Rockets and Bombs and Deaths - Oh My!

It's been a rough week.

After suffering through hives and the prednisone side effects, I ended up back at the clinic on Tuesday with a sinus infection. In the States, I have always had doctors check my nose, throat and ears, but this doctor decided to bypass my nose and ears and to press really hard on my face instead. I have witnesses who claim this is a legit means of diagnosis, but let me tell you, I prefer the less painful approach of looking at my ears and nose! The doc gave me scripts for amoxycillin and codeine - again, never had codeine prescribed for a sinus infection, but the pharmacist acted like it was normal. I only took three of them, one each evening the first three days, and I was amazed at how all the pressure in my head magically disappeared! Of course, instead of getting codeine's drowsiness, I ended up with amoxycillin's insomnia. I really can't win when it comes to side effects.

Of course, the real news of the week was the bombing near the central bus station on Wednesday. I was in class when it happened. Someone from the grad office came and told us the news and did a roll call. We were all in shock. I was actually there the day before, since the clinic is nearby. (Normally I have no reason to go there.) Class continued, but I can't say that I really paid attention after that. I spent the rest of the class checking Google News for updates and emailing my friends and family to let them know what had happened and that I was okay. It was initially reported as a bus bombing, but the bomb was actually on the sidewalk, near some of the bus stops. From what I understand, the blast hit two buses. Over thirty people were injured, and one, a 54-year-old British woman, was killed. That woman was a student at Rothberg and the classmate of one of my roommates. She came to Israel to learn Hebrew so she could translated the Hebrew Bible into one of the African dialects. She had spent 20 years living in west Africa and had already translated the New Testament. It's all so tragic.

Thursday, it was more or less business as usual, although we did learn bomb-related words in Hebrew.

Yesterday, four pipe bombs were found in the possession of several Palestinians at one of the checkpoints.

Prior to the bombing in Jerusalem, there were already increased tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians. I don't really know anything more than what I read on Google News (and I admit, I don't always check it as often as I should), but apparently Gaza has launched some rockets into Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beer-Sheba. In response to these rockets and the bombing on Wednesday, Israel has launched rockets into Gaza. And of course, Gaza responded to that with more rockets. The Israeli mortar attack killed 9 Palestinians, including 4 civilians - 3 of whom were children, with an additional 19 Palestinians injured. According to one report, there were "no victims" from the over 100 rockets launched by Gaza last week. Israel is threatening a major ground invasion, larger than Operation Cast Lead of 2008.

I don't know why Hamas and Gaza decided to attack Israel, and I don't trust the media to offer an unbiased report of the events. I do not condone violence (even if I am admittedly seemingly obsessed with it) and I do not agree with any of the violence that has occurred over the past week. Six months ago, Israel and Palestine were sitting down to talk about peace. Now they are bombing each other. How is violence going to lead to peace? I understand that the Palestinians are desperate, and honestly, I don't blame them. But are attacks on settlers, rockets and bombings going to solve anything? All it does is give Israel an excuse to retaliate, and let's face it, Israel can do far more damage to Palestine. Gaza managed to launch over 100 rockets without killing any Israelis, military or civilians, but with just one hour of bombing, Israel killed 9, including 3 children. I don't know if Gaza intentionally chose targets that wouldn't result in fatalities or if Israel wanted their bombs to be lethal (although the latter seems likely, since the Israeli defense of the deaths was that they took out 4 known Palestinians militants), but the statistics don't lie: the Israelis are more efficient when it comes to killing their enemy. There is no question about Israel's military prowess. So why is Hamas giving Israel any excuse to attack innocent Palestinians? I don't understand it. And after Wednesday's bombing, and especially since the only fatality was a foreigner, Israel pretty much has the world's support.

Don't get me wrong. What happened on Wednesday was inexcusable. But so was the death of four innocent Palestinians, among whom were three children, at the hands of Israel.

Side Effects of a Day Trip

So it has not been the best week. The prednisone brought the hives under control in no time, but the side effects had me wondering on multiple occasions if the cure wasn't worse than the disease. Insomnia, nausea, lightheadedness, inability to concentrate - you name it, I had it. I even started having side effects of side effects! I spent most of the weekend, in bed, attempting to recover from the prednisone. I never, ever want to be on this stuff again!

Despite feeling more dead than alive most of the week, I actually did a lot more than I normally do. Tuesday was Annie's birthday, so Kristin and I (and Kristin's friend Meg who is visiting) had a mini-surprise party for her. She had class until 8pm, so we couldn't go out, but we made chocolate-covered strawberries and spent some quality time together. We celebrated more officially on Thursday, when we (the four of us plus Jon) had dinner at Focaccia Bar, which is one of our favs. We had a grand ol' time, although I did have to duck out after a couple of hours because I was having major side effect issues and needed fresh air.

Today I went on a day trip with some of the other grad students to the north, to Akko, Kibbutz Yagur and Daliat el-Carmel. It was a lovely day and so nice to get away from campus and from Jerusalem. At Akko, we saw remains from the old city, from the Crusader and Ottoman periods, along with the British prison where members of the Jewish resistance organizations (Haganah, Irgun and Lehi) were imprisoned. We bought lunch in the Arab market and walked to the Mediterranean via the Templar Tunnels. Akko has an interesting history because in its 4000 years of existence, it has always had a 'mixed' occupancy - even in the glory days of David and Solomon, Akko was never fully defeated by Israel. Apparently Napoleon was also defeated at Akko in 1799, and according to our tour guide, his visit is what sparked modern interest in Israel. (I am sure he contributed to Western interest in the land, but it seemed to be a rather slanted view of history. The tour guide said there was nothing in Israel for all those centuries - which, of course, isn't true - and, of course, it wasn't Israel, it was Palestine. But that's just me.)

Anyways, after Akko, we visited Kibbutz Yagur, which is the kibbutz on which our grad student assistant Maya grew up. It is one of the original kibbutzim and played an important role in the foundation of the State of Israel, with several of the Haganah missions being launched from there. It was very interesting to see the kibbutz and to hear how it operates. It is still very much communal, more so than many of the other ones in Israel. Everyone must give all their money to the kibbutz, and each month each family is given an allowance according to the number of people. It is not very much money - not enough to save anything - but their housing, healthcare, schools, etc. are all covered. They also don't own their own cars - the kibbutz owns 100 or so cars and apparently there is some system in place that allows the members to use them. And they have cows! They weren't guernseys, but they still made me :)

Our last stop today was Daliat el-Carmel, a Druze village. Being Druze, from my understanding, is sort of like being Jewish - it is both an ethnicity, in that you are born a Druze, and a religion. However, there is no becoming Druze. The religion originated in the 11th c. as an offshoot of Islam and there was a very short period of time that people were allowed to join. They are an esoteric monotheistic religion whose primary or supreme prophet is Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. They also believe in reincarnation. Other than that, though, there is not much to tell because only the religious Druze are allowed to read their holy books. There are roughly 1 million Druze in the world, about 100,000 or so in Israel. Something interesting about the Druze is that they do not want their own country. They believe in being good citizens of the country in which they live. Which means the Druze here in Israel identify as Israelis (not Arabs or Palestinians), and they serve in the IDF with the Israeli Jews. Apparently it is not uncommon for Druze to stay in the IDF and rise in the ranks, and many Druze could be considered Zionists.

Okay, that is enough of a history lesson for today. There was more that I was going to write about, but it is late and I am exhausted. Pictures from today will hopefully be posted on facebook tomorrow.

Hives, Hebrew & Ham

The highlights of the past week all seem to be "H" oriented.

On Thursday, I rather spontaneously decided to accompany Annie and Kristin on their quest to find an air mattress and bedding. It started out at the bookstore on campus, where Kristin had previous success in locating an air mattress. All we found was 50% off Dr. Seuss in Hebrew for me and 80% off some book on translations for Annie. Of course, I deliberately chose Green Eggs and Ham without thinking about the irony of that particular book being translated into Hebrew. However, the Hebrew title, לא רעב ולא אוהב, means Not Hungry and Don't Like, and throughout the book that is the translation for "green eggs and ham." Alas, Israel has koshorized Dr Seuss! When I return to the States, we can have storytime in Hebrew! [On a related note, a few weeks ago, I was given a Hebrew copy of the New Testament, which made me rather happy.] After Annie and I made our 'elephant' purchases, we tried our luck at the non-bookstore on campus (the name I gave it because both stores are called Academon) but to no avail. So we decided to make an afternoon of it and travel to the Jerusalem Mall, which is about an hour-long bus ride, to try Home Center. Success! We found both an air mattress and bedding for cheap (cheap for Israel AND cheap for the US - that NEVER happens!). And since we were having such a lovely time together (and had no desire to do homework), we extended the shopping trip into dinner at Black Burger, which ended with a victory lava cake for dessert. I don't know that we ever decided what 'victory' we were celebrating, but we're girls, so it's not like we really needed much of an excuse for hot, gooey chocolate goodness.

The major "H" of the week, however, was Hives. Wednesday I noticed some bug bites, which I assumed were mosquito bites as I was rather itchy. Every morning since, I have woken up with more and more bumps, itchier and itchier. They started to hurt and to sting, and sleeping became difficult. Yesterday, I woke up and was all but covered with these red bumps and finally decided they might be more than just mosquito bites. Of course, it was shabbat, so getting to a clinic (the Israeli version of urgent care) was not very ideal, so it had to wait until this morning. The doctor thought it was probably viral and prescribed steroids, since Benadryl (even 2 pills twice a day) wasn't helping. I maintain that it started out as mosquito bites, from which I developed hives. I have never broken out in hives before from mosquito bites, but I have had other allergic reactions to them (mainly ridiculous amounts of swelling). The doctor also wanted to make sure my blood counts were normal (they are), but once again I had a nurse who thought she knew better than me when I tried to tell her that she needed to take it from my hand. I get that normally it is more painful to take blood from a vein in the hand instead of the arm, but that is not the case when the veins in your arm are tiny and they have to dig around to find one. Katie, my friend who was kind enough to accompany me, said the look on the nurse's face was hilarious as she first tried one arm and then the other before finally realizing that I was right and she should take it from my hand. I realize that patients are not always reliable sources of medical information, but when it comes to things like where blood should be drawn, I think we tend to know what is best for our bodies - especially if we specifically request it to be taken from a nonconventional spot like a hand (or in my case, it was actually a vein on the side of my wrist). That probably means we have had some experience having blood drawn and know where it should be taken from! But anyways, the steroids seem to be doing their thing. I am not nearly as itchy (although I am still rather freaky looking), although I am having all sorts of fun side effects!