Am I allowed to bring a phone charger in Israeli jail?

by Ricky Mulvey

In the words of Donald Trump, “I think I am actually a very nice person,” and when you think about it, there is a lot I share with Donald Trump: we both have a tendency to look at the bigger picture, see ISIS as a bunch of bozos, and both claim to have written “The Art of the Deal.”

Anyway, I try to be a nice person. There are times where that is tested.

We had this party in the desert a few nights ago. About twenty people were there, and for the most part everyone was in a great mood. One group leader approached me. He heard I had issues with my French roommates, (he was their guide/group leader/madrich), which was strange because this is something I do not publicize, and definitely do not write about. But I found it tough to say anything nice. I need to get better at that. Maybe you’ve seen examples of that struggle in this blog.

About thirty minutes after that, the cops rolled up to our little shindig. And to paraphrase the rap group N.W.A. “to heck with the police!”

(Even when the Po-po rolls out, you know I’m looking out for pictures for the blog.)

This worried me. I was not doing anything illegal, I think, but I was still worried about going to jail because I don’t speak Hebrew and my phone had a super low battery. Luckily, the cops just cleaned up the beer bottles some people had out, spoke to someone, played with this stick toy thing this girl brought, and then left. If only the good ole US was like this. This interaction made me take back the feelings that bond me and N.W.A.

I was in the desert because I was at this retreat called “Shabbaton” in the small town of Yeruham.

 (I think the best way to describe the Shabbaton is the word “mandatory” and “fun” I’ll call it fundatory)

We learned all about Shabbat (or the Sabbath) and talked about being Jewish while sitting in circles for extended periods of time. Some parts of the Shabbaton were okay. But I do believe some parts of this Shabbat thing is absolutely insane. This girl on my trip was talking about how a family she knew would hold their baby up to a light switch and hoped it flung his arm out to turn lights off and on during Shabbat because

1) Jews on Shabbat are not supposed to do any work, which includes turning on and off lights

2) Young children/babies get a free pass to break the Sabbath rules.

I pretty much shouted “DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THAT STUFF IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE,” but uhhh, no one really responded.

Stories I heard during this weekend made the trip worthwhile. I spoke to a former paramilitary soldier who told a story about losing his friend in combat a few years ago. They were searching a house in Palestinean territory for a suspect and heard a rustling in the bushes. They did not fire because they wanted to make sure it was not a civilian. It turned out it was an ambush. His friend got shot in the head. His friend got shot because they wanted to be humane. Even with that experience, he said he was happy that Israel tries it’s best to be humane during warfare.

While I am elated to be far away and forget Yerucham, that part will stay with me.

Ricky and the Frenchmen

by Ricky Mulvey

I have two French roommates. One is named Raphael and the other leaves passive-aggressive notes on the fridge. Seriously, I have tried to introduce myself on a few separate occasions to this guy and he hasn’t told me his name. My other American roommate doesn’t know it either. Until I learn it, I’ll just call him Bootsy.

Maybe I’m doing something culturally wrong. I don’t know much about the French other than that Quebec is a place and they had a tendency to surrender at inconvenient times in the 1940’s.  Maybe there is a weird thing about introductions I don’t know yet.

Anyway, Bootsy joined us permanently two days ago. He’d been gone for a month. The first time I met him I introduced myself, he said okay, then he went to his room. I don’t know what to do. This morning they sat at breakfast, spoke in French, said “America,” then kind of looked at me and laughed.

It took a lot of my energy to not make a snappy comeback about the greatness of America. You know, like a quick one liner about how our Constitution is probably better than theirs or how there’s no violent persecution of Jews in America. But those kinds of jokes don’t go well over cornflakes. Plus I had literally no idea what they were saying about me and I don’t want the Frenchmen to hate me.

They could have been talking about how I’ve really toned up lately then been laughing in agreement.

There are quite a few cultural differences I don’t get over here. For example, there are so many restaurants that seem to be angry at you for coming in. The attitude is “What do you want? Good. Now leave.”

I just want schwarma. I don’t want you to be mean to me. I promise I’ll give you money. Please don’t hate me for wanting to exchange money for goods and services.

(Ugh, there’s too much negativity in this post right now so here are a few pictures of some goats. )

Okay, we’re back from the goats.

The other day my trip to the West Bank got cancelled which was a major bummer because visiting a geopolitical crisis was on my summer bucket list.  That sounds a little silly, but it’s completely true. I was looking forward to gaining a better understanding of a conflict that is one of the defining problems of my second home.

I’ll do my best to make it over to the settlements before this summer is over. I think I will, but we’ll see. As you can imagine, travel to a place known for kidnappings is a tricky maneuver to pull off.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Awkward: A Night Out In Tel Aviv

Here’s your Hebrew word of the day: Arsim.
Arsim are a large collection of Israeli men who watched a few episodes of “The Jersey Shore” and declared “this is how I will live my life.” They do things like wear hats made of all leather and Ed Hardy shirts and say uncomfortable things to women. Last night they were out in full force.

 (sorry random Arsim friend. I love you.)

As a people, I think they are incredibly amusing. We went to this bar last night and there were tables full of them, occasionally with women.  They are either staring at their phones, their drinks, or scouting women with serious squinted, eyes. And okay sometimes they are hitting on them… maybe more than your old pal Rick is. I tried my best okay? I just don’t have the confidence of a man wearing an all leather hat and a gold chain.

I don’t know the name of the club we went to last night but I do know that I am morally opposed to it more than anything else I’ve seen in Israel. A fifteen dollar covercharge is criminal and if the UN wants to regulate anything in Israel it should be this nonsense. Why am I paying you lots of money so I can have the privilege  of then buying your nine dollar beer? It’s like I can either buy someone a drink or have money or have a savings account.

I should mention that the night was fun: everyone was in good spirits and the Arsim did not talk to me because I do not have the parts they are looking for.

But I will say that if someone came up and said “Hey Rick, we are having a protest so Palestinean families can build over those bars and create a string of places with reasonably priced drinks and no cover: want to join?” I would immediately renounce my zionism and run to the front lines.

I’m glad I went once though. It’s a life experience to slick back the hair and go clubbing in Tel Aviv, and I’m sure I’ll go again. I just have to remember to sell a kidney or two so I can buy a rum and coke.

On a more serious note, I’m in the process of making plans to cover a story in the West Bank. Obviously I am a little scared but I am thrilled it can happen. I’ll give out more details in a few days.

A Working Man

by Ricky Mulvey

I walked in the office where I will be working for the next several weeks and saw two large pictures: one of Vladimir Putin, and one of Barack Obama. I do not know about the office politics of where you work, but it’s probably not like this.

Life is a little more diverse in Israel.

The place I started at  is a small news wire agency in the heart of Tel Aviv. We are the teacup sized version of Reuters.  It’s okay though. I love being there.

I have more freedom than a lot of other internships I know of, the office has a beautiful overlook of Tel Aviv, and I will get to help cover some very interesting stuff.

Our main clients also offer an interesting predicament for me. I am an American teenager with a fingernail grasp on the Middle East and we sell a lot of stories to Russian and Asian news agencies. I am not too familiar with what businessmen in Singapore want to hear about and am a little afraid of what stories I want to sell to a part of the world that does not have the most positive outlook toward Israel.

They are challenges that will be fun to face though. My hope is that I will be able to insert a small dose of balance into, what I perceive as, an unfair media landscape toward Israel. As the country with the most journalistic freedom in the  Middle East, Israel has had that freedom bite them in the tuchus a little bit. People are not afraid to dig when there isn’t a fear of imprisonment.

With that said, I do look forward to using this opportunity to explore Israel’s darker side. Today I talked to a former special forces soldier about my desire to get to the West Bank or explore the sectarian conflicts in Jerusalem. He looked at me like I was crazy. “The West Bank is a total shithole.” He told me.  Maybe I am crazy, and maybe it is not possible, but I hope that there will be a post in the future about me speaking broken Arabic in a place that is not exactly welcoming to us Jews.

I have already done the touristy stuff in Israel. I want to peek behind the curtain now.

No, person holding a machine gun and cutting the line, after you. I insist.

by Ricky Mulvey

When you only see nighttime or late afternoon for over 24 hours, everything starts to feel like a blur.  Mix that with an Ambien fueled sleep on an 11-hour plane ride and normal things start to become difficult. It took me almost 20 minutes to write these three sentences.

I wish there was some romantic, wonderful moment where it really hit that I was going to be in the Middle East for two months. Touching the Western Wall or riding a camel sounds like a nice time for this to happen.  Really, it came when I was saying goodbye to my dog.

Two nights ago we stayed in the Jewish Agency. I had no idea what the place was or why soldiers were staying there with us. I was so jetlagged at that point that I did not want to ask lots of questions. I just figured that it would be best to not start anything with the soldiers that cut the food line since they carried semi-automatic weapons and stuff.  For the rest of the trip, we are staying in apartment style dorms in Tel Aviv University.  I have a very simple room. It’s not bad.

I ended up getting  two international students sharing the apartment with me and another guy from my trip. At least I have my own room. So far the international student’s only mark has been their dirty dishes that I have been told not to touch, along with all of the other dishes because they are kosher. However, I’m like ninety percent sure God wants you to do your dishes if you leave the apartment for four days, and I also eat food from time-to-time so I’m disobeying the post-its. I really hope this rooming situation does not turn into a holy war because I wanted to eat cereal.

Today was the Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv which was a great place to people watch and an awful place for me to pick up women. No, no, I did not actually try that. I thought about talking to one girl, but quickly after that thought she started making out with the girl next to her. That’s a pretty good hint. The parade was cool for the most part. Endless amounts of people decked out in rainbow gear is not an image you get in Cincinnati Ohio. It was like I was walking through Rick Santorum’s worst nightmare.

I’m all for the idea of the parade too. Go be you. Let your freak flag fly. I’m just against dancing in extremely crowded spaces, and a lot of people here were all for that. Let’s not mix sweat if I do not know you.

So far things are okay though. I want to get started on my job and settle and learn the neighborhood and get comfortable. It’s difficult to be over 6,000 miles from home, starting a new job, and know that you are not going back for two months. Time should make things better though.