Pomp and Circumstance

A couple weeks ago, my little brother graduated from high school. Bryce has the world ahead of him. After being heavily recruited by several Ivy League schools, he decided to enroll at Yale in the fall.

But Bryce is tremendously nostalgic. He used to cry when my mom bought him new shoes because he felt bad for the old ones, and he became depressed every new years because he missed the old year. Just last month, he hid my mom's old electric mixer in his bathroom because he was upset she was going to throw it away.

Needless to say, he had a hard time during graduation. I didn't have any words of wisdom for him. When I graduated high school, I was so antsy to get to college I could barely sit through the ceremony. The only reason I was upset was because I had to wait an entire summer before I could move to Madison.

But I thought of him again about a week after his graduation. It was about 6:30 on a Wednesday night and I'd just gotten off the metro at McPherson Square and was walking to my kickball game. The McPherson stop lets off into what looks like a courtyard, and I had to walk through an archway to get to the Washington Monument where we play.

The sun was sitting and a sappy end-of-movie-like song was playing on my ipod. This was my moment. When the camera slowly zooms out as the sun casts a golden halo around my head and you smile knowing that the transition's over. She's made it in a new city.

Of course, that doesn't happen. You can't see yourself from outside, and life doesn't just zoom into nowhere. So I turned off my ipod, played kickball, got a few drinks, and went home to bed.

My family watches a lot of movies, so much so that I think sometimes we actually expect these things to happen.

But I realized that when I have those movie-esque moments, they're not at the moments you think they'd be. I don't remember accepting my diploma when I graduated high school. When I think back to my high school graduation, all I remember was trying to decide whether or not I was going to throw my hat up at the end, because they told us we weren't allowed to.

My most vivid memory from my college graduation was my friend writing obscenities in the program, and hoping that Jeff saved his unblemished copy.

I don't remember the first time I unlocked my new apartment in DC. When I think back to my first night in the city, I remember rushing my guinea pig to the hospital at 10 p.m. before my first day of work because she swallowed a bead off my necklace.

I know what my brother went through that weekend. When you know something's going to end, you try so hard to feel every moment so you can hang onto it forever. But you never do.

I wish I would've told my brother not to try too hard, because you never know exactly what you're going to remember anyway.

Maybe some day, when he graduates from Yale, he'll think back to his high school graduation and all he'll be able to remember will be a random line from someone's speech, or how he told me ten times to change my outfit because the hemline was uneven. Then maybe he'll remember this blog post. But I doubt it.

The faces behind the flotilla

I've been wanting to write something about the flotilla since it happened last week, but I wasn't sure what to say. It's not that I had no opinions on the topic--I was immediately saddened not only by the incident and the consequential deaths, but also by the overwhelmingly negative coverage Israel received in the aftershock.

It's not "cool" or "liberal" to like Israel right now. It seems that people are always looking for new reasons to hate Israel. They take the facts and manipulate them to reflect poorly on Israel, so they can root for the underdog and sleep better at night. But that's not what I want to write about.

I seriously doubt that the Israeli soldiers took the first shot, and I don't believe they became violent until they legitimately feared for their own safety. If you don't buy them not being flesh-hungry serial killers, then look at it rationally. Israel's not stupid. Massacring a bunch of peaceful humanitarians would be in no one's best interest.

I could regurgitate a bunch of news articles to back up my beliefs, but I'm not going to do that either.

The point I want to make I didn't realize until this weekend, when my boyfriend was lying in bed next to me on Saturday morning. We both had our computers open, and he was G-chatting with his best friend of 10 years who moved to Israel after college to join the army.

That's when I realized it wasn't Israel vs. the humanitarians. They were soldiers, they are people. Some of them might've been like Jeff's friend, who went to a Big Ten school in the U.S. before moving to defend the place they felt most at home. Most of them probably lived in Israel their whole lives.

But the media didn't portray them as people. They portrayed them as an entire country massacring a bunch of peace activists. In the media, the Israeli soldiers, in this incident and every other one people use to explain why Israel is evil, are not people. They are an entity, an ideal, a machine. They are easier to hate.

The truth is, I can tell you what I think happened, but I can't tell you what actually happened. I wasn't there. Maybe these particular Israeli soldiers actually were evil, and maybe they killed the activists for no reason. But I really, really doubt it.

But even if that were true, that would make the soldiers wrong, not the country, not Israel. If that were the case, it would not represent the standard in the Israeli army, which has peacefully intercepted and DELIVERED aid from ships to Gaza numerous times in the past. It would be a few bad apples. Not a bad country.

If it came out that the activists were actually violent anti-Semites, no one would dare suggest all Palestinian activists were evil and violent.

What happened was tragic, but regardless of what really happened, it's not a reason to hate. We should mourn for the individuals who died, not for a principle completely disconnected from the incident.

Photo: Jeff snapped this photo at the Pro-Palestinian flotilla protest at the White House on June 1. The man in this photo is carrying a Hizbollah flag, which is an Iranian backed terrorist group. Jeff asks, "Is this what peace looks like to the Palestinian movement?"

Flotilla

"There is little doubt as to the real purpose of the Mavi Marmara’s voyage — not to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, but to create a provocation that would put international pressure on Israel to drop the Gaza embargo, and thus allow the flow of seaborne military supplies to Hamas. Just as Hamas gunmen hide behind civilians in Gaza, so, too, do their sponsors cower behind shipments of seemingly innocent aid." -NYT article

Please send in your time sheet by Friday

This is the first time I've worked for a company that has clients, meaning this is the first time I have to bill my time on a daily basis.

It's a completely different way of thinking about time, and assessing my day. It requires a new kind of consciousness to the way I think about working. I'm not just doing my work for the sake of doing a good job, which is always how I've thought about it in the past. I'm actually taking 10 minutes here, an hour or so there and dedicating it completely to someone else's whims.

You can make the argument that in any job you bill your time to the company that you work for, but when you don't have clients, you're not cognizant that every bathroom break, every Facebook hiatus, every second you spend munching on that candy bar you hide in your desk instead of working is billed to someone.

What if we could extend this work model to the rest of our lives? That question got me thinking about how I spend my spare time, and how much of it is motivated by outside forces, and occasionally, people. I came up with a list of 13 things I do on a weekly basis, and who or what I do them for.

1. Three hours of working out to beauty magazines.

2. About one cumulative hour of sneezing to my guinea pigs. I can't live without them, but I'm deathly allergic to them.

3. Two hours of cleaning the kitchen to my boyfriend and his growing interest in the culinary arts.

4. An hour and a half of changing outfits in the morning to my mother. Her voice will forever echo in my head telling me I can't wear gray, that's not flattering, that doesn't match, etc.

5. Two hours and forty-five minutes of cleaning the apartment to my guinea pigs. Their daily average mess probably doubles their body weight.

6. Four hours of feeling guilty about doing nothing after work to Judaism.

7. Seven hours of still not doing anything despite the guilt to Facebook and the age 23.

8. Three hours of late night snacking to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

9. Five hours of nagging my boyfriend to my mother and chick flicks.

10. Five hours of him taking it to his mother, who instilled Jewish family values in him at a young age.

11. Three hours of wondering if I should wax my eyebrows to my mother.

12. Two hours of realizing I don't actually care to my father.

13. Thirty minutes of throwing up a little in my mouth when the commercials for "Sex in the City 2" come on to realizing working one hour a week and being able to afford fancy dinners, cocktail parties and designer clothes was never intended to be real.

Right now, for now

It's been a really long time since I've posted. Since then, I bumped up my moving date by two months, moved across the country and started a new job. This is the first time in my life I've committed to something without an end date.

It wasn't until I was a junior in college, and began to watch some of my friend start their job hunt, that I realized what I wanted as a 20 something post-college. Some of my friends wanted adventure. They traveled the world, many of them entering teach-English-abroad programs and using the opportunity to absorb new cultures. Others wanted to continue school. I have friends in law school and various other grad school programs.

I wanted stability. I wanted to make my own money, have a career I could excel in, and not have to wonder if after a certain date, I'd be waiting tables or ordering my second batch of business cards.

I've wanted this since I was a junior in college, when I was too young to have it. I wanted it after I graduated, when I was working a great job in Madison, as a limited term employee, enjoying being a professional, but wondering what would happen when my year was up.

I started in DC as an intern at a small online marketing firm. I was an intern for less than two weeks. On Thursday I was hired for, what in all accounts, is my dream job.

I am so excited and I feel so lucky. I worked hard, but I know that I have impeccable timing and a series of very random, and very fortunate events to thank.

My whole life I've always been working for what comes next. In high school I tried to get into a good college. In college I worked to get good internships, and, eventually, a good job. Now, I have a good job, and I intend to stay there for awhile. It's not like an internship, where I work hard to one day get a better one.

We live in a goal-oriented world, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it makes me think about the pressure that we all endured as kids, and that, undoubtedly, our kids will feel. For them, everything is about what comes next. It's never about right now, and the few times it is, it's often written off as a distraction.

I don't know if there's a better way, but I know there was rarely an hour, between the time I first heard the word ACT and last Thursday, that I wasn't worrying I wasn't working hard enough to get what I wanted. And that I would fail.

For the first time in my life, I can enjoy worrying about doing well at what I'm doing for the sake of doing well, and not for something far in my future I can't yet comprehend.

But I don't quite understand how to do that yet. When my brain defaults into, "oh crap, what am I not doing right now that I should be doing to not screw myself over," mode, it takes a minute to remind myself I don't have to do that anymore...for now.

I'm sure there will be some promotion or some project with a very specific long-term goal I'll be focused on soon enough. It won't be long until I forget all about this brief interlude. I just hope that one day, when I have children, and they're freaking out about college or an internship or even soccer tryouts, that I'll remember this, and have something insightful to say. Because right now I don't. I can just say it is what it is. For now.

What's the big deal?

Newsworthy? Sure. Worthy of #4 spot on CNN's Latest News posts on home page? Definitely not. What are you trying to say, CNN?

I think the "Weekend at Bernie's" impersonator's are far more deserving of this honor.

Shirlington Village

Yesterday, Jeff and I looked at an apartment in Shirlington Village in Virginia. Though it’s just out of DC, it’d be a few metro stops and a 20 minute bus ride to get into the city.

The apartment was inconceivably beautiful, with a luxurious rooftop terrace, brand new cabinetry and appliances, a clubroom that looked like something out of a mansion and a workout room with personal televisions on all of the equipment. The leasing office treated us like royalty and we were drunk on indulgence.

Shirlington Village looked like something out of a storybook. Everything—restaurants, boutiques and bars—was new and crisp, down to the freshly laid bricks on the streets and sidewalks.

It had the charm of an old European town with the intrigue of the new and novel. It was perfect. A place a young girl always dreams of living with the one she’s going to marry.

I kept thinking, we could actually afford this. Sure it’s luxurious, but with its distance from the city combined with the dual income toward a one bedroom apartment, it wasn’t out of our price range.

The whole time we were there, I kept imagining bringing my parents to our new neighborhood. They’d be so impressed. She really made it, they’d think. I’d made it, I’d think.

I was so busy looking at designer clothes through store windows and reading restaurant names off awnings that I almost didn’t notice all the baby strollers and toddlers.

That’s when we realized what we’d be giving up by moving to this amazing apartment and this beautiful village—the rest of our youth.

If we lived so far away from the city, we’d probably rarely venture to DC for drinks with friends after work, and nights out on weekends. We probably wouldn’t have much opportunity to host friends from the city at our apartment. We’d make friends, but they’d most likely live near us, and would probably be older and maybe even have children.

We had a choice to make. Luxury verses location. Settling down verses relishing the last few years we have left of our youth.

Once we were out of the Shirlington Village, its spell released us fairly quickly and the decision was easy. Location. Nearby metro. Washington D.C.

I still plan on bringing my family to Shirlington Village when they visit. I know they’ll love it just as much as I did, and I can tell them Jeff and I will live here, one day, when we’re ready.

Good for the Jews

I finally finished "Good for the Jews." Actually, I finished a couple weeks ago but haven't had a chance to write about it until now.

I thought a lot about what to write this final post about, and eventually decided to basically respond to the post I wrote before I started reading.

In my first post, I quoted a Wisconsin State Journal article:

"Spark wanted to ruminate on how the United States seemed to be going after a false enemy in Iraq, and also how Jews are often perceived as much as victims as they are aggressors in Palestine. The idea of the good and the bad guys being hidden from view, living among the rest of society, intrigued her."

After reading this article, I was most interested in finding out how Spark portrayed the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that her commentary was almost entirely metaphorical. Though the book occasionally referred to the Middle East, Spark let the characters represent conflict rather than squeezing her own political rantings between dialogue tags.

Instead of forcing one opinion over the other, the book lays out the facts and lets the readers decide for themselves how they want to feel about the conflict between the characters, which I took as a representation for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

On the side of the Israelis you have Ellen (Esther) and her cousin Mose (Mordechai). I don't think Spark intended for Ellen to be unlikable, or come off as stupid, but I had a hard time rooting for her character. Though she is sweet and well-intentioned, she makes stupid decisions based on convenience and refuses to think about anything outside of her day-to-day life. She prefers her simple yet satisfied mindset. While her cousin Mose is a strong supporter of Israel, Ellen refuses to take sides.

Mose, on the other hand, would be very difficult to dislike. A smart and sassy old Jewish man, Mose knows everything and never fails to disseminate his never faulty knowledge to those around him.

He's a beloved teacher at a Madison high school that encourages teachers to think and teach creatively. When Hyman Clark takes over as principal, the two of them immediately clash and Mose is convinced Hyman is out to get him.

Mose's outrage at Hyman, who represents the Palestinians, seems paranoid at first. He takes unreturned e-mails, disapproval of his teaching style and more small details to mean anti-Semitism. You think, so you don't like your boss. That sucks. Not the end of the world.

But **Spoiler Alert** as time goes on, Hyman's actions worsen, until it becomes clear that his rage is targeted at Mose because he's a Jew. In the end, we find out Hyman was a former white supremacist in the south.

The story ends with Mose as the good guy and Hyman as the bad guy. Israel is the victim and the Palestinians are the aggressors. But woven in between Hyman's demonstrations of anti-Semitism and his disturbing past is his failing marriage and weakness of character. We find out he was once an accountant who lost his business to refugees simply because they were refugees. He was justifiably angry about his circumstances when he joined a club that promised they could do something about it.

Hyman is not a smart man, and didn't understand he was joining a white supremacist party. He thought he was just fighting for what was rightfully his. Of course, by the time he realized this he was already brainwashed with propaganda and a full-fledged Neo-Nazi.

Spark leaves it up to you if you want to feel sorry for Hyman. You certainly wouldn't take his side, but there's an element of tragedy in his story. He's lonely, vying for the love of his wife who seems to hate him, and doesn't understand why an honest worker suddenly lost a portion of his business. It's ignorance that makes him evil, not malice.

But, evil is evil and though you start to feel sorry for him, you recognize that this is not someone you would root for.

Of course, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is much more complicated. I don't think Palestinians are evil. I think some Palestinians are evil (suicide bombers) and the rest just want to survive. There is certainly an element of tragedy to their story, and I do feel sorry for the innocent.

Still, when you take a step back and look at the issue as a whole, things look a lot different.

How to remember a tragedy

When I saw the trailer for Robert Pattinson movie, "Remember Me," the only thing that caught my attention was how many 13-year-old girls were going to rob their parents blind seeing it eight times in theaters. Like my proceeding generation's "Titanic," minus the Oscars.

But then I heard about the "twist" ending (skip to the 5th paragraph if you have any desire to see this film). Apparently, we're under the impression the story takes place in present day until the last moments, when it's revealed it's actually 2001 and RPatt walks into one of the towers.

This is hardly the first movie to make money off of a tragic 9/11 death, but it seems worse for some reason. Maybe it's the vampire who glitters in the sunlight turned terrorist victim, or the fact that the final scene was in no way related to the rest of the film.

I always have been skeptical of 9/11 movies. They argued they were memorializing the travesty, but in the end, they were still making money and getting famous.

But it makes me wonder about Holocaust movies. "Schindler's List" was not only one of the best movies ever made, but it had an element of honesty to it that I haven't seen in most other films based on real-life tragedies. Spielberg's intentions seemed pure, that he made the film to raise awareness, though I'm sure it didn't hurt his wallet or reputation.

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I saw "Shutter Island," starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a WWII vet traumatized by what he found in the camps. It didn't feel cheap or exploitive, and we both really liked the movie. But it's still a horror movie that used the Holocaust to enhance the thrill. I didn't even think of that until I heard about "Remember Me."

I've been to one Concentration Camp just outside of Prague. I visited Terezin as a sophomore in college when I went on an alternative spring break trip with the UW Hillel. It was actually on that trip that I met Jeff, and it was at that camp where we first had a meal alone together.

There was a restaurant in the middle of the camp. The tables were small and Jeff and I ended up alone at a table for two. In many ways it was the beginning. Later that night we had our first kiss.

The restaurant was on the nicer side, but they still played American rap music. It wasn't censored and they played unedited cuts they definitely wouldn't play on U.S. radio stations.

The thing was, it didn't feel that weird, because the whole experience didn't feel real. I tried so hard to imagine the horrors that must've occurred, but I just couldn't. I felt like I was looking at a recreation, a movie set. I wanted to feel what my ancestors must have felt when they were there, but I couldn't separate the place from what it was at present: a museum.

I felt the same way when I went to Yad Vashem in Israel. The photos of bodies piled on top of each other were in expensive frames, and the relics of family's stolen keepsakes were in pristine glass boxes. I wanted to be angry and scared and sad. I wanted to cry.

Watching movies that integrate the Holocaust or any tragedy, really, into their plot do the same thing to me. With the exception of movies that exist solely to portray the horrors of the time, these films make me connect a tragedy that should not be forgotten with blood sucking heart throbs and men who see ghosts.

I don't know how to make anything in history feel more real in the present day. Maybe it's just me, and other people can break through those museum quality barriers. Or maybe it wasn't a coincidence that I kissed Jeff for the first time the day I walked through the camp. It's possible we connected on a different level in a place so consequential in the history of our people.

But if that's the case, I didn't know it at the time. I just know when I think about the horrors of the Holocaust, I really hope I don't imagine Leonardo DiCaprio invading Germany at the end of the war.

Photo: Railroad tracks in Terezin

Where do we go from here?

It doesn't matter how smart, strong or mature you are. Serious decisions are some of the most difficult challenges we all has to face.

If you're lucky, like I was, your parents prepare you for these conundrums over time. Chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Do you want to be a cheerleader or a pumpkin for Halloween?

Deciding who to invite to your Birthday parties, how to confront friends that have let you down. Choosing classes in high school, and choosing a college.

But there's almost nothing anyone can do to prepare you to make life decisions with another person.

Sure you learn to compromise with your siblings, but our disagreements were better preparation for the LSAT than they were for a relationship. You learn to bargain down your opponent until you get as close to your way as possible.

No one tells you it doesn't work that way in a relationship. They tell you to be a strong woman, to put yourself first, to not give your life up chasing a boy.

But what happens when that boy supports you and respects you, and you realize that giving him up would be more than painful--it would be wrong.

So you have to decide together.

For the second year in a row, Jeff and I have had to decide where to live. Last year, when we were both still in college, it did not go well. We tried everything. We went through every hypothetical, we tried to compromise and we tried to weigh whose options were better where.

We realized we can prepare as much as we want, but most of the time, the end result is nowhere near what either of us would've predicted.

What I've learned through the process is to let go. I don't like to be surprised, and I don't like to wait for things to happen. But when it comes to things like uprooting your life, there's only so much you can do. Sometimes you just have to breathe and remind yourself you're strong enough to take in whatever's coming.

Jeff and I decided to move to Washington D.C. at the end of May. It was a long process and a hard decision, but it was better this year. We talked a lot and we worked hard to gather as much information as possible. But we had fun, too. We took breaks. We went to movies. We bought each other dinner. We reminded each other no matter what we decided, we'd be starting our lives together. There's no wrong answer for that.

In a relationship, you're supposed to compromise. But I don't see it like that. Compromising is a give and take. But I don't want to take anything away from him, and he doesn't want to take anything away from me. The perfect place for me might be a nightmare for us as a couple. The bottom line is, if your significant other isn't happy, there's no way you can be either.

In the end, we put all our cards on the table. We made pros and cons lists but we didn't use them. We talked, and then we put it all aside for a few days and the answer became clear. All facts aside, we knew where we wanted to be. We realized we'd known this all along.

Photo: Jeff and me in DC, battling the wind to pose for a photo

Good for the Jews (continued)

My dad brought up a good point. When I wrote that Esther seemed like a gold digger, he said she probably didn't have much of a say in the marriage. That makes a lot more sense, and is probably something I would have thought of if my Sunday and Hebrew school teachers hadn't stopped telling us the Purim story by the time we were 10 years old.

This is certainly not something I, nor any other kindergartner, would've picked up on either.

It just begs the question of how to best relay bible stories to children. Bible stories aren't like normal children's stories. People are ruthless, people die and there's not always a clear moral.

Like the story where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his devotion for him. In the end, God praises Abraham for his loyalty to his God and to his religion. No one dies, but what's the moral here? If God tells you to jump off a bridge, don't question, just jump?

Do we really want to teach our children that there may be some instance where it's ok to burn your loved ones alive?

Whether or not Esther was forced into her marriage doesn't really matter because at 6-years-old, we were told that one of the heroines of the Jewish religion willingly married a man who may or may not have cut her head off if he found out who she really was because he was in a position of power.

I don't think we have to change or edit the stories for the kids, but maybe frame them a bit differently. Put Abraham in a dark light for what he was willing to do instead of a pious one. Talk about why he might have done it and why his reasons would be obsolete now (namely that God doesn't speak to anyone unless they're raving lunatics).

Explain Esther's oppression, don't frame her as a simple girl who struck a gold mine because the king thought she was hot. She'd be even more of a heroine when she reveals who she really is to save the Jews, because the risk to her own life would be much more prevalent.

Good for the Jews

I finally started "Good for the Jews" in time for purim. The book arrived in the mail and I finished my previous book just in time to start on this modernized Purim story last weekend. It was a complete coincidence. I'm not that organized and I'm not that cute.

I'm only a few chapters in, but the novel is surprisingly true to the ancient tale. The story starts out with school superintendent Alex buying a provocative designer dress in New York for his wife Valerie. He gets drunk with his friends one night and asks her to model it for them. She says no, he says you don't support me, and then, divorce.

Of course, the refusal to model the dress was only the metaphorical final straw in an already failing relationship, whereas in the original story, when the king Ahasuerus asked Vashti to dance naked at his feast, it's unclear whether this was Vashti's last chance, or this one act of disobedience was all it took to get her banished or killed, depending on the version of the story.

As I was thinking back to all the times I've heard the Purim story over the years, something odd struck me in my recollection as an observer. As a child, when I heard about Vashti being banished for her refusal to strip and young, beautiful Esther taking her place as wife and queen, I remember almost laughing at Vashti, thinking, "ha, bet she's sorry" about the woman who disobeyed her husband and lost her crown.

This recollection really bothered me. Why should I have thought this about a woman with integrity, who gave up her life of luxury out of respect for her body and herself?

Probably because Esther is the heroine of the Purim story, and without Vashti's rebellion, she would never have been allowed to step into the light.

Now I wonder about Esther herself. For all those years, she was portrayed as sweet, innocent and naive. But looking back from an adult perspective, she kind of seems like a gold digger. Marrying a man she doesn't love for status.

Anyway, in "Good for the Jews" Valerie (Vashti) is a really likable character. You automatically respect her decision not to put her body on display for her drunk husband and his friends. She's sharp-tongued and self-respecting, but at the same time, we see her vulnerability. Her husband's a jerk, but her heart still breaks at the thought of losing him, though she's completely unwilling to sacrifice her integrity to save her marriage.

As for the gold-digging Esther, "Good for the Jews'" Ellen seems respectable enough, though her romance with Alex hasn't taken off just yet. So far, she's a young, low maintenance, Madisonian hippy, like a lot of the girls I went to school with. It's been interesting following her around my city, placing her in both an ancient story while intersecting with the place and time of my own life.

Photo: Kids celebrating Purim in a 1950 classroom

Freedom of speech?

For personal reasons I can't elaborate, but I was very recently exposed to the issue of Holocaust deniers.

I think there are few people more reprehensible than those that would disregard the deaths of six million Jews--and millions of others. Not only is it reprehensible, it's scary.

It made me think about a conversation I had with Jeff a few weeks ago. We were talking about freedom of speech, the whole, I don't agree with you but I'll defend your right to say it. Who said that anyway?

We were talking about the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis. Do they have the right to assemble? To make Web pages and hold rallies? Jeff said yes and I said no.

I know, First Amendment right. But come on, how much does that still exist anyway? Censorship is everywhere, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. But if it were removed altogether, there would be anarchy. Still, you could make a pretty good case for freedom of speech in just about any instance.

Jeff's main argument was there's no sensible place to draw the line for future generations. There's no way to set a precedent. If you banned the KKK from holding a public rally, how would you word that for the future? No radical group has the right to public assembly? How do you define radical? He says seemingly necessary control often provides the roots of fascism. What's to stop someone 100 years down the line from defining Jews as a radical hate group? Nothing stopped Hitler.

I said precedents aren't everything. There's always an exception, and nothing can account for one hundred percent of the time, especially something written hundreds of years ago that hasn't been adapted to modern life. Sometimes you just have to leave things in the best judgment of people you trust right here and right now.

In the end, Jeff was probably right. We live in a world where you always have to account for the future, and where it's hard to determine who you can trust. But the whole issue brings up another question--when radical, hateful groups like the KKK and Holocaust deniers make noise, is the general public smart enough to disregard their messages?

Right now, for the most part, in the United States, they are. But that line can change. It's always changing. Forty years ago Jews weren't defending the rights of Palestinians to Israeli land. Today's Pro-Palestinian liberals could be our great grand-children's Holocaust deniers.

Today's most hated war criminal was once Germany's knight in shining armor.

Photo: Schindler's List found at Sydney Library

On the slopes

At my Bat Mitzvah, my dad made a speech about skiing. He probably doesn't know how vividly I remember it, and I don't think I ever told him how much it meant to me. I was never good with that mushy stuff.

He compared my ambition, my courage and my willingness to challenge myself on the mountain with the same attributes in life.

I don't know if I'm as brave as I was at 13. Is anybody? I'm not sure if I was as much courageous as I was just plain stupid. But again, that's typical.

Yet on the mountain, I'm just as dumb. My family has gone skiing out West just about every year since we were toddlers. I got back from our 2010 excursion yesterday.

I'm a good enough skier to make it down just about anything on the mountain, but I'm by no means an Olympian. The more difficult the run, the more ridiculous I look going down it. If I make it to the bottom with no broken bones and minimal pain, I consider it a success.

For some reason, nothing about skiing scares me. I know there are risks involved, but my heart rate never jumps at the top of a hill, or in some cases, a cliff. I wish my dad were right. I wish I were as brave as I am on the top of the mountain as I am in real life. I don't know where I'm going to be in five years, and that terrifies me.

But I think my dad's analysis of my skiing persona applies to the rest of my family. My little sister is like me on the mountain, but she's 12. By far the most outgoing and social person in our family, her ambition outshines her abilities (which are a measure of her age, not her talent), and the only thing stopping her from skiing off the cliffs with my dad and me is him forbidding it--and then running off before she has a chance to catch up.

We call my brother the enigma. He's a beyond brilliant theater nerd turned classical singer. He hates physical activity, likes nice things, luxuries and staying indoors, but he loves to ski. And he's good at it. It makes no sense. In life outside of the ski hills, the rest of us spend a lot of time trying to figure out how he thinks with little success. He's too smart, no one can do it.

My dad is the best skier in the family. He skis with his feet locked together and a grace none of us can match. Off the mountain, it constantly amazes me how he deals with daily stresses with a tranquility the rest of us can only envy. My mom, brother, sister and I are pretty emotional. I don't know how we would've survived our childhoods without his ability to think fast and rationally under pressure.

My mom never liked skiing very much, and decided that she doesn't want to ski anymore. She came with us on the trip, but she stayed back during the day, taking care of bills and taxes, and arranging scavenger hunts for her grown children on Valentines Day. She's always sacrificed so much for us. I wish I'd appreciated that more when I was younger.

Jeff came skiing with us for the first time this year. I'd never skied with him before. I'd never even brought a friend on a ski trip before. He kept up alright. He and my sister were at about the same level, although he was much more cautious than her. His fear was the only thing keeping him from getting better, just like her lack of it was probably her biggest mountain fault.

However, he challenged himself more than he probably thought he would over the long weekend. I didn't challenge myself as much as I usually do on the mountain. I went slower so I could help out Jeff and my sister, and I tried not to push the harder runs on them before they were ready.

But that was probably a bigger skiing challenge than I'd ever taken on--to match my pace to someone else's. Off the slopes and back in Madison, one of us is not faster than the other; we've just always followed our own paths at our own paces. Now we're learning to plan our next steps together, with more than ourselves in mind. It's probably my biggest challenge yet, but it feels amazing that we're doing it so well.

I did get a few hours one morning to go off with my dad alone, throw caution to the wind and ski off a cliff. Jeff doesn't mind that I have to do my own thing my own way once in awhile, as long as I come back to him when I'm done.

Photo: Jeff and me at the top of the gondola

J-Date: couple looking for a relationship

There are tons of advantages to meeting your sigificant other young. I met Jeff when I was 20, and we were only sophomores in college. For some people, this may be too young to commit yourself to one person, but we were ready.

There’s only one aspect of young adult Jewish dating I feel I might have missed out on: J-Date.

I’ve known about J-Date since high school, when my friends and I would giggle while we checked the listings to see the profiles of the Jewish single adults we knew.

Then we grew up and I had a boyfriend and my friends gained entry into the world of online dating that I’ll never know.

But it’s not the hundreds of eligible bachelors at your fingertips, the chatting or the excitement of someone new making contact that has me intrigued—it’s the long-term friendships that seem to come out of it more often than the romances.

After we graduated last spring, I watched friends of mine move to new cities and join J-Date looking for either the loves of their lives or just a fling to ease the transition.

What happened was my friends started going out. They met different kinds of people and were escorted to different kinds of places. Sometimes there were flings, sometimes there was nothing, and sometimes they vowed to just stay friends. And they did. They met friends of friends and soon their social lives were booming in a new city.

Back in Madison, Jeff and my friends are slowly dispersing. It’s cold, and there’s not much motivation to go out and meet people when the alternative is cozying up in the apartment together, not alone.

But we don’t want to look back and realize we turned 80 half a century prematurely. We’re under 25. We should be out and having fun with our friends, but how do we find friends in a world where dating post college seems to be a prerequisite for friendship?

Someone needs to make a J-Date for young couples looking to meet other couples. But in the mean time, I’ll get the tea, Jeff’ll set up the board games and the guinea pigs will squeal in delight at the prospect of another Saturday night with their parents.

Jewish women at the Super Bowl

I could care less about football, but I look forward to the Super Bowl every year. Super Bowl means super fatty chips, dip and pizza. It's one of those not-so-rare days on the American calendar where it would be socially unacceptable not to stuff your face.

Then there's Animal Planet's annual Puppy Bowl, which I'm watching as I write this. Consisting of about a dozen of the cutest puppies equipped with squeaky toys, a water bowl cam and lethargic bunny cheerleaders, the Puppy Bowl is the exact dose of cuteness necessary to sit through three hours of football.

Finally, there are the commercials. It's the one time of the year when I get up for seconds during the show, and settle into my seat during the ads. I like to say it's because I was a journalism and communications major, and I have a professional interest in the most expensive ad space of the year. But really, I just love the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials.

This year, there was a trend among the commercials that tread a fine line between women bashing and "strong woman." There was the Dodge Charger "Man's Last Stand" commercial, where a man lists all of the tedious responsibilities his wife forces him into. He accepts his fate on the one condition that he can drive the car he wants, this compromise being "Man's Last Stand."

The Dove commercial, selling their men's soap line, follows a man from birth to marriage to all of his "manly duties," like checking out noises in the middle of the night and changing tires in the rain while she waits in the car, that his wife expects of him. It's a far cry from Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty."

Others include the FLO TV "Injury Report," where a woman surgically removes her boyfriend's spine and forces him to shop with her instead of watching the game, or Bud Light's "Book Club" , where a man and his friends tolerate a woman's book club meeting because they have Bud Light.

It's not that any of these commercials came as a surprise. The dominant woman has been navigating her way through multiple media for the last decade. At first, she was a humorous, respectable character, standing up against the repression of the American housewife of the 1950s. But now she's turned into somewhat of a cliche, stepping out of her boundaries and repressing her man's "natural right" to lead the household.

I wonder how much of these thriving images are based on the long-time evolving Jewish woman. I don't know where or when the Jewish woman as the confident head of the family emerged, but she's something I joke about. Like, when Jeff and I decide to get married, we'll ask our Jewish mothers to exchange phone numbers and send us an invitation. Or, excusing my fifth call to the vet with, I'm a Jewish woman, so it's normal that I'm calling again about the strange noise my guinea pig made this morning.

I have always respected the Jewish women in my life, knowing that I would one day be one. But these main stream, ball busting women are undermining my role models, overplaying their dominance and erasing their wisdom. They should've just left the Jewish woman where she belongs-- with the Jews.

And the nominees are

As the Jewish Journal points out, three of the 10 films up for best picture this year have Jewish themes or undertones. I haven't seen "A Serious Man," but I saw both "Inglourious Basterds" and "An Education" in theaters.

When I heard about "Inglourious Basterds" last summer, I was uneasy. It was historically inaccurate, sarcastic and funny. A lighthearted film about the Holocaust? I was willing to keep an open mind, but I waited for the controversy. A few months and several Google searches later, I was surprised to find virtually no backlash.

I ended up loving the movie, as did Jeff and my parents. My brother thought it was tasteless and that it put Jews on the same level as the Nazis. I can see his point, but the movie is so unrealistic that it hardly seems fair to compare the fictional "basterds" to the horrendous brutality of the very real Nazis.

With the exception of the opening scene, Tarantino avoids tragic scenes where Jews are senselessly murdered. There are almost no innocent victims. Nearly everyone who dies in the movie has killed someone in a previous scene.

There is no message conveyed in "Inglourious Basterds." I think it's just meant to be taken as a fun, "what if?" work of fiction.

I also enjoyed "An Education," which portrays the naive seduction of Jenny, a school-aged girl, by David, an older, perverted Jewish criminal in 1960s London. Peter Sarsgaard, one of my favorite actors, plays David.

There isn't much emphasis placed on David being Jewish. It is only utilized in a few brief moments to create tension between Jenny and her conservative parents. But if it wasn't that important, why make him Jewish in the first place?

Unlike, "Inglourious Basterds," there was some question of anti-Semitic undertones in "An Education." I personally don't think that was the intention. I think the choice to make David Jewish is more about creating a dynamic character than it is actually a commentary on the religion.

I thought the Jewish angle makes David more sympathetic, because he has few redeeming qualities. He's a criminal and a pedophile. Being Jewish in 1960s London doesn't excuse him, but the desperation and social scorn he must've faced makes his behavior easier to comprehend.

I don't think it's a coincidence that as the last generation of Holocaust survivors dies out, the media becomes bolder in their portrayal of Jews. You worry a lot less about offending someone in a fictional depiction of a moment in time when no one is around who was there. It's also a lot easier to make an argument for putting a segment of society in a bad light when that "segment" is portrayed in the news as thriving, and not as overcoming a tragedy.

Good for the Jews

I just ordered "Good for the Jews" by Debra Spark. It's a modernized version of the story of Esther based in Madison, Wisconsin. It was published by the University of Michigan press and the author lives in Maine.

Spark lived in Madison for two years in the 80s as one of the first two fellows in the UW-Madison Creative Writing Institute.

An article in the Wisconsin State Journal explains that Spark tries to draw parallels to the modern day Middle East.

"Spark wanted to ruminate on how the United States seemed to be going after a false enemy in Iraq, and also how Jews are often perceived as much as victims as they are aggressors in Palestine. The idea of the good and the bad guys being hidden from view, living among the rest of society, intrigued her."

I don't know if this means she's taken one side or the other of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, or if she's standing as a passive observer.

The article also commends her realistic portrayal of Madison's "at-times oppresively liberal, politically-correct culture."

I consider myself to be liberal in most situations, but it continues to baffle me that being "pro-Palestinian" is supposedly liberal, and siding with Israel is considered right wing. I wrote this on the topic for my friend Harry's blog last year.

I can't find anything to confirm or deny that Spark herself is Jewish (granted I haven't looked that hard yet).

I'm not sure what exactly to expect. I do know there's a half-naked girl on the cover. I'll post more once I start reading.

Photo: Megillah (Scroll of Esther) in Israel Museum in Jerusalem

Rewriting history?

Not sure how I feel about this. Long story short, Tzemah Yoreh, son of Talmud scholars and assistant professor of Bible at American Jewish University in L.A., served in the Israeli army and wasn't impressed. He said the experience "destroyed my ardent Zionism" and made him an athiest.

Still committed to his Jewish upbringing, Yoreh decided to rewrite the siddur and drafted his own atheist-feminist version that eliminates God and Zionism from the mix.

I don't know I'd go as far as to call myself an atheist. I don't vehemently deny the existence of God, but I'm not really convinced either. One of my favorite things about Judaism is that its so strongly rooted in culture and tradition that a core belief in God isn't necessary to feel connected.

My boyfriend's sitting right next to me and I haven't showed him yet, but I know it'll make him cringe. He'll say changing century old traditions undermines the religion. Jeff and I feel pretty much the same way about God, but for him, Judaism is about keeping the same traditions as our ancestors and the other Jews around the world to stay connected to each other as a religion and a culture.

I understand that, but I don't completely agree with it. I think it's ok when we develop new tunes to prayers, or modify laws to keep up with the times.

I have a hard time respecting anyone's work in Judaism who doesn't support Israel, but Yoreh had kind of a cool idea. He said, “If you define [prayer] as communication between humans and a deity, I think that’s a very narrow conception. . . I think prayer is communal and private expression of hopes, fears, an appreciation of aesthetic beauty, good attributes. But that has nothing to do with God.”

I like that. I don't pray to God because it doesn't really do anything for me, but broadening the meaning of prayer might open things up a bit for people like me.

I think it'd be cool to read his siddur, but more as something to study than something to use in synagogue. In that sense I think Jeff's right. I may not believe in God, but having a God at the center of Judaism is part of the tradition and part of the culture that have defined so much of my life.

Sick days

This weekend I stayed home sick and Jeff stayed to take care of me. Luckily, we got digital cable installed on Saturday, so both us and our guinea pigs made it out of the weekend alive.

My dad's a doctor, which is something I realize I took for granted growing up. It was just so easy. Viruses never led to trips to the doctor, or, thankfully, the ER because he knew what it was, if we needed medication, and if we did, he could prescribe it.

Flu shots and other vaccinations were often given at home while watching "Friends" reruns and "Look at this weird thing on my [insert body part here]" were always met with consoling medical phrases we didn't understand but trusted anyway.

Now my dad and the rest of my family live in Tennessee and I'm still in Wisconsin. Picture mail only works in some situations, and late night phone calls make me feel really bad.

It's just Jeff and me here, both of us with severely limited biology backgrounds, trying to do the right things for ourselves and each other without spending our life savings to find out that it wasn't blood, it was marinara sauce.

It almost pains me to see how worried about me he is. I have a pretty annoying cough right now and have been lethargic all weekend. He throws around words like "bronchitis" and "pneumonia" and I assure him I get coughs like this every winter. He says he doesn't remember it ever being this bad and I gently remind him he's only known me for two and a half winters.

I know if my dad were here he'd tell me I'm fine, yes, I still have to go to school (work) tomorrow and he'd ask if I'd like to go to the movies tonight as long as I cough on the person sitting on the other side of me.

I took it for granted that my family didn't really have to worry about each other when weird things happened to our bodies, because my dad could tell us it was ok. We didn't have to schedule our days around doctors appointments just so we could get a prescription of something we have to take every twelve hours for six days so we could move on with our lives.

My dad didn't become a doctor so he could be a reference for his family (and his oldest daughter's broke college friends), but it's definitely a perk. I know he'll always be there for me, Jeff and eventually, our family (I've asked about the guinea pigs, but it turns out med school and vet school are very different), but it won't be the same as living with a doctor, and eventually he'll retire.

When I imagine what my own family will be like, I never picture it much different than how I grew up. But it's always these little things, like actually having to schedule an appointment to get medication, that remind me how much it might be.

My parents made me as crazy as the next person's when I was a kid, but never because they worried about my health. They didn't have to.

If raising my guinea pigs is any indication of my future, I could very well be that mother on a first name basis with the ER doctors. At the very least, WebMD will be my homepage.

Jeff and I have both followed very different vocational paths than our parents did, and that means that our future family isn't cookie cut for us. But maybe we'll be able to offer things to our children we never imagined during our studies--things our parents couldn't, but maybe things we'll be able to give back to them too.

I'm from Canada

We all at least know someone who's done it. Where are you from? I'm from Canada, you say, hoping this will up your chance of getting accurate directions through Europe.

You don't say it because you hate America, or even because you're ashamed of it.

You say it because the international opinion of the United States, particularly in Europe, is frighteningly low. Granted it's better now that Obama is president, but as far as I can tell, not by much.

I was just as angry and frustrated as every other young liberal when Bush was president. I would point to stretch Hummer limousines and shake my head and say, that's what's wrong with America.

I would laugh at the ignorance of people who said it's our duty as citizens to support our president in any decision he made because he's the leader of our country. I still do. I think it's scary that people believe that.

But when it comes to Israel, I have always defended it. The government, the army and the citizens, even when I don't know the details of the action or event I'm defending. When people say bad things about Israel, I get flustered and angry and scared.

How does that make me any different than the unconditional Bush supporters I can't stand?

I asked my Israeli "sister," Meital, what the young adult political climate was like in Israel awhile ago. Meital lived with my family in Milwaukee in 2004 as part of the Young Emissary Program. I wrote about her for my first article during my internship at the Chronicle. We've seen each other several times since her stay, and she remains a close part of our family.

Basically, she told me young political life in Israel is a lot like it is here. There are a lot of people like me, herself included, who question what the government does and openly criticize it when they think it's done something wrong.

This didn't surprise me, but it made me wonder what the Israeli youth thought about their Jewish American counterparts who criticize the American government but never the Israeli one.

But then she said something that did surprise me. She told me that she becomes more defensive regarding her country when she's in someone else's. She was visiting me in Madison at the time and working in Puerto Rico, where she still is.

I realized that it's the same for me, though. The worst was when I was in London in the summer of 2006. There was anti-American propaganda everywhere, and oddly enough, I never felt more pride in my country.

Maybe when you're away is when it's most obvious how much hate is actually out there.

I've only been to Israel once, but for a number of reasons--particularly the Israelis in my life-- it feels like home.

Because of this, I am constantly on guard when it comes to Israel. I have no problem scrutinizing the country's actions in the company of other people, Jewish or not, who unconditionally believe in Israel's right to exist as a Jewish country, and I have no problem admitting to these people when I don't know enough to form a valid opinion.

But just as I would never say anything bad about the United States to someone who looks down on Americans as spoiled and inferior beings, I will continue to support Israel unconditionally in the face of people who don't think the Jews have a right to a homeland.

I've never actually told anyone I was from Canada, but I know people who have, and I guess I don't blame them. When it's dark and you're lost on another continent, sometimes it's just not worth risking it.

But a lot of times it is. I'm usually more of a cynic than an idealist, but I can't help but think that if young Jews, especially Jewish liberals, stood up more for their religion and their country, it wouldn't hurt.

A note on the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

The editor at the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, based out of Milwaukee, has kindly agreed to link to my blog from the Chronicle site.

I was an intern at the Chronicle 2004-2005, when I was a senior in high school. I have continued to freelance for the paper throughout college and during my first year as a professional.

I look forward to sharing my blog with Chronicle readers and reading their input and opinions.

I'm Kind of Kosher

I'm a vegetarian. To some, that would mean, by default, I keep kosher. I don't mix milk and meat because I've completely eliminated the latter from my diet.

Others, however, would say I don't. My boyfriend eats meat off of the same plates I eat dairy. I eat at restaurants and friends' houses.

I drink non-kosher wine (although I'm one of the few people who can't get enough of Manischewitz) and don't reduce my grocery shopping only to foods with kosher symbols.

So, am I kosher or not? As far as I can tell, the answer to that question is up to the discretion of the individual. My boyfriend's family keep dishes separate at home, but eat out at restaurants. He'll even have a cheeseburger, as long as it's not in his parents' house.

I've known people who consider themselves kosher simply because they don't eat pork.

But the thing is, whenever people ask me if I keep kosher, I don't know what to say. I became a vegetarian 18 years ago, when I was 5 years old. It was because the idea of eating an animal, once I figured out that's what meat was, grossed me out. It had nothing to do with my religion. I never even heard the word "kosher" until I was a few years into my vegetarianism.

When people ask me if I keep kosher, "kind of" is usually what comes out. That question and that answer, I think, are the best depictions of the phase I'm at in my life right now, which this blog will try to capture.

I'm 23-years-old. I graduated with a degree in journalism and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison last May. I'm about seven months into my first full time job.

I moved in with my boyfriend, Jeff, of two years when we graduated (we're now going on three). He came from a conservative Jewish family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, whereas I grew up reform in Milwaukee.

With our college years in the recent past and a verbal commitment to one day get married and have a family, we've begun to weigh the similarities and differences of our Jewish upbringings against the Jewish family life we intend to form for ourselves and our children.

We're at that awkward interlude where we're not as much a part of our family's Jewish traditions as we once were, but we haven't been away long enough to form Jewish identities of our own.

But that, I think, is the beauty of Judaism. The freedom to define it for yourself.

I would never say I'm kind of Jewish. I'm Jewish to the full extent, my extent, though my beliefs and customs may vary greatly from another Jew's, whose traditions may vary from someone else's.

But I'm kind of kosher, depending on whether you define it by intent, practice or law. I don't know how I define it. Maybe, during these transition years I'll figure it out. But maybe not, and that's ok too.

Photo: Jeff and me at graduation