11. Weather reminiscent of Portland, Oregon

Since Saturday, the weather in Tel Aviv has been unpredictably bizarre: It rains for two minutes and then the sun shines immediately. The cycle continues all day, and all night. It has been raining nearly non-stop for four days which, I've been told, is a very good thing given the low water levels in Israel from a persistent drought. Trees are down, as is the power in some buildings. The topic of conversation hasn't strayed far from the weather. Today brought hail. It was quite odd to see little hail pellets bounce off of the ground outside the classroom. Amazingly, I recognized the word for hail in hebrew because it is one of the ten plagues that is recited during the Passover "Seder" (opening communal meal). The forecast has let us know that Jerusalem has seen 15+ centimeters of snow fall this week. In fact, the trip that our program had planned for Jerusalem for tomorrow was postponed because of the snow. However, several kids (myself included) will be braving the elements and traveling to Jerusalem anyway. If there is any snow on the ground in Jerusalem, I want to see it. I'm also hoping to reconnect with a long, lost friend from my camp who I haven't spoken with in roughly seven years.

Now that I know the city relatively well, I've began my travels to Tel Aviv's museums and galleries. Yesterday, I went to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. It is an exciting collection with several works by Picasso, Leger, Chagall, Pisarro, Braque, Monet, Pollack and some really cool Pointillists who I'd never heard of. The impressionist gallery was appropriately impressive and the old-school realist collection was enjoyable. Fresh off of a visit to some Venetian galleries over the summer, I was surprised by the lack of New Testament imagery. I shouldn't have been surprised, I guess, but it was still interesting to see renderings of scenes from the Torah that one comes across less than New Testament art. I had a realization about the reality of Israel's being a Jewish state when I saw, in each doorframe, a "mezuzah" (a scroll placed on every doorframe in a Jewish house/building). There were some great modern-art galleries as well. I highly recommend the museum.

The day before, I went to the Diaspora Museum, which is conveniently located on the campus of Tel Aviv University. It is a wonderful museum that tracks the spread of Judaism across the world since the Jewish Diaspora commenced (I'm not sure if that's how to say it). One section of the Museum has several computers where one can look up family names and communities worldwide. My Californian cousins (Andrew and Jonathan twice) were in the database but no one else. Another excellent museum.

Today, I went to the Bauhaus Center. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but the gift shop had a very impressive book collection. While the museum didn't illuminate the complexities or ideas behind this school of architecture, I bought a book written by Walter Gropius (~founder of Bauhaus Architecture). I'm pumped to read it. It is impossible to walk down a street and not notice the architecture so I think I'm going to take a Bauhaus tour next Friday to learn more about it.