiryat Shmonah, I helped remodel a new urban village, which I think is pretty much another name for hippie commune. By this I mean I scraped what appeared to be Asbestos off the wall and sanded down what was quite possibly lead paint. Probably lo tov for someone recovering from Mediterranean Spotted Fever, but I’m just guessing on that one.
On day two I joined the forestry volunteers. I’ve been joking for a while that Kiryat Shmonah was “on fire” during the Lebanon war, but I didn’t know how true that statement actually was. We had to cut down burnt trees with these giant machete-like swords, and we all know that I can’t be trusted with anything sharper than a butter knife, so I was on branch-clearing duty for the day. Notable quote from the directors: “If you see a katyusha, don’t touch it.” We planted trees on the third day, but that’s boring so I’m going to skip to the next few days, which were spent in the holy city of Jerusalem!
I went to J-Ru with a group of 6 other girls, and we headed straight to the OTZMA hostel of choice, Jerusalem Hostel. When we got there we were informed that all the rooms were booked except for the roof and The Cave. After camping out for the last few days we decided that it was real beds or nothing, so we selected The Cave; however, this came with a few surprises:
#1: No windows! We accidentally slept in until at least 11 every morning, thinking that it was 5AM because the room was pitch black at all hours of the day.
#2: No bathroom! This of course meant that we had to shower on the roof. But such is the story of my life.
On Thursday, Sheri and I had the bright idea that we should get our ears pierced; I think it’s safe to say that this was the most Slovakian thing I’ve ever done, and I mean that in the sketchiest way possible. We went to a tattoo shop a few blocks off Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, so it wasn’t quite the touristy area but only a couple shady alleys off. The guys that ran the place either didn’t want to or didn’t know how to speak anything besides Russian, which was quite disconcerting when my fate was literally in their hands. You’re wondering why I didn’t just walk away and wait until later to get my ears pierced, but that clearly wasn’t an option. Sheri wanted to get two cartilage pierces (one for 120 sheks, two for 200! Cash only, obviously) but I safely chose to get a third hole in each lobe, which fortunately isn’t too difficult to botch.
When it was my turn, I sat back in the big recliner and squeezed Sheri’s hand with all my strength while bracing myself for what was to be the worst pain of my life, aside from the rook pierce from last July and perhaps childbirth. The fucking Russians!!! He showed me that the needle was completely sterile and came from a new, plastic wrapper, and then proceeded to stab me through the left earlobe when I totally wasn’t ready. But here’s the thing: they don’t use REAL earrings in Israel, apparently. He used the same kind of earring that you’d expect to see in an eyebrow or cartilage or something, where the ball screws onto the top and the whole thing is kind of curved like a banana, and definitely a lot longer than necessary for a little earlobe. So the jackass decided to lose the ball after he had already stuck the rest of the earring through my ear, and as he was reaching behind my back to try to find the ball he continued to pull up on my ear, so I was scooting higher up in the chair so as to diffuse some of the tugging on my fresh wound, all the while screaming “ZEH LO TOV LO TOV LO TOV LO TOV!!” and he was shouting at me in broken Russian and Hebrew to shut the hell up and stop squirming, and of course Jenn was pissing her pants laughing in the waiting room and Sheri was too scared to look at what was happening to me. Yeah, so that’s why you shouldn’t get your ears pierced in the Middle East.
Friday was the exciting holiday of Simchat Torah, which I’m pretty sure just means that the Sukkahs have to be taken down and the torah gets wound back to the beginning. Sukkahs, for all you non-Jews, are these little huts that people sit in for one week every year. We used to make paper chains for them in Hebrew school, but the whole point of it is that you’re kind of outside, kind of inside, or basically constructing a shack that’s fit for a homeless person as long as it isn’t raining. But because Jerusalem is such a religious city, the sukkahs are everywhere! You can go to a café, a bar, even a Chinese restaurant, and you can eat your food in a sukkah. It’s pretty crazy, I think.
In honor of the holiday, we went to the Western Wall on Shabbos for what was pretty much the best people-watching of my entire life. Lax games – nuh uh. People-watching in the Old City is way better because Jews are like toys! They come in all shapes and sizes, some with full suits and others in silk bathrobes, and some even wear round, furry hats! Also, when I was younger my dad told me that religious women shave their heads and wear wigs, but the only image I could think of was Roald Dahl’s The Witches and I definitely didn’t believe him, but I’ve since come to realize that the man spoke the truth. Married Orthodox women get these $5000 wigs that are made of real human hair, and they all walk around with their cute little outfits and perfect hairdos and I’m so fascinated by them – I’m not gonna lie, I kind of want to be an Orthodox girl just for the clothes.
Apparently one of the traditions of Simchat Torah is dancing around with none other than the torah itself. After eating Shabbat dinner with one of Jeff Seidel’s cronies, we went back to the wall in hopes of witnessing the Jews in action. Sure enough, around midnight, we saw this amoeba-like mass of men in black hats dancing around in somewhat of a tornado, singing weird Hebrew songs and holding a few torahs high above their heads as they pranced around each other with their limbs flailing all over the place. We dared each other to jump in and see what would happen since the Heebs can’t touch girls, but we all got too scared as the stampede approached us and we jumped away to safety at the last minute.
In sum, an enjoyable sukkot break, but I’m ready to go back 2 skool.