Rosh Hashana Sameach!!

Happy New Year!

"Erik's web-based log...a 'blog' if you will" will be taking a few days off to ring in the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana.

In the meantime, I've included a few pics from Thursday's ulpan class, in which I led the group in a rousing rendition of "The Land of Milk and Honey," which is a children's Rosh Hashana song. Yes, that's right, a children's song. Please remember that we are absorbing Hebrew at a 1st grade reading level.

Hag Sameach (happy holiday!)


Me teaching the class the words to the song. Fortunately,
there were only four of them.















I think Bono would be proud of my exploits.

A little Q & A

Lately, I have received an overwhelming (although I use the term "overwhelming" rather loosely) amount of mail from fans around the world asking what it's like to live in Israel. So in the interest of education and enlightenment, I will now begin answering any questions people have about Israel and/or what it feels like to be here these days on the blog. So if you're curious about anything, please feel free to post it and I will be sure to answer expeditiously.

Let's get started. Our first question comes to us from New York City:

Dear Erik:
You really are a cool, handsome, intelligent, funny, and enterprising young man. I admire you very much. My first question is: "How do I become more like you?" And my second question is: "What's the first thing you see when you walk out of your dorm room in Israel?"

Your biggest fan,
Eric Leviz



Dear Reader,
Thanks for writing as well as for the compliment, as misguided and creepy as it is.
The answer to your first question is simple: eat more Nutella. Ideally straight out of the jar and with your index finger.

The answer to your second question is also easy: Cats. Tons and tons of cats. Apparently, stray cats are a problem here in Israel and there is no shortage here at Hebrew University. Why so many homeless cats? I don't have the faintest idea. In this part of the world, you would think you'd run into a lot of stray camels. But no, cats are our biggest problem here. Sometimes they walk right into our dorm and set up shop in the common areas. They're actually very cute. But you'll never see me petting one. The last time anyone I know touched a stray animal, he got pink eye for a week. I won't tell you who it is, but I will say his name starts with the letters A-R-I-E-L and he may or may not be my brother.

So anyways, cats are generally the first thing I see when I walk out of my dorm room. I suppose stray cats are better than New York's rat problem, right Eric?

Sincerely,
Levis


One of the several thousand stray cats roaming the
grounds of Hebrew University. I don't remember this
one's name. He told me but I forgot.

Overheard In Ulpan...

Ulpan Class Aleph-Shteim (aleph-two)! We may not be the brightest
Hebrew speakers, but at least we photograph well. Sort of.

One of the funnier internet sites I've come across is that "Overheard In..." website where hopelessly bored and disturbingly instrusive people eavesdrop on the conversations of others, take note of the idiotic things they say, and then share them with all of cyberspace. It's pathetic. And hysterical.

Well, I've decided to do the same thing with my ulpan class. The reason I am allowing myself to do this is because I too have made many moronic statements during class and I love self-deprecating humor. So in the spirit of good old-fashioned laughter, I have assembled several of my favorite, foot-in-mouth highlights from the first month of ulpan.

First, a quick primer on my ulpan-mates. We are students whose knowledge of Hebrew ranges from "somewhat decent" to "abhorently pathetic." We're the students who the teachers make fun of in the lounge. We are the few, the proud. We are Aleph-2.

There are about 12 of us in the class and, I must say, everyone's really cool. The class is about half Jewish, half Christian, and one Muslim. There's a 33-year old dance instructor from Denmark (Thomas), a 17-year old French girl (Rose), a naive and sometimes not-so-politically correct high school graduate from Korea (Jaung), an Israeli-Arab who also just got out of high school (Raakan), and a girl from Nigeria (Angela). Then the other half of the class consists of Americans from all over the States.

Our teachers, or "morot" are Racheli and Nomi. Two very nice women who rule the classroom with iron fists. No, just kidding, they don't beat us. Not all the time, anyways.

The mistakes our class makes in Hebrew have tended to be as eclectic as our ethnic makeup. They have ranged from "cute" to "accidentally racist." But it's all in good fun. Aaaand we're off:

"The answer in Czech just ran through my head."
-Mark (one of the Americans who studies languages for a living) trying to answer one of Nomi's questions in Hebrew.


"So, what kind of music do you like? The Bee-toles? Mah-donna? The Peche Mode?

"Uh, who's The Peche Mode?"

"You know...The Peche Mode."

"Do you mean Depeche Mode?"

"Yes. Same thing, no?"
-Racheli, asking the students what music we listen to.


Nomi: "How was everyone's weekend?"

Jaung: "It was scary. I went walking in Jerusalem, got lost, and ended up in a really poor, sh*tty neighborhood. I had no idea where I was and it was really scary and dirty. And people were following me. I'm pretty sure I was in an Arab part of town."

Horrendously awkward moment as we all look over to Raakan, our Arab-Israeli classmate.

Nomi: "You know, there are poor Jewish areas in Jerusalem too. You could have been in one of those."

Raakan, interjecting with a slight laugh: "No, actually it sounds like she WAS in an Arab neighborhood. That's normal."

Phew...Arab-Korean crisis averted.


"Who the hell are those guys outside that look like the Ghostbusters?"
Thomas, talking about the leafblowers in the quad area. Apparently leafblowing machines have not made their way to Denmark yet. "Ghostbusters," however, has.


"You all need to chill up."
Racheli, unaware that the term is actually "chill out."

More hilarity to come. With this group, it shouldn't take long...

The view from outside my ulpan classroom

My ulpan class taking a field trip to West Jerusalem.
Racheli is our teacher. She speaks Hebrew. We, on the
other hand, have the collective Hebrew vocabulary of
a 3-year old Israeli.

9/11/2006

Remember 9/11

Remember:
...the horror
...the death
...the confusion
...giving blood at any hospital that would take us
...the evil
...the frantic relatives who couldn't reach me
...the madness
...the enemy
...the pain
...being glued to CNN
...the sadness
...the rage
...being scared sh*tless
...Manhattan as a ghost town
...watching the plume of smoke from the roof of my apartment
...the heroes who gave their lives to save others
...the candlelight vigils
...all the "Have You Seen My Brother/Sister/Husband/Wife?" signs

Remember 9/11

Haifa Gets A Hai-five.

Beautiful, stunning Haifa.

Fulfilling an obligation to both provide a morale boost to the residents of northern Israel while simultaneously appreciating some frosty adult beverages, I headed to Haifa this past Thursday to partake in the annual Israel Beer Festival. The festival usually takes place in Tel Aviv, but Haifa was chosen to host this year's Carb-fest. Gave me a great excuse to visit my cousin Naama as well as to survey for myself what kind of damage those a$$holes from Hezbollah did to one of the great cities of the Middle East.

Haifa is a stunning city. Heading north on the highway, the sparkling Mediterranean sits on your left and much of the city is tucked into mountains on the right. By the time you get to the top of the city, you get some really sick views. Sunset in Haifa is a sight to be seen. The city is a beautiful example of coexistence between Jews, Arabs, Christians, and whoever else is around. There's a lot of religious and ethnic acceptance and appreciation. Very different from Jerusalem which, by comparison, is more a patchwork of peoples forced into the same quilt. In Haifa, Jews and Arabs live with each other. In Jeru, Jews and Arabs live next to each other.

All this utopia makes you wonder what, in fact, Hezbollah really wanted to destroy when it lobbed all those rockets into Haifa last month. Doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out that the kind of harmony that lives in Haifa is not on Hezbollah's agenda. I got to see a few of the areas that had been hit by the Katyushas when I walked around the city. Sad stuff. Honestly, it's surprising that more people didn't die. Anyways, if you think you can get away with seeing Israel without seeing Haifa, you're nuts. I'll definitely be heading back there real soon.

And the beer festival was a lot of fun. From what I remember.


That's me, in the corner, waving.

Where Have We Seen This Before???

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Daily Checklist:

1) Deny the Holocaust
2) Hate Jews and the West
3) Don't wear tie
4) Be intolerant and/or homicidal
5) Rock the beard
6) Tell the U.N. to stick its resolutions up its arse
7) Lie about nuclear arsenal
8) Arm and support terrorist groups like Hezbollah
9) Set the Iranian people back 300 years
10) And finally, today's latest...

Iran’s President Calls for Purge of Liberal and Secular Professors

September 5, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)-- Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

''Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities,'' the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Ahmadinejad complained that reforms in the country's universities were difficult to accomplish and that the educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 150 years. But, he added: ''Such a change has begun.''


Helllloooo??? Is anyone gonna do anything about this guy? What's it gonna take for the world to wake up and notice we're seeing the same pattern as 1930s Germany.

"Never Again" huh? I sure hope not...



Hooray diplomacy!!

THIS is school???

I know what you're about to say...

"Is Erik at an institution of higher learning? Or summer camp?"

First of all, as I've told many of you, I never went to summer camp so I have no frame of reference. I also never had a dog or went to Disney World. But I'm not bitter.

Second, it's not my fault they turned the Lerner Sports Complex into an amusement park one day last week. After a very strenuous day of ulpan, I went with my friends Drew and Jeff to the gym. To our surprise, we found that the pool and garden area had been turned into WaterWorld. Helllllllo Slip and Slide!

Anyways, the three of us put on quite a show for the little Israeli kids who apparently had never seen three grown men prancing around rubber water slides like giddy seven year olds.

No injuries were reported.



Goggles, check. Swimsuit, check. Dignity, uhh...
I'll get back to you on that one.



Me studying.