MY URBAN KVETCH

9/11/2011 - Ten

That morning, I woke up around 8:30 am and started getting dressed for work and for my regular walk about 20 blocks uptown to work at the Jewish Theological Seminary. I was already late, and although I didn’t punch a clock at JTS, I was eager to get out of the house. Listening to my regular morning radio show on Z100, I heard a shift in the DJ’s tone. “By the way,” he said, “if you don’t have your TV on, you might want to go ahead and turn it on – the World Trade Center is on fire.”

Back in those early moments of that clear September morning, we had no idea what we were witnessing – smoke billowing from one floor of the WTC, we assumed, was from an internal fire, perhaps an explosion of an undetermined origin. I called my mother in New Jersey to make sure she was watching. (Checking the official timeline reveals that this phone call might have happened shortly before 9am.) We watched CNN together for a few minutes, as the announcer shared a new theory, that a small plane had accidentally flown into the tower. It was surreal, and sad. But at that point, we didn’t even have the tragic imagination to begin to understand what was happening, that we were under attack, that two other planes were currently en route to additional targets in the DC Metro area. But it was while we were watching that tragedy – which we assumed to be tragic, but concluded - that we saw the second plane (9:02:59).

At first I thought that CNN had gone to an instant replay. But the tower in the “replay footage” was already smoking - we realized with horror that this was a second plane. My heart jumped, and I jumped off the couch, and said out loud, on the phone to my mother, “Osama fucking bin Laden.” I don’t know why, but that was my purest, most immediate response; perhaps it was some sort of flashback to the first World Trade Center bombing, which my college roommate’s boyfriend had escaped from. At that moment, I knew I couldn’t go to work. I was staying home, phone-tethered to my mother, until I knew what was going on.

9/13/2001 - Email to Friends (Unedited)

[Esther's note: This was an email I sent to friends in the early hours of September 13, 2001.]

September 13, 2001 (12:09:27 AM)

Dear Friends,

I hope this email finds you and your loved ones well in a week marked by terror, fear, misery and sadness. (I apologize if some of you get this email twice.) For those of you outside New York, thank you for your concern. I am fine, having been far from downtown on Tuesday. I am sure all of you have been glued to CNN while trying to contact loved ones and make sure that everyone is ok. I have begun to hear the personal stories that I know will continue to pour in over the coming weeks.

So far, I have only heard stories that conclude with escape; these triumphant survivals do not alleviate the emotional burden that we all bear these days, and I wait for the other shoe to drop, as we learn the
identities of those who have been lost. I have also been inspired by the difficult but essential work done by New Yorkers trying to help: the fire fighters and policemen who rushed into chaos, debris swirling
around them like disintegrated evil; the thousands of New Yorkers who showed up at blood centers citywide; the hundreds of Upper West Siders who factored food and water for Red Cross workers into their purchases; and the social workers and mental health professionals, including my cousin, who spent their day staffing a Red Cross sponsored missing persons hotline. These unbelievable efforts are also the basis of an adhesive that can rebind us as a city, one community at a time.

I wrote the following over the past two days, and have submitted it to the Jewznewz.com website as well as to the Jewish Standard in New Jersey. Please feel free to share your stories with me as well.

With prayers for peace,
Esther

The Words of War

In the wake of Tuesday’s coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I am haunted by floating phrases, sound bites provided by the media that repeat over and over, creating a mental state that is at best cluttered, at worst, disintegrating.

“Worse Than Pearl Harbor.” Pearl Harbor was chosen for its proximity to a military installation, a clear act of war by the Japanese. The explosions at the World Trade Center struck at civilians. The oppressor
is as yet, unnamed. Are we at war? And if so, with whom? We don’t know. Are the casualties worse than at Pearl Harbor? We don’t know. What we do know is that Tuesday’s first attack was an attempt to destroy what New York represents: grandeur, capitalism, tourism. The Twin Towers were an identifiable landmark. A destination for tourists. A setting for romantic movies. A center of commerce. The second target, the Pentagon is a symbol of the inner workings of the United States military. Together, the targets were not just postcard panoramas, not just buildings and people: in a one-two punch peace of mind, national security and democracy all bit the literal dust.

“Handing Out Candy.” In the West Bank town of Nablus this was how Palestinians reacted to news of the attacks in New York and Washington. Yasser Arafat later condemned the attacks before the international
media, conveying shock at the events and sending his condolences to President Bush and the American people. But the PR damage had already been done. The world had already seen how Palestinians, the people he represents, celebrated the terrorist acts. Revelers waved Palestinian
flags, laughing and dancing in the streets, distributing candy in honor of the explosions, which they called “sweets from Osama Bin Laden.”

“Are You Okay?” On the streets of Manhattan, stripped of our essential public transportation, pedestrians flowed into the street, trying to get to or from work. Every few blocks, you could hear radio coverage of the news from a parked truck or van. People clustered around it, desperate for information and for community companionship. They stopped to ask friends if they were okay and if everyone they knew was accounted for. My brother Jack called my parents from Jerusalem to find out if we were okay. When my phone finally started working, I got calls from friends outside New York, asking me if I was okay. When it occurred to me that this was a direct reversal of the phone chain that Israelis and their families' experience whenever terrorism strikes the Middle East, I began to cry. I had made such phone calls before; I had never expected to be on the receiving end.

“Barukh Dayan Emet.” When religious Jews hear of death or tragedy, the usual response is “Barukh Dayan Emet” (Blessed is the true judge). During times of trauma, observant Jews seek out the help of God, sometimes reciting Psalms to alleviate feelings of helplessness and to reassure ourselves that God will protect us. But the judgment that led to Tuesday’s destruction and loss of life was not God’s. We still don’t know who is responsible or what their motives were. But, after this week, any illusions that we are safe here, under the aegis of America and God, have certainly been shattered.

“...Condemns the Attacks...” International leaders from Chile to the Vatican weighed in with statements against the attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that, in solidarity with a violated
America, Wednesday would be a national day of mourning in Israel. The war against terror, Mr. Sharon announced on CNN, is an international war, pitting the free world “against the forces of darkness who seek to destroy our liberty and our way of life. I believe that together we can defeat these forces of evil.” With Vladimir Putin, Gerhard Schroeder, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair all expressing solidarity with the US, and with Islamic Jihad and Hamas denying involvement in these attacks (albeit somewhat less enthusiastically) the obvious question remains. So who is responsible? Public assessment of the coordination and scale of the terrorist acts indicates the handiwork of the elusive Osama Bin Laden. His spokespeople, of course, deny his involvement.

As I write this, I have lowered CNN to a murmur in the background of my studio apartment,. But it seems like every hour, there is something new to report: an additional building in the World Trade Center complex collapsed. Explosions of undetermined origin were underway in Kabul, Afghanistan, purported home of Osama Bin Laden. From beneath rubble in and around the collapsed buildings, victims called relatives on cell phones. SWAT teams surround a Boston hotel to take suspects into custody. The Empire State Building, evacuated at the slightest threat.

Thousands of people who worked in the destroyed buildings in New York and Washington are classified as missing or injured. The New York death count, currently at “at least 82” will only climb. Part of the Pentagon has collapsed from the force of the explosion, in which an estimated 800 are missing or dead. The Twin Towers have been erased from the New York City skyline. The smoke still billows forth. Citizens of New York and Washington are still screaming in pain and grief. The fires continue to
burn as the smell wafts north.

The words of war continue to make their impact. Slowly, stories begin to graft faces and identities onto previously anonymous victims. One survivor, covered with a mottled combination of dust and blood, reported on rescue efforts: “They told us to make a human chain, and we got each other out of there.”

It was these words that affected me most. Whether or not we believe in God, or Osama Bin Laden, or capitalism, or democracy, we need to remember that in the wake of tragedy, the human chain is what provides us with comfort. And though Psalms pale in importance when people we know and love are missing, we continue to recite them individually and in groups, trying to find meaning in the words that form a historical chain between the author of the Psalms and our modern selves.

In the coming weeks, we will need to believe in humanity with a whole heart, as general shock gives way to more specific horror, and as the pain of grief’s sharpness yields to thoughts of vengeance. Our fear and anger threatens to enslave us, but we need to break free of them and learn, once again, to believe that it is the human chain that can bring about redemption, that can resurrect both our hope and our peace of mind.

9/11 - Retrospective

On September 13, 2001, I wrote an email (full text linked) to some friends and family, with some first reactions to what had happened to America two days before. This email was from an account that expired about five years ago, and I had lost access to all the things I'd sent years before.

Those words should have been gone forever. But thanks to Facebook, I put out an APB on my lost words, and a friend - who had been on the initial distribution list 10 years ago - searched his mail, found my words, and returned them to me. This proved to be a gift to me - a chance to revisit my state of mind and mourning so many years ago, and to see what has and hasn't changed since that day.

But this isn't my real 9/11 post. My real 9/11 post is somewhere in the air between my brain and the keyboard, and aspires to arrive before the 10th anniversary, over the next few days. This is both prelude to that post and retrospective of posts past, a visit from and with my old words, with their different levels of shock, trauma, distance and contemplation. I share these words, from that previously-lost email, from this blog and from articles I've written - and dated 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2009 respectively - below.

"The real 9/11 post" - that's tomorrow's job.

Snowpocalyptic Airport Sleepover 2010, Part 1: "What Blizzard?"

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when I realized that our flight was never taking off.

Indications came early, as snow swirled light and fast en route to JFK, and intensified as I arrived at an airport with what seemed to be no designated area for my airline. A customer service desk, unmanned, bore only a sign with an 800 number to call for more information. Calls to that number went to an automated system which was never answered.  I reached out to @VirginAtlantic on Twitter and was informed that the staff would be available to help us slightly in advance of check-in, so we sat and waited, talking with fellow passengers about their long road to the airport. Many of them had been stranded by the previous closures at Heathrow – their New York vacation extended because they couldn’t get home.

As we sat there, the rumors started about a potential airport closure on the horizon, which – to any rational person – seemed, frankly, like the right thing to do. It would be annoying to go back to the beginning, but we’d understand. Snow every which way meant zero visibility and high winds. But that was a decision for the airline – and there were still no Virgin Atlantic staff members in the terminal. Nothing we could do.

The VA staff arrived, put up the signs, and started processing us in that long serpentine line that at the end of it you hope there’s a log flume or some sort of other lineworthy attraction.  And honestly, we thought there was – it was called VS004, and it would carry us to London. That was our light at the end of the long check-in process – getting to where we were going, for some of us, after days or weeks of delays.

And so we moved through the line, like links in a centipede, processing our checking and our seat assignments and our baggage. We took our bags to the drop point, passing them through a machine that scans for – what, exactly? – whatever it scans for.

As I moved toward the security line, I realized that I had forgotten to remove my neck pillow from my luggage and I sensed a mild disturbance in the force. I’d buy a new one, I thought, quickly followed by “hey, the flight’s going to be canceled so if I buy one, I’m going to have two the next time I fly.” The thought was fleeting, like the sleet, I hoped.

Then I joined the security process – even with no line, it is a process. Haven't flown in a while? You'd be shocked. All outerwear – coat, scarf, gloves, hat, sweatshirt – removed, in a bin. In a separate bin, the computer. In a separate bag, the liquids that are dangerous if their containers contain more than a collective several ounces. Oh, and shoes! Don’t forget our dangerous shoes! In some airports, you must put them in a bin. In others, you must under no circumstances put them in a bin! They are wily creatures, those shoes, which apparently present regionally specific issues when it comes to security scans.

That sleet turned to snow, the ultimate powdery white cliché covering the horizon and blotting out everything in sight. How would it be possible for us to fly in this weather?

Virgin Atlantic's Woes Continue - And I Have Only Begun to Blog....

As you may know, I was among those stranded at JFK Airport when a blizzard prompted the cancellation of hundreds of flights on December 26 of last year. My Virgin Atlantic flight  - which had been cancelled on the 19th due to a blizzard at Heathrow and rescheduled for the 26th at 6:05pm  - was cancelled after we sat on the plane for two hours because of a blizzard at JFK, and was rescheduled for 6:05pm the 27th, then delayed to 7:30, then to a boarding time of 8:15 that didn't happen, and eventually, after great protest from the passengers, finally took off after midnight on the 28th.

Virgin Atlantic still denies that passengers were due any compensation for the experience, even as JetBlue once again proves its menschier status by giving their stranded passengers 10,000 points, scoring customer satisfaction points among its inconvenienced passengers.

What's the problem? Why won't Virgin Atlantic make compensation to the 250 of us who were on VS 004? According to USA Today, Virgin Atlantic (via spokesperson Greg Dawson) claims that "monetary compensation is not due" to the people on our flight - who "had to sleep in the airport terminal because all hotels nearby were booked" - because the snowstorm was an 'extraordinary occurrence.'

Travel writer and the main Twitter voice of our Virgin Atlantic experience Jason Cochran hasn't given up on the idea of compensation, and continues to battle the customer relations and public relations departments via email.

But apparently, Virgin's petulant behavior extends far beyond our particular flight - according to Bnet's Brett Snyder, "Virgin Atlantic has decided it won’t pay Heathrow Airport’s owner BAA anything until an inquiry into last month’s days-long shutdown is completed. Virgin Atlantic is acting like an impatient child here, and runs the risk of making relations with its most important airport even worse."

This preposterous experience just doesn't seem to end. And least of all for writers. Because Jason is still on this situation - it's his job to be. And as for me, while I'm not spending every day fighting about it, I definitely have more to say. Because all the elements of this experience combined into something resembling a psychological experiment in how far people's patience can be stretched before someone cracks and goes postal.

Look for the first part of my recollections to appear later today.

Sleeping at JFK: Hot Tips for a Quick Nap

Stuck at JFK (or any major airport) overnight thanks to a Virgin Atlantic or other airline flight cancellation? Put off by a hard, dirty floor that's probably crawling with human germs and rodent feces? Well, get down off your high horse and embrace the inevitable - the human body can only take so much walking around an airport before you need to catch forty winks. Plus, if you ever get to that conference in the UK you're supposed to present at, you'll want to make sure you don't sleep through your own presentations! So here's how to get comfortable when there’s no comfort able to be found!

Step One: Scan & Select Your Space

As soon as it becomes clear that you'll need a place to sleep, the prime sleeping spaces will go quickly, so scan the terminal like you're the Terminator, assessing the potential spots for their potential comfort based on your internal programming: Are you seeking solitude? Heat? The company of others? Find a piece of floor that reflects your preferred sleeping sensibilities: if you stake out your own space, people may give you a wide berth, resulting in your own island of space in a crowded terminal. Or, if solitude is threatening to you (single females, you may wish to consider this) or is in a dark location away from the public eye, you may wish to seek out a trustworthy-looking group of similar-age individuals - this selection may be a bit rowdier or more brightly lit, but may appeal to your sense of safety and community.

Want to recharge as you recharge? Make sure to locate the "sleeping spaces" next to electrical outlets: if you have a power strip with you for some reason, now's the time to use it and become very popular.

Step Two: Sterilize Your Space

Make sure your chosen space is clear of obvious garbage that will muck up your sleeping experience - steer clear of sticky patches of spilled Coca-Cola or snowy wet boot tracks, for example. If you have 3 oz of Purell in your Ziploc bag of allowed liquids, now's the time to use it to sterilize the space. (Or save it, to clean yourself once you rise up from your nap.)

Step Three: Build Your Bed

Then spread out a blanket and – what’s that? You don’t have a blanket? Wrestle one away from one of the airline staff members (they claim they don’t have them, but they DO!). If your airline doesn't have blankets, you may go to another airline with a cancelled flight. They don't know who's on which cancelled flight, so the important thing is to get a blanket from someone before everyone runs out. You can then use it as a mattress (recommended for comfort and hygiene reasons) or as a first layer over your shivering body in contact with the near frozen floor.  and build a nest out of that and whatever you have on you: your coat, scarf, a hat pulled down over your face to block the light, an extra pair of pants stuffed into a laptop sleeve and used as a pillow: be inventive. It’s like Project Runway, only - let's face it - you are probably never going to get to the runway.

Step Four: Tweet Your Position

Obviously.

Step Five: Secure Your Stuff - To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Once you've built your bed, now's your chance to lie in it. But before you close your eyes to enjoy the wrenching back pain of sleeping on a rock-hard airport floor, make sure your valuables are secured to your person: this may entail things like using your computer bag as a pillow, threading a bag handle around your arms or legs so you'll feel it if someone tries to nick it, or trusting a virtual stranger who says he or she will watch your bags whilst you sleep. There may be a price for generosity like this - like your photo ending up on Twitter - but it's a small price to pay to greet the morning (or the later part of the morning) having had 20 minutes of sleep, isn't it? When you wake up, it will be time to battle with the rest of the hungry airport zombies for food at airport eateries with dwindling supplies, so you'll want to have had that 20 minutes to fuel your attack strategy. 

We at My Urban Kvetch hope that you've enjoyed this practical travel guide to sleeping at international airports. Stay tuned for other helpful guides about overnight airport bathroom survival and use of nearly useless food vouchers at eateries that don't accept them or have 200-person lines and minimal supplies.

"Freedom Flotilla" for Gilad Shalit: A Good Idea in Bad Idea Jeans

I'm now working in the ROI office, due to move across town in the weeks following the 2010 ROI Summit, but for now, located near that major Jerusalem intersection of Agron Street/King George/Keren Hayesod. It's right near the Fuchsberg Center for Conservative Judaism and that big Supersol that all the buses seem to pass, and also near the Kings Hotel. It's also across the street from the Prime Minister's residence, where there's been a tent set up, usually containing at least one (but seldom more than two) volunteers who sit there as a reminder that it's been nearly four years since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. The fourth anniversary is Friday, June 25.

Activism on behalf of Shalit has been varied, if ultimately ineffective - everything from Facebook groups to last year's attempt to get #gilad to trend on Twitter, and the chance to "send Gilad Shalit a letter" (with, of course, no guarantee that he'll receive it) plus in-person demonstrations. Now the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations is planning a demonstration of their own, taking a group of boats to sail on the Hudson. According to the CPMJO site, when the boats pass the United Nations, they'll hold up signs to “raise awareness that Gilad Shalit remains in captivity and to call for his release.”

Adam Dickter notes that the effort will be of some comfort to Shalit's family, and help people think about the kidnapped soldier. "It will certainly be meaningful for Gilad's family. There's sure to be good media coverage, and if nothing else, tourists at the pier, on the Circle Line boats that pass, at the Statue of Liberty and, perhaps, even some diplomats at the United Nations will see the signs and spend a moment of their busy day thinking about him. Maybe those under the impression that Gaza is a besieged utopia of wine and roses will even look deeper into the matter."

James Besser, also writing in the Jewish Week, notes that there's something off about it, calling out that the invitation included a mention of the fact that drinks would be served on the boat. One Facebook friend of mine picked up on this, immediately proclaiming the boat a "booze cruise." Later on, it was revealed that the drinks would be soft drinks. 

But the worst part of this whole thing? The branding of the initiative as a "Flotilla of Freedom."

I like to call this kind of thing "a Good Idea, in Bad Idea Jeans."* This means that a primary idea has some merit - in this case, a demonstration on behalf of a kidnapped soldier and his family. Good idea. And then, someone came along and - in a moment of inspired madness - said, "why not call it a flotilla of freedom?" Bad idea. In fact, this is the second name-based bad idea stemming from the flotilla madness, the first one being Benyamin Netanyahu's proclamation (at about 5:43)  that the flotilla was "not a love boat, this was a hate boat" - leading to the inevitable YouTube upload.

Theoretically, if this initiative had happened three weeks ago, could they have called it a flotilla? Most dictionaries indicate that a flotilla is "a group of small naval vessels, esp. a naval unit containing two or more squadrons," so technically perhaps that's what this naval endeavor is. But to choose this word, today - when most of us non-Navy people didn't know a flotilla from a tortilla - means something different, invokes something painful or disturbing to both right and left, and smacks of keyword bias.

That tent across from my office is a concrete reminder of the days that have passed since Gilad was taken into captivity. The rallies I attended on behalf of Ron Arad, Zachary Baumel and others as a young student still resonate. There are ways to speak up, to speak out, to protest, to demand. And everyone has his or her idea of what kind of activism is the right or most effective kind. But in pursuit of justice, invoking language that - even if it began in an innocuous state - has come to mean something awful, loses its credibility, diminishes its ability to inspire action in others, and dilutes its original strength of goodness. In other words, it becomes a Good Idea in Bad Idea Jeans. 

(*People who don't live in Israel can view the original SNL "commercial" for Bad Idea Jeans below.)

Experiential Education: Beginning the Conversation

I recently was invited to participate in a ThinkTank about Experiential Jewish Education in New York, sponsored by Yeshiva University, which held the private meeting of educators, Jewish thought leaders, and people involved in the Jewish innovation sector as an exploratory step in creating a certificate program in the subject. (This is part of a grant between YU, JTS, HUC-JIR and the Jim Joseph Foundation to create better training for Jewish educators, independent of their denominations - you can read more about it here in the Fundermentalist at JTA.) The ThinkTank pulled participants from different streams of Jewish affiliation and observance for a candid, respectful series of conversations, under the leadership of the Center for the Jewish Future (and CJF director Rabbi Kenneth Brander), and expertly moderated by facilitator Marc N. Kramer.

The chance to participate in the exploratory stage for this academic program, to witness the emergence of and ask questions about a nascent field was a particularly interesting opportunity for me that raised questions for all of us.

Experiential education sounds simple to define, but is actually far more nuanced and complicated than it might originally seem. If we agree that experiential education is more effective education, why shouldn't all education contain elements of the experiential? Is experiential necessarily interactive and innovative? What does interactive mean? How do you make specific the nonspecific of "I know experiential education when I feel it"? Who decides on what constitutes innovation, and how it differs from what constitutes informal or experiential education? Are meaningful experiences about teaching methodology, teacher personality, or about the environment? Can you formalize training for a field with such limitless possibility and definition? 

There were also logistical questions: How do you integrate innovation or experiential education into a pre-existing, traditional educational structure? How do you encourage longtime, experienced teachers to open their minds to new methodologies that may sharply conflict with their teaching styles and experiences? And how do you translate the potential for learning into meaningful or inspiring, measurable educational outcomes?

As we considered these questions, we talked tachlis about "defining the core curriculum," broken down into skills, tools, knowledge, traits and experiences; and visualizing all of these things in categories, buckets, paints and brushes, tires and boxes, tools, computers and BlackBerrys. We wrote a press release of the future, noting in a retrospective style the highlights of this program and what it had been able to accomplish in the five years since we founded it - this is one of my favorite exercises, using writing skills and projecting into a future to imagine outcomes and perhaps thereby track back to the core of the task. And we engaged in "getting-to-know" you conversations which helped us work together in teams, and which were also, in their own ways, instructive in the mode of the experiential.

I know some of you out there are educators, informal or formal, experiential or innovative and/or traditional. What's your understanding of the definition of experiential education? Must it be innovative? Is it the approach, or the teacher, or the environment that defines either the experiential, the innovative, or both?

Looking forward to your feedback.

Friday Videos from EstherK

Greetings all - my wisdom teeth having been removed, I'm feeling much better. Actually was feeling better pretty much right away, and managed to make this video three days after my surgery. 

In addition, I've started uploading videos from the last month, including footage (in easy, several-minute installments) from the April 1 panel at the JCC of Manhattan about the "Projecting Freedom" short film series. In this clip, hear Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, Professor Jeremy Dauber and me respond to Heschel's branding of artists as modern prophets, as well as the role of the media in interpreting Jewish tradition.

Coming soon, even more video, including some live recordings of Michelle Citrin and Josh Nelson playing at an intimate concert in downtown Manhattan (including this live version with "20 Things to Do With Matzah" co-writer William Levin). Stay tuned to my YouTube channel so you don't miss a thing, not even footage of my niece going to the mall.

Wishing you all a wonderful, restful and healing Shabbat.

Happy and Meaningful Passover to You, Folks

We're on the eve of redemption, folks. Tonight, Jews everywhere will gather to eat, drink and talk about the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. Don't forget to crunch on some matzah. As if you could... 

Enjoy this new acoustic version of the smash YouTube hit, "20 Things to Do With Matzah." If you listen carefully, maybe you'll hear a special harmony. :) 

Happy and meaningful Passover to all! And happy Easter to my (10) Christian friends.