Now that I am back in the U.S., I am happy to end my more
than 2 weeks without a blog post. I’ve
been in Israel, as mentioned in previous posts, and when I was in my hotel and
on-line (which required being in the lobby) I was having some technical
difficulties signing in. I probably could have figured out how to solve the problem, but I was fairly busy
running around anyway.
I was staying up in the Mount Scopus area, near Hebrew
University’s law school, at which I had a teaching gig. I was supposed to have 5 classes over the two
week period, meeting for 2 hours & 20 minutes each, but on the third day
the students pitched to me the idea of lengthening classes 3 and 4 so that I
could cancel class 5 without loss of overall class time. A half hour was all that I could add to class
3, given the amount of material I had prepared and the fact that some of the
students (I had about 14 in all) needed to leave, but I agreed to make class 4
a marathon, running for 4 hours total though with 2 short breaks. (So it was three consecutive sessions of
about 1 hour and 15 minutes each over a four-hour period.) I told them that, while this would be pretty
tough for me, it would be even tougher for them, as listening to someone for 4
hours can be harder than talking for that length of time. But I think we got through it OK.
The topic of the lectures (with some questions and
discussion) was U.S. corporate and international taxation, emphasizing aspects of
the U.S. system that are widespread rather than idiosyncratic, and trying to
blend discussion of real world practice and planning issues with applied
economic theory. Most of the students
had only had a basic class in individual income taxation, but I aimed to adjust
for that, and I thought it went OK.
Early in a teaching career you learn not to under-prepare. Later on, you learn not to over-prepare, so
that you can respond more flexibly to the students and to what is happening in
front of you.
Classes met in the afternoon, generally at either 2 or 4
pm. So even on class days, I could do
other things early in the day. Generally
on class days, as well as open days when I didn’t have a more long-range travel
plan, I would walk down from Mount Scopus to the Old City of Jerusalem – about
2 to 3 miles down. While going back up was obviously the same length, it felt much longer, what with the climb and mid-afternoon heat. Wailing Wall, Dome on the Rock, City of
David, the markets inside the walls, etc.
Usually I’d be pretty tired by the end of the day, but at
least I was getting some exercise. And I wouldn't complain, even to myself, about the heat and the Sun (which
could be pretty rough if I was trudging steeply uphill at 2 pm), given how much more
I would have disliked the cool and rainy weather that I gather New York has had
much of the time.
In addition to seeing a lot of the Old City, the main
markets, and the main tourist sites around Jerusalem (including the Zoo and the
Israel Museum, which has a great Herod show right now, as his tomb
was recently found), I also spent a couple of days in Tel Aviv, and went on
visits to Jericho, Bethlehem, and Herodion (the site of Herod’s tomb). There are quite a few more great tourist
sites in Israel, but many of them I had seen already in earlier visits. And since Jericho et al are in the
Palestinian Territories, I got to see the wall, cars and workers passing
through it, etcetera.
My final event of the two-week stay, earlier today (Friday as I write this), was a symposium at Hebrew University concerning my
international tax book. But I will save
that for a separate blog post.
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