A high note

I was determined that the horrific counter-protest on International Women’s Day not be my last experience of Women of the Wall. I went back today. My friend Heather read Torah, and while usually the security guards search our bags to ensure we can’t bring in a Torah scroll to read from (although they often wave the protesters through without checking their backpacks!), this month we got lucky and smuggled one in. It was such a joy to have it here for my last time.

And then we walked to class and got there super late, dealing with streets that were inexplicably blocked off, drivers who ignored stoplights and refused to let us cross streets, and all manner of typical Israeli craziness. I felt like our frustration about the traffic and the time was really a way to vent the tension we had been carrying all morning, waiting to see if we were going to have another violent experience. It was finally safe to feel everything we needed to feel and get it out.

I’m conscious that I’m leaving very, very soon. Everywhere I go, I’m taking pictures of friends, trying to crystallize memories so I can carry them with me. It’s so very hard to leave.