Passover Sacrifice with the Samaritans

Fire pits in the foreground, trench in the background, and dais to its left.

As the armored Land Rover Defender I am riding in grinds to a halt with a flurry of dust and the general riding shotgun steps out, droves of foreign tourists are pushing one another trying to get into a gated-in courtyard on the crest of Mt. Gerizim.  They and we are making our way to the annual Samaritan pascal sacrifice.  Following my officers closely, we wove our way with no small effort through the envious masses and past a hefty bouncer in Samaritan costume who bars the gate after our entry.  

Inside the gate and down a brief flight of steps opened a crowded plaza riddled with pits, gouged down the middle by a trench about thirty yards in length, and mounted by a paved dais on one side.

Samaritans standing beside the trench

The Samaritans mill about in their all-white garb, some sport red fezzes, others baseball caps; some hold staves or knives and others bucking, bleating sheep.  Intermingling with the Samaritans were Israeli and foreign tourists, Israeli soldiers (like myself) in uniform, Israeli and Palestinian police officers (smiling and chatting with one another), and a profundity of journalists and photographers.  Like flies on a carcass they buzzed about clicking their cameras at everything and everyone.  The center of the dais was flanked by rows of chairs for we gentile spectators.  On the stone wall behind, curious characters reminiscent of a Hebrew alphabet that fell out of style millennia ago are inscribed.  

I interviewed Ovadia Cohen, the ritual's emcee, before the hubbub began.  He told me that the Samaritans, who hold both Israeli and Palestinian ID cards, live in limbo between their more populous Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighbors.  Despite the hardships they've experienced in recent years because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they "hope to act as a bridge between the two peoples" in the drive towards peace.  The turnout for this year's Passover offering is evidence of the improving security situation in the West Bank, Colonel Raid Mansour says.  The number of non-Samaritan attendants eight years ago was a fraction of this year's, which was estimated at over a thousand. 

The Samaritan elders congregate in a concentrated mass, distinguishable from their flock by their brightly colored robes and a cream and gold band wrapped around the base of their fezzes.  Chanting prayers as one in a language reminiscent of Hebrew but ringing of antiquity, they began their sacred rite.  (I was later informed that their prayers were in Aramaic.)  Several dozen sheep, bewildered by the multitudes of spectators and participants were herded to the edge of the trench and held by eager youths brandishing razor sharp blades.  The high priest, donning a blue and white tallit like many I had seen in synagogues, uttered a final cantillation in an ululating, wavering voice.  His prayer reached a climactic pitch, and with a whoop and cry the ritual sacrifice was on.  In the blink of an eye several dozen knives slit the throats of the sheep, whose blood splattered on the pristine white clothes of their slaughterers and was smeared, like ash on Ash Wednesday, on their foreheads with the thumb.  

Entrails on the altar

The men then set to work removing the wooly coats of their quarry, gutting them, and impaling them on ten foot spits.  The fires were ignited and the smoke started billowing upwards.  Guts were cleaned of their still-digesting contents, and soon the first entrails were tossed onto the massive grill thrown over the flame.  The recently baaing carcasses were carried to the barbecue pits and the Passover offering was prepared for consumption.    

As I left, the fires were crackling and the sheep were being moved onto the flames for the exclusive consumption by the Samaritans.  Israelis and Palestinians stood clustered together as the Samaritans hustled about with unleavened bread (that closer resembled lafa flatbread than the water cracker style matzah that European Jews eat on Passover) and sprigs of bitter herbs, getting ready to add fresh meat to their pascal meal.  Were it not for the cameras and cell phones, I reflected, there was little different about Sunday night's ceremony from the barbaric Jewish sacrifices carried out in this land in days of yore.  

To all readers, a happy passover!  חג שמח!

To pee or not to pee, that's being a soldier

Being in the army, regardless of your role, reconnects you with the most primal aspects of being human.  As a friend in my unit remarked over lunch the other day, soldiers are always hungry, tired, and horny, no matter what they do.  Whether you're a desk jockey or a combat soldier, you are constantly wary of lurking foes- most often referred to as officers- which exacts a heavy toll on your nerves.  
Far worse, however, is the perpetual motion between base, home, and points inbetween. Together with food that would make a gastronome contemplate suicide, regular long distance bus travel reminds each and every soldier how limited in size a colon or bladder can be, and how very precious the comfort of a clean bathroom.  An average trek home in Israel's midsection from my base in the craggy heart of the West Bank takes an exhausting three bus rides totaling four or more hours.  According to soldiers posted on Israel's extreme peripheries, far from the beaten path of public transportation, I am fortunate. That is of little relief when you are stuck in traffic and really have to go.
The true sanctum of the god of war lies in Morpheus's arms.  No matter how much sleep I had the night prior, when I get home I immediately change out of uniform and curl up in bed.  Sleep on base is a physical necessity, a chore imposed upon us by our bodies; at home it is a visceral pleasure akin to sex. 
On leave in Jerusalem the other night, my brother and I ate an impromptu dinner (my second, closely chasing a bagel and cream cheese) with his friend, Josh.  Passover is fast approaching, so consumptive eradication of leavened goods like whiskey, pasta, beer, and bread were in order- with a side of salad.  Josh apologized for the botched baked ziti.  I reminded him (a former soldier himself) how any food off base beat the monotonous slop they fed us daily and ate it with gusto.
As I sipped Balvenie I contemplated these and other oddities of army life: the value of a quality rubber band for rolling up a pant cuff, the pervasive hurry up and wait attitude, the ease with which politics are put aside with your jeans and t-shirts- and laughed.    

Sardine season at TAU

According to a recent study by U.S World News Report - and already reported heavily within the Israeli media - Tel Aviv University ranked as one of the world's top universities for 2010 in terms of academic citations per faculty. In doing so, the White City's most esteemed institution for high learning surpassed Cambridge, Oxford, Yale and Columbia while sitting right next to Harvard, MIT and Princeton as far as faculty productivity and research quality goes (see Carlo Strenger's piece in Haaretz for the complete breakdown) You may be asking yourself what the hell this means in the first place as far as academia is concerned and why TAU is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the above listed schools let alone within Israel itself as other institutions - albeit not even close to being on par academically with TAU (sorry IDC students) - seem to be the front running choices for many prospective scholars.

On one hand, it means that the quality of research coming out of Tel Aviv University and the strength that research has provided to other academics and scholars is second to none worldwide. Yet, on the other hand, it means there are a number of inadequacies as applied to the ability of students to fully absorb themselves within the intellectual surroundings provided by the school's rich academic expanse as espoused by its faculty. This may best be explained by the Tokyo-like subway feeling that students experience as they sit sandwiched between other students while trying to focus on what the lecturer is saying instead of thinking about how they don't even have enough room to take notes as their elbows frequently meet others's in an attempt to scribble down what is being said. Simply, this situation is unacceptable. The year is 2011 and the majority of classrooms at TAU resemble what one might find in the not so illustrious public high schools in many of the US's largest cities. There is not even enough room on each desk/piece of wood to put a normal sized notebook. Hence, taking notes on 3x5 index cards may be more efficient than struggling to make sure an 8x11 notebook does not go sliding off the pieces of scraps that the university deems as suitable student desks.

So after 2 years of studying the 'Cuban Missile Crisis' and attacking it from every angle (thanks Graham Allison), I finally decided that sitting wedged in like a sardine was a miserable way to spend what should be a beautiful spring/summer - full of rebirth, seminar papers and day beers. And as much as Tel Aviv University is genuinely a place where students are exposed to a wealth of esteemed scholars, professors and other professionals, students will rarely feel those lasting influences, only to lose their focus as they think about how miserable it is to be crushed between other students that are feeling those same frustrations.

A brief and belated remark

Before serving in the army I had spent next to no time in the West Bank, certainly nowhere near as much as I have in the past month.  My army service is with CoGAT, and for the last month I was stationed at the field headquarters outside Ramallah.  The offices were a former Jordanian hospital, and the rest of the base is the typical thrown-together assortment of tin-roofed trailers and temporary outbuildings.  Just one hundred yards from where I slept, a mosque on Ramallah's outskirts blared the call of prayer (waking me up regularly at 4 and then 5am.  What astonished me most how close I was to the rising construction cranes and broad avenues of downtown Ramallah, and yet how far and detached everything on base seemed.  Though surrounded by Palestinians, there we were, managing the affairs their government should, spending our time, effort, and money on things Israelis don't benefit from.

Driving to base on the 170 bus only reinforced that impression.  After crossing through the Hizme checkpoint, we bypassed every village on the way as if they were leper colonies, only to stop at a lonely gas station near Psagot to unload and take on passengers.  The winding roads that hug the hillsides weave their way through the Samarian hills, past terrace upon terrace of olive trees and dull beige clusters of farm houses, and meander upwards to lonely Jewish outposts of concrete and trailer homes crowning fog-blanketed peaks.  What would ordinarily be a forty-five minute ride in a car takes two hours on a public bus, for they service each of these thousand or two strong settlements nestled above their Arab neighbors.  The names of these villages proclaim the religious beliefs and heritage of those inhabiting them: Shiloh, Eli, Brachot, Psagot, Ariel.  

While topographically there is no difference between the hills around Jerusalem and those around Nablus or Ramallah, there is a wholly different vibe.  Palestinian license plates and flags merely demarcate an already clear divide between Israel and the West Bank, a divide that transcends political nuance.  No amount of religious or political demagoguery can convince me otherwise now that I've seen it for myself.  Though beautiful, it is foreign.

Before you criticize...

For many, criticizing Israel for the continuous construction of new building projects in the post 1967 captured territories has become like drinking a cup or two of coffee - part of the daily routine. Obviously, Israel has become its own worst enemy in terms of garnering this criticism as it has arrogantly pursued a jaded policy of refusing to stop settlement construction within areas that will eventually become part of a future Palestinian state - assuming that the current stagnation in negotiations does not lead to a de facto Palestinian entity come September as deemed by the UN or even a binational state, something whose likelihood is gaining more ground with each passing day (see Qaddafi's Israstine). Clearly, there are certain areas beyond the Green Line, in particular within the Eastern part of Jerusalem - that due to their majority Arab population - will surly be transferred to the Palestinians (i.e Abu Dis and Sheikh Jarrah) while other predominantly Jewish areas, despite being part of the post 1967 territory, will remain as part of the Israel of the future.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of emphasis by the media in reporting the many territorial proposals jointly drawn-up by both sides. Instead, everything is blindly referred to as all land captured in 1967 after the Six Day War. However, the majority of shelved initiatives, accords and written agreements (see Clinton Peace Plan, Geneva Initiative, Abu Mazen-Yossi Beilin Agreement) have addressed the legitimacy of Israel in holding onto the bulk of Jewish neighborhoods in the Eastern part of Jerusalem, despite the fact that they are recognized as occupied land both by the Palestinians and the International community.

At this point, the Palestinian leadership realizes that evacuating certain Jewish neighborhoods to the North, South and East of the Green Line is not feasible, assuming that the Arab areas of East Jerusalem - those that already suffer from an inadequate balance of services supplied by the Jerusalem municipality - will be integrated into any future Palestinian state. So as much as we may be quick to condemn the approval of new Jewish housing units in Sheikh Jarrah, we must be equally critical of those who unequivocally bash Israel for new construction within particular areas that will remain within the current status quo as publicly agreed to and recognized by some of the Palestinian Authority's most respected veteran officials.

So before you criticize and before the media decides to roll with misleading and controversial headlines regarding Israel's approval for new construction in Gilo - as made evident today - please make sure you understand the previously agreed bilateral documents which have already addressed and settled 90% of the issues between the two sides. As for the other 10% that hasn't been settled...well, that is for the young diplomats to decide.