In the Promised Land with the Chosen People

It's hard to believe I've been in Israel 3 weeks already. On the one hand it seems like I've been here ages and have already done some awesome stuff; on the other there's so much more to do and so little time in which to do it.

I suppose I should apologise for not having posted much so far - the simple reality is that there have been too many thing to write about and, being my mother's son, I've had difficulties deciding what to write about.

This is my fifth time to Israel but, really, is very different to all the others - the first was when I was 12 with the family of a friend, and the intermediate three were in the summers of 2002/3-2004/5 with AUJS Israel Programs. Really, this is the first time I've actually been able to properly interact with Israelis as an adult, and the first time I've really had to take care of myself here in any way.

I knew that this time would be different so, while I came with lots of questions, I didn't really have many expectations as to what I would find, other than what one is told of Israelis - that they are loud, aggressive, impatient, lying/cheating/theiving etc. In my assessment, three weeks in, these stereotypes are ... well, kinda true, to some degree. I guess that's why they're stereotypes! But really this aspect of the national persona is not what is predominantly felt (at least not in Jerusalem, where I've spent most of my time) but rather it has become clear to me that the word that should be used more than any of those above is simply "nice".
Ok, so they use their elbows to make sure they get on a bus, it's rare that one can delineate a queue and people honk each other on the roads all the time .... but they're actually incredibly friendly and generous, willing to help when they can and very warm. A lot like Aussies I guess but in my experience, around the world not everyone is like this.
And more than Australians, Israelis seem to care about each other in a fairly active (some would say intrusive) way - unsolicited advice given on the street and such, but also people on the buses actually talk to each other (God forbid!!), and even to the groups of people with Down's sydnrome one sees on occasion travelling the city, and invitations are freely made for meals with people one's just met with very few questions asked other than "do you have a place for dinner?"

It's strange, we have a society where everyone is rushing somewhere from somwhere else; where everything is of world-class standard but people don't get paid enough; where the people and the country are in a constant struggle for survival in the face of military and political threats from many directions ... and everyone, rather than fighting tooth and nail (other than in traffic and queues) , is out there looking after each other. It's incredible, really, and I think there's a lot that can be learnt from this nation. I hope that in Australia, as we drift towards a dog-eat-dog American-style mentality, we can take a page from Israel's book and learn to band together, rather than to drive ourselves apart. Perhaps the Chosen People in the Promised Land can still be that historical Light Unto the Nations...

miracles happen

I was going to post/email a piece begging people to send me their phone numbers after I lost mine a couple of days ago. I realised that I'd lost it as I was entering the bus station (taking it out so I wouldn't beep going through the metal detectors) and figured it was gone forever. Since using it last I had been in a bus, a taxi and numerous streets. It was never going to come back. Not in the Middle East.

However, as things turn out, I'm not sending that email (but if i don't have your number, please do send it!) as i now have my phone back.
The taxi driver, Isi, called a friend of mine (out of my phonebook i guess) who contacted me on MSN and i walked out in the (snow-covered!!!) streets of Jerusalem to collect it.

When I thanked Isi I told him I had expected that that the phone would never return. He smiled and said "We've just finished Channuka. Miracles happen"
Thank you Isi - quite a ben adam, a mensch.

I have many other things to write about (people, drinking, concerts, drinking, fighter pilot graduation ceremonies, drinking, snow in Jerusalem...) but this was something that was immediate. more posts coming soon at flyingdoctorblog.blogspot.com :-)

The Un-Promised Land

I meant to post on this for some time now but never got round to it, thanks to my placement in Port Maquarie - which could be a couple of posts in itself! Nonetheless, here it is now...

Since seeing a friend of mine, (now Dr) Dean, undertake his medical elective term in Israel 2 years ago it's been something I've been psyched to do myself.
I know that some Aussie unis have made problems for people wanting to study in Israel over the past few years but, given that someone from my uni (Sydney) did their elective in Israel last year, I thought shouldn't have any problems. Right?

If only it were so simple.

One of my colleagues who was planning on doing her elective in Israel applied early in the year but was given hassles on the basis that Israel is dangerous.
After some lobbying on our behalf by a Professor, she was approved. Unfortunately she has subsequently made other plans anyway and won't be joining us :-(
In any case, the groundwork was laid and we would be allowed to go, so when I formally presented my application it was smooth sailing... until recently.

5 weeks prior to my anticipated departure a bulletin was posted to students that someone in the university structures was head-kicking the faculty into disapproving electives that had already been approved, if the destination country was one to which DFAT had recommended reconsidering travel. So yes, that's me. 5 weeks from departure!
Obviously I'm not going to be too happy with that! So after spending a frantic day on the phone to pretty much anyone who may be of assistance, the weekend (in which I packed and drove up to Port Macquarie for my 4-week attachment) was spent in limbo, not knowing what was happening around me...

The next week was tense, fraught with dealings with anxious students whose plans had been ripped out from under their feet, with communal leaders going in to bat for us, and with faculty and university officials evasively dealing with enquiries, with nobody taking responsibility for the new dictum.
Nonetheless, with the help of some people who know people, we had a new ruling put in place. We would have to sign some more rubbish bits of paper (another tree bites the dust) and have a meeting with the Dean but we'd be allowed to go. Yes, despite the "latest and final" decision advertised in that bulletin, we were again allowed to go!!

So, just the other day, I had this meeting with the Dean. He admitted it was a formality, offering that the Faculty could provide me with an alternative elective experience and watching me sign something that just said i was going to be responisble for myself and that the uni doens't really want me to be there. And then we discussed the memorandum of understand he'd been organising with the Faculty of Medicine Technion in Haifa (Israel's MIT, as he put it) and that I should think about taking that up as well...
Obviously the Dean's very convinced of the merits of that "latest and final" decision posted as a bulletin...

So yes, less than a week prior to my departure I had the seal of (dis-)approval to go and learn with the world's experts in their field, at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, in Jerusalem, Israel!
And now, here I am 2 days from departure writing a blog instead of packing.

2 DAYS!! awesome...
לשבוע הבה בירושלים! - next week in Jerusalem!

Leadership crises

I went to a meeting this afternoon, by invitation, to take part in assessing ideas for the review of the medical curriculum at the University of Sydney (Australia's premier medical school) with a group of 8 (plus the 2 professors running the Review) in which I was one of only two students.
I felt distinctly under-qualified sitting there with people who (as well as their being medical doctors) have a PhD or Master’s as well as having finished their postgraduate medical training but it was great being given the opportunity to be there to give input into the next generation of medical education.

The Professor who was chairing today opened the meeting by explaining that the people around the table (excluding himself and the other Professor) are the future leaders of the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine. A strange thought and not something I’d expected to be applied to me but nonetheless, I'll usually take a compliment when it's offered by someone as esteemed as Professor Gouslton.

The thought of being a Faculty leader isn't an entirely new one to me - I have to say I have had thoughts (during one of my occasional delusions of grandeur) of myself behind a desk in these wonderful old buildings with the door labeled Professor Simon Nothman, Dean of Medicine. Then I woke up from the daydream.

Nonetheless, the topic of leadership is pertinent at this time.It's this time of year that many organisations contemplate their upcoming leadership. Recently I've been involved in running the elections for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students nationally, and in speaking to candidates on the state level about their candidacy. All the while, as I'm dealing with other people's leadership, I can't help thinking about my own...

Medsoc, the medical students' society at uni, seems to have had a couple of problems this year. Not to say that the organisation hasn't done good things, which it has, but rather that there have been problems with regards to leadership and struggles within the executive.It's also become clear, to one with experience in running student organisations, that some of the issues faced derive from a lack of fairly basic leadership training. While, certainly, there are some good/effective leaders (not always the same thing!) in the organisation there's nothing in place to teach those without it some basic leadership skills and techiniques.Also Medsoc, in my opinion, shoudl get involved again in general student issues. it used to be the case that every year at least one memebr of the Univeristy Union was a med student - now the level of apathy has reached such height students won't even vote, much less nominate!

I hear you all asking what the crisis in all of this is, as we approach the end of this blog entry. The answer, as always, is a question:
Is it enough for me to be able to diagnose these problems and others?
Is suggesting a management plan sufficient?
Or do I need to take an active role in the treatment of this disorder?

So I find myself once again contemplating offering myself for the vice presidency, a position in which I'd really be able to use what I've learned elsewhere and give all I can to the organisation, but one which would likely chew up what remains of my 'free' time.

So what do you out there think? To run or not to run, that is the question....

Priestly Curses

Following a conversation with a new friend about the fact that I'm a Kohen (of the family of Jewish Priests) and the implications that had for my life I decided to delve into such matters.
For those who don't know, a Kohen is not allowed to come into contact with (or within a certain distance of) a dead person, nor are they allowed to marry a convert or divorcee. These rules are for the purpose of maintaining purity of those who perform the Temple service and, despite the fact that the Temple is not currently extant, they have been retained for many generations.

So yes the first issue is that, as a medical student, there's not much room for not dealing with death so, a number of years ago, I asked my Rabbi about this and he granted me an exemption from this rule, presumably on the basis of pikuach nefesh (the sanctity of human life and that virtually anything is excusable on the basis of saving a life).
The question then came to the issue of marriages and restrictions related to that. The restriction on not marrying divorcees is (potentially) reasonable if purity is the goal to be attained however the rationale behind not marrying a convert was less clear. In Judaism converts are considered no less Jewish than someone born Jewish and, often, are actually more observant. So what was the aetiology of this ruling?
As one does these days, I googled a few terms to see what we could find…

I had assumed that the issue relating to marrying a convert was about purity. It turns out that's not entirely true. The reason given for a Kohen not being allowed to marry a convert is not actually (directly) related to purity as I had presumed, but rather (and I was impressed by this) has to do with an interpretation in the Talmud of the term "harlot".

Wikipedia says that for a Kohen, marriage is prohibited to the following:
- a divorcee (even re-marrying one’s own ex-wife)
- a woman who has committed adultery, been involved in incest, or had [sexual] relations with a non-Jew.
- a female convert, out of concern for what may have occurred to her while she was a gentile (Talmudic law).
A born-Jewish woman who has had premarital relations may marry a kohen if and only if all of her partners were Jewish.

Something I find exceedingly odd, is that, apparently, a child of a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father, while halachically Jewish, is prohibited from marrying a kohen, by rabbinic law.

According to AllExperts.com, "any Kohen who makes such a marriage [with an
inappropropriate woman] loses his priestly status". This is of great import as it also means that any sons born to that man in the future would also not being Kohanim, whereas otherwhise they would have been.

A very strange perspective came from http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v12/mj_v12i05.html, in which it was stated that there was a ruling such that "in the case of a non Orthodox conversion he could receive the Kohen aliyah since he was not really married since she was not really Jewish, a rare advantage of a non Halachic conversion"
Hmmm, I certainly can't see myself agreeing with that one...

Also, it seems that the different streams have different rules. Specifically, Reform doesn't recognise priestly status anyway, Conservative Judaism allows and recognises such marriages, while Orthodox Judaism does not (or at least not without the sacrifice of one’s priestly rights)

This all having been said, whether I were or weren't to break this rule regarding marriages, it wouldn't be the only one - the laws of Niddah, for example, as well as many non-relationship related laws. Furthermore, considering Jewish law regarding relationships, I’m already in trouble. A question arises, however, when looking again at the case of marrying a Jewish woman who’s engaged in pre-marital sex (as is so common these days) – it’s OK if she’s only slept with Jewish men but not if she’s slept with non-Jews. The question then is that of why there appear to be no rules about who I should be able to sleep with prior to marriage – after all, isn’t it my supposed purity that we’re trying to maintain here?

Clearly there's a conflict here, again, between tradition and the realities of the modern world. The question is what each person makes for themselves of it, when considered on balance... (and, even better, if you can find a rabbi who you'll know will rule in your favour!)
As always with me there are no answers, only more questions. :-)

please feel free to comment!

Simply AWESOME!

Tonight I did something I don't often do, in that I went out to a club on a Friday night. There was a reason for this divergence from the usual, that being that my brother Jeremy's band De Stijl (www.myspace.com/DeStijlBand) was playing.
No, sorry, let me rephrase that - They were headlining, and they absolutely rocked!
Seriously the best gig I've seen since Homebake 2001. Really incredible.

Anyway, make sure you get to see them (& get your hands on their upcoming EP) because they're absolutely worth it (and because when they're famous [note when, not if] that signed EP will be valuable)

So yeah, simply awesome...

Judgement Day

As should be plainly obvious by now, Yom Kippur (where God has that task of deciding who will live and who will die) occurred earlier in the week.

A judgement day of another sort has just come and gone at the end of this week - that's right, the Medical Program Assessment Committee (?self-appointed gods) have gathered to pass judgement and make decisions of their own.
Not whether people live or die, just whether they pass or have to repeat. Some would probably argue that repeating is a harsher punishment.
Nonetheless, the Faculty's nasty email didn't come and (thankfully) the list put out today confirms that, indeed, there's next to nothing in the way of me becoming a doctor.

Scary shit, I'd recommend you take out private health coverage well before that happens!
So yeah, me as a doctor - who'd've thought it possible...? (Yes, I agree, it is utterly ridiculous!)
So on we march, through the trials and tribulations of medical education ... with no more big exams to deal with, ever*!

(* in saying "ever", what is really meant is "for some, if ever so brief, period of time - probably a couple of years at most". but hey, who's a stickler for details?)

Nuts to you!

Some Jews have a tradition that on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and usually for the 10 Days of Repentance until Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) they don't consume nuts.Now, nuts don't usually make up a large part of my diet so this wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that my mum's honey cake (truly amongst the world's best) contains walnuts.
Given that honey generally and thus honeycake are traditional this time of year (symbolic of a sweet New Year) this ban on nuts has caused a little consternation, particularly in recent years.

So the question ought to be asked where this nut ban derives from. The answer, we're told, is the result of equivalence between nuts with sin, in terms of gematria.

Clearly for many the concept of gematria will require a brief investigation. In short it's the process whereby each Hebrew letter is allocated a number based on its position in the alphabet (or, rather, the aleph-bet).
The first letter, aleph (א), is 1. The tenth, yud (י), is 10 then increasing by tens to the 20th letter, kuf (ק), which is 100 and then finishing with tav (ת) on 400. These numerical values are used by Jewish mystics to assist in interpretation of hidden meanings behind words, amongst other uses.
Back to the question of the nut ban, we're told that nuts and sin find themselves equally valued in terms of their gematria scores.

My brother, a bit of a scholar with too much time on his hands, decided to test this out and sat down with a pen and paper calculating scores for any of the many terms for sin and comparing them to the relatively few words for nuts.He came up blank, unable to find this apparent equality that should disqualify us from eating this Rosh Hashanah dessert delight.So I decided that this year I'd ask the Rabbi at synagogue how it worked. Of course I forgot to ask, so instead looked it up on google (google knows all!)

The first relevant response to my sercah terms got me to JewishSF.com, which claimed what I'd heard previously - that אגוז (egoz, nut) and חטא (khet, sin) are equally valued. When I worked it out, I came to the same conclusion as my brother - that the results were in fact not equal, but rather differ by 1. Working was as follows:(אגוז א(1) ג(3) ו(6) ז (7in total, adds to 17.(חטא ח(8) ט(9) א(1in total, adds to 18.
Now, admittedly it's a while since my university maths courses but i'm pretty sure that 17 isn't the same as 18.

Investigating a little further, I found myself at the ohr sameach wesbite (ohr.edu, ohr sameach meaning "new light" in Hebrew. And no, I won't spell it "someach") which informed me that it works, as long as you spell khet wrongly, excluding the final letter, aleph, with a gematria value of one. To me this sounds a little bit dodgy and i'm not sure how such a tradition (and a deleterious one at that!) got started based on such shaky mathmatics, not to mention spelling.

So there you go, Myth Busters, we've got one debunked here. I won't be advertising this silly nut ban (perhaps named after those who promote it, rather than what you're not allowed to eat?!) and certainly don't plan to stop ingesting that most delicious of honey cakes any time soon.

Wishing all a happy & sweet New Year, and to be signed & sealed in the Book of Life.

The first of many...

I've been thinking for some time I should start a blog ..
So what better time than now, between exams the start of the next stage of my education (or rather, now that I don't know what to do with all my time..!)
Also, it's between Rosh Hashana [Jewish New Year] and Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement] when introspection is the game of the day, and also an opportunity to start some things anew.

So here we have it, first installment of the flying doctor blog, the name referring to my upcoming medical elective in Jerusalem (and i have to fly to get there...) in which I'll studying under the world's experts in trauma surgery and terror medicine. Or alternatively perhaps I'll be mostly touring Israel...
On the topic of which, should I stay near the centre of Jerusalem or near the hospital? All contributions/suggestions welcome - especially if you know someone who wants to rent me a place cheap!

I don't really have much to write now, I'm preparing for Yom Kippur but be sure to check back here in future - there'll be stories, photos and more good stuff... looking forward to your comments!

Chag Sameach, Gmar Chatima Tova L'Kulam