Sunday, February 12, 2012
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The first week back...
...still did not feel quite like we were "back."
We returned on Tuesday the 6th to a siyur of Israel's Supreme Court, which ended up being quite fun--mostly because it was the first time we were all seeing each other again. We got into the court at about 10:30, despite having arrived at the bus stop at 9:00 and been in the court lobby at 9:45. We were given a tour by a heartily grumpy woman who made it clear she did not want to be touring a bunch of rambunctious Americans around the Supreme Court, demanding silence of everyone (which was quite hard for many of us when she was talking about "retired justices" because her British accent made it sound like she was saying "retard justices"). The architecture of the building was fairly interesting though, there were many pyramidal structures to it and symbolism from Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures. I also learned that Israel does not utilize the jury system and that people are allowed to represent themselves in the Supreme Court. One last huge difference: the Israeli Supreme Court is not like the American one, where getting to make a case there is a privilege or great accomplishment--it has to hear every case that is brought before it.
We returned and made lunch, then spent the rest of the day doing nothing/going to the gym.
Part of the reason that the "week back" still felt so much like spring break is because that Wednesday was our only day of volunteering for the whole week. It was good to see Justus again, and he talked a little bit about his spring break--during which his daughter went to the crazy music festival Boombamella and his son took the car so he had to spend most of his break fairly immobile. Oh well.
Wednesday afternoon, we had to have a make-up class for missing classes during break and various other class absences to come due to holidays. It was just annoying because the class started at 7 and ended at 10, which, frankly, is just way too late to be stuck in a Year Course class right after spring break.
Thursday, we woke up early and drove down south for the Year Course tiyul that we had been promised for so long. It was nice to see the other sections. It was also nice to see the scouts. It was nicest, though, to see that the hike they had planned and bragged about was one that our section (and only ours) had done when we were in Arad. In any case, it was a bit longer this time, and with different company, so it was still fun. Additionally, I was forced to carry around a jerry can--a big plastic bottle full of water for everyone to share--and I made the task excessively obnoxious by throwing it everywhere. The entire hike was made quite fun by such shenanigans. At one point, where we stopped for lunch, Andrew was throwing rocks into a fairly large pond, and then Or asked him to "stop throwing rocks into the lake." After Andrew threw another one in, Or asked more sternly and made it clear that he REALLY didn't want Andrew to throw another rock in. Andrew then proceeded to throw a giant rock in, and, when Or started to get mad, simply said "that was more of a boulder than a rock, Or." At one point, Yael, the sports track director who was leading us in the trail, asked me what the name of the trail was, and I told her "Shvil Asinu C'var," which literally translates to "Trail We Did it Already." I had to repeat this to her several times before she realized I was making fun of Year Course for taking us on the same hike again. Andrew and I also took a very dangerous route at one point instead of getting wet, and harassed Or throughout most of the hike. All in all, it was quite fun:
After the hike was over, we drove to our Bedouin hospitality site. There we relaxed and mingled among different sections, rode some camels (nothing special, although it sounds like it. One of the girls in the religious program of our section, shalem, said "If you lean forward, it feels like a massage on your vagina!" Easily the highlight of the camel riding). That night, we received a hearty Bedouin dinner, had a bonfire, and had a massive party inside one of the bigger tents. We left Friday morning and returned to Jerusalem--all in all, the trip was pretty good.
Friday night, a small group of people went to services at a synagogue here. Not once in all my visits prior to this year nor all my time this year have I been so satisfied by a Friday night service in Israel. Kabbalat Shabbat at Shira Chadasha reminded me somewhat of services at home, and, although they had a mechitza (a separation between men and women in the synagogue that I'm principally opposed to), it was fairly opaque, women were leading parts of the service, the ark was split evenly on both sides of it, and it was drawn back several times during the service. It was an excellent experience with many tunes that I loved, and certainly a place I'll be going to every Friday that I'm in town for for the rest of my time here.
After services, we went to the big girls' apartment to have a potluck dinner as the first part of having a YJ shabbat weekend for Cera's birthday. After delicious dinner, lots of us came over to our apartment and hung out before going to sleep.
Saturday morning, I and several others held YJ Shabbat morning services in the beit knesset. Afterwards, we put on a botched version of parsha players for everyone on campus, and I spent several hours just lounging around.
On Sunday the 11th, I returned to volunteering once again. At volunteering, I was (and still am) doing research on Rachel Corrie. This is a very convoluted accident where an American girl standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer got run over and died, and, frankly, at this point, with 10 pages of research about it sitting on my computer, I don't want to talk much about it. If you're interested, I could send you a copy of the research to look at. But, trust me, you're not interested. :P
That afternoon, instead of classes, we had some peulot about the Holocaust, as Monday the 12th was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. At my activity, we were given several different events and asked which one we would put Yom Hashoah on. The events were things like Hitler's rise to power, Kristallnacht, Liberation Day, the conception of the "Final Solution," and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I chose (and this is ultimately the date that it IS set on) the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, because it's exemplary of the spirit of the new Jew in Israel, the Jew who stands up for themselves and won't take persecution silently. I thought it was pretty fitting and interesting. During the afternoon, a strange and harsh wind from the African plains flooded the country--the sky was hazy, and voluminous clouds of tan smog filled the air. It became cold and brisk and somber with a certain fitting discomfort. That night, we had a ceremony on the lawn of Beit Ar-El where we watched a video and each placed a rock with the name of someone who died in the Shoah next to a big tree. Immediately after the ceremony, everyone just went off in every which direction, off to do things for the night or go to sleep. I lingered for a while and looked at the rocks...sometimes I am astounded by how quickly people move past things. There's this idea that people die in several ways: their actual physical death, the death of everyone who knew them, and the death of their name, as in when it's not said anymore. I went on a short walk in the cold before returning to campus, where I watched Schindler's List. It had never seen it before; needless to say it evoked a strong emotional response. I had several conversations that evening, as well as the next day, about whether or not Jews would have the state of Israel if the Holocaust hadn't happened. Ultimately, I think we might have, but much later on if at all, and certainly not with the same spirit.
Monday morning I went to volunteering as usual, but at 10:00 walked outside with Laura to hear the national siren go off in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. It's a very loud air-raid siren that goes off in all of Israel for three minutes, and people all stop what they're doing to stand in memory. Cars stop and people get out of them in the middle of the highway; indeed, the entire nation halts, if only for a short moment. That afternoon, we didn't have classes but we did have mifgash dira with Emma, which went the same way it always does. That night I went to do stand up at the comedy club once again, but this time more spontaneously, which didn't turn out nearly as well as the first time did. Oh well--some parts were still funny, but it was just not nearly as funny as my first performance was. I'm still trying to find the right blend of improvisation and preparation for the act.
Tuesday the 12th was the WORST. SIYUR. EVER. My apartment awoke quite late by accident, and thus decided we were not going to go on the siyur. That is, until Emma called us and told us that we absolutely had to be there and that they were waiting for us (already 45 minutes late or so). Thus, we put on our Year Course shirts and shuffled down to Beit Ar-El to begin a day long tour with a Hadassah lady telling us all about Hadassah medical care in Jerusalem and how great Hadassah is. We went to several sites just to hear her talk before ultimately going to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital to hear a doctor talk about working with Israeli relief teams in Haiti. Aside from this one interesting part, the highlight of the day was fitting far too many people inside a revolving door:
The most convenient part about the siyur was that by the time we got back home, the gym was closed. Thus, that night we converged in a fairly large group to go play basketball. We went to a park nearby, and about half an hour into the game, Scott fell as he was trying to juke around someone. As he fell, he heard his ankle pop, so he thought it might have broken. People in the park were quite concerned, and someone said that we should call an ambulance (Scott was in quite audible and visible pain), so I did. By the time the ambulance arrived, Scott was not in nearly as much pain (or at least it appeared this way), so the ambulance took its time going to where else but...Hadassah Ein Kerem. I went there two too many times that day. It was the first time I've ever rode in an ambulance, which was kind of cool, but mostly concerning at the time. Long story short, after an x-ray and examination, Scott had nothing broken but did have a very sprained ankle, which they wrapped up and told him he had to get crutches for (what kind of a hospital doesn't give out crutches?!). After Emma bought us some treats, we went home and went to sleep.
Wednesday was volunteering in the morning, once again Rachel Corrie, and then a class once again in the late afternoon to make up for not having had classes on Sunday. Wednesday afternoon also had some activities on the schedule (i.e. "Conversational Hebrew"), that, as usual, did not happen. In fact, when I arrived at campus looking for conversational Hebrew on that Wednesday, I instead found a group of people meeting with the new shaliach (Israeli ambassador-type person) to the Young Judaea Midwest region, which I'm a part of. This is someone who both I and Karin will be working with at camp this summer, so it's a bit frustrating that neither of us were told about the meeting--in any case, though, I met her and briefly talked to her before storming home in childish frustration (not actually) over this and the lack of conversational Hebrew. In class that evening, we got an assignment to begin designing our ideal synagogue with our partner (Andrew), which, of course, nobody has started on.
Thursday was the usual business--volunteering, then Ulpan and writing class. We had a test in Ulpan and got time to just write some in my other class, which was good. After class, I did a small bit of planning for my trip to Tzfat that weekend. That night, we drank some of the things that Scott had bought at duty-free after his cruise during spring break and then proceeded to go to Ben Yehuda street (nothing too special, really) before going home.
Friday morning, after Andrew decided he wanted to stay home that weekend, Cera and I left for Tzfat. The timing of everything was perfect--we arrived at the central bus station, had lunch, and managed to take the last direct bus to Tzfat after a bit of hearty confusion. We arrived at around 3 that afternoon and met up with Shoshana, the owner of our "hostel." The youth "hostel" was actually just an extra apartment she owned that she gave us the key to. It was actually pretty funny, because when we first walked in she showed us a small room and asked if it would be okay, but then we basically had the entire apartment. After walking around for a bit that night, she took us to Shabbat services, which were interesting--not exactly done in a way I liked, but interesting nonetheless. I was surprised at the amount of Americans there. Halfway through the service, the lights went out because of construction happening down the street, which was a relief for me because I had been feeling self-conscious about forgetting to bring a kippah. I felt like every time someone looked at me all they could think was "no kippah." After the service was over, I ate at the soup kitchen across from the synagogue with several other men. I kept wanting to leap into the conversation, but at every opportune time something negative was said. For instance, one of the men mentioned Jerusalem, where I currently live, only to go on to say that it was a useless city where nobody could study Torah anymore--only in Tzfat can Torah be studied! After dinner, during the walk home, I had a long talk with Shoshana, who is Romanian (like my grandparents), about the Holocaust and about Israel in general, which was quite intriguing.
Saturday, we walked around all of Tzfat and enjoyed the beautiful views and true Shabbat atmosphere, something which I do not get living in the secular part of Jerusalem (I guess the man from dinner the night before has a point).
After exploring the city and being fed to no end by Shoshana, we caught a fairly late bus back to Jerusalem.
And then, there came Sunday the 18th. I awoke and went to volunteering as usual, but then, in the afternoon, we began to have program about Yom Hazikaron, "Remembrance Day." It's like the Israeli version of Memorial Day, except people don't have barbecues and enjoy a long weekend here--it's very somber and important for most of the population. That afternoon, we had a brief presentation from our madrichim about their experiences with Yom Hazikaron that ended up being quite poignant. That evening, we were taken to a MASA event (MASA is an organization that's affiliated with many many gap year and summer programs in Israel) for the beginning of Yom Hazikaron that I thought was pretty trite and cliche. It was seemed pointedly made for Americans and almost cheapened the memories of the people it was trying to commemorate with its cheesiness. The only meaningful part of the whole event was at the very beginning, when yet another national siren went off and we all stood in silence for several minutes.
Monday was the actual day of Yom Hazikaron. All of Year Course went to Har Herzl and volunteered, handing out flowers and water bottles to people who were mourning. On Yom Hazikaron, people from all over the nation come to Har Herzl to commemorate the people they know (often family) who died in military service. Additionally, each member of the army is required to go and visit a specific grave in order to make sure that none of them are left unvisited due to families not being able to come or not having any living descendants. It was intriguing to see the huge hordes of people walking around and visiting their (mostly childrens') graves, telling their stories to others passing by. After spending an hour in the morning handing out flowers, I got a chance to walk around. At 11, yet another siren went off, and then Andrew and I made our way into a giant ceremony on the top of the mountain. By the time we got in, though, it ended, so we only saw the stage, but had heard the President (Shimon Peres) and the Prime Minister (BiBi Netanyahu) speaking over the intercoms throughout the mountain.
Afterwards, Or gave Andrew, Nathan, and I a ride home in his car. Despite the fact that it us the better part of 2 hours to traverse a 20-minute drive, we had a good time--Or made the mistake of leaving the windows down, thus we were yelling many different things out of the car in a childish, stupid, but wildly hilarious way. They were particularly funny when Andrew said them, because they were different phrases in Hebrew that either meant something horrible that everyone was used to or were something atrocious that Nathan or I made up. When we got back, the same group went to Avazi to eat. Avazi is a cheap place that serves good meat kebabs in pita that Andrew has been talking about for 2 months now; it was pretty good, I guess. :P
That night, I went to campus to have a closing ceremony for Yom Hazikaron and the beginning of Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli independence day). I returned to my apartment afterwards and got dressed up before going out. Of course, Yom Ha’atzmaut ended up being exactly what I expected from Israel and Israelis: one giant, raving, extravagant party of pride and exorbitance. On my way to Ben Yehuda street, I saw fireworks sprout off the tip top of a skyscraper’s roof. I arrived at Ben Yehuda street and hung out with various Year Course people for a while before going with Nathan and his cousin to do some Israeli dancing outside of Jerusalem's city hall. After dancing, I went with a small group of people to the shuk, which ended up being a gigantic party, as well. There were erratic foods that I have almost never seen in Israel before (for some reason an abundance of egg rolls) and makeshift bars set up in the middle of the walkway. It was crowded beyond belief, and it took us almost an hour and a half to walk from one end of the market to the other (something that usually takes 5 minutes, 2 or 3 if you're rushing). Granted, we were dancing around and stopping to try out different foods, but still. Nathan and I caught a bus home at around 1 and went to sleep.
Tuesday was the actual day of Israel's independence. There was a barbecue on campus at around 12 and I spent most of my day there, enjoying time off, talking to people, and generally being ridiculous with Andrew, Nathan, and Scott. All in all, it was a pretty fun day.
Wednesday, I went to volunteering and had class late in the evening. There was nothing whatsoever interesting about Wednesday. It was probably one of the most routine, mundane days I have had this year.
Thursday, I went to volunteering again (where Justus has started to ask me ridiculous questions about the Rachel Corrie case, such as whether the entire bulldozer was moving or just the blade when it killed Rachel--what difference does it fucking make?! Some of these questions I end up finding that there are no answers to, and I just have to lie to him about them and try to convince him that the information is irrelevant). Then I had Ulpan and writing class, which was business as usual. After class, I rushed to pack and took a direct bus from the Jerusalem central bus station to Bat Yam--there was a party that night on the beach for three of the scout's birthdays (Nitzan, May, and Maya). The party ended up being on a scale which I never anticipated: usually, when someone says that people are congregating for a party at the Bat Yam beach, it is simply sitting on the beach and drinking, then maybe going swimming depending on how drunk everyone is. This time, however, there was a giant DJ stand and tables with food and drink, as well as torches and carpets on the beach. It was a very fun party, and I enjoyed seeing all the scouts again. I also got to stay at Tomer's new apartment (HUGE) that night with several of his roommates from other sections on Year Course, which was a hilarious time. We turned into robots, talked about how we've each been in the past months, and started to draw some things on the other roommate's faces who were asleep.
Friday, I awoke and went with Scott to Shuk HaCarmel in Tel Aviv. I bought some things before heading back to Bat Yam to take a taxi with Emilie, Tal, and Lizzy Feldman. I went to a seminar to meet the mishlachat (Israeli staff members) coming to camp this summer. The seminar was at Kibbutz Shfayim and was a good deal of fun. We simulated an entire Young Judaea Shabbat with the Israelis, with Friday night services, Parsha players (a funny skit about the torah reading of the week that we prepared and performed for them), Havdalah, and Israeli dancing on Saturday night. The food was delicious (and free), the room was big even though the bed poked poles into my back (but I'm not complaining, it was free), and it was so excellent to meet the mishlachat working at my camp and get to see Noah Gallagher, the director of camp, again. He always cracks me up. I also had a chance to get closer to Or, one of the Israeli madrichim in Jerusalem. I got home late Saturday night.
On Sunday, I woke up and went to volunteering. Afterwards, I went to campus for z'man madrich (a weekly meeting we have to have with our madrichim) and had to give a presentation about the importance of being on time. Our apartment had been a half an hour late to the Yom Hadassah siyur, so our punishment was to prepare a presentation about the importance of being on time. This consisted of getting up in front of the entire section as an apartment...and having me talk for 5 minutes. It ended up being quite the debacle, but also fairly funny. We then had an hour lecture from Mel, a very old and offensive man. I've talked about him before, and I'd rather not go in-depth about his disgusting personality once again. Suffice it to say that it was a lecture I have heard before, but, even if I hadn't, I would have been equally as bored.
I returned home for a bit before going to class (Zionist Art), and afterwards, Nathan, Scott, and I went out to BaBa, a delicious salad place that my volunteering often orders from. We then returned home.
Monday, I went to volunteering in the morning and then class and Ulpan in the afternoon, as well as an optional class that was being taught by Mike Schwartz, one of the madrichim, about basic written Arabic. I started to get familiar with some of the letters. Learning a bit of Arabic was also one of my goals coming to Israel this year, so starting on it (even though it is now the last stretch of the program) has been quite fulfilling. Monday was a very full day--after class, I went for a quick run and then went to a short Israel update talking about recent news with Or. After that, I went and did stand-up at the comedy club again. It was better than it was last time, but not as good as the first time--I think I'm only gonna do it once more before leaving, and try to go out with a bang.
Today (wow, I can't believe I've written up to here now!), I went on a siyur to the West Bank. We visited Hebron and Beit Lechem; we were toured around by a very right-wing settler who told us many things I didn't realize about most settler's opinions and lives. He carried a pistol around with him that he said he had whenever he walked around during the day. We visited Hebron to see marat hamachpala, an area with the graves of many Jewish ancestors, and went to Beit Lehem to see the grave of Rachel the matriarch. It was very interesting to be in the West Bank for the first time, and to hear what it is like from the side of the Jewish settlers who live there (who I think should leave, but let's not get into that-it's a very complicated situation). All in all, it was a good siyur.
The last month now should be fantastic, and I'm looking forward to taking advantage of many opportunities before I leave. I am excited for camp this summer, but of course sad to leave my friends and homeland here. I will try to make an effort to put up more blog posts in the last month here as I come closer and closer to camp and returning to America. I hope you are doing well, and feel almost definitely (as I haven't talked with many people in quite some time) that we should talk soon--this week is particularly busy for me, but in the next several amazing weeks we should definitely talk! Take it easy, world, talk soon!
:D
We returned on Tuesday the 6th to a siyur of Israel's Supreme Court, which ended up being quite fun--mostly because it was the first time we were all seeing each other again. We got into the court at about 10:30, despite having arrived at the bus stop at 9:00 and been in the court lobby at 9:45. We were given a tour by a heartily grumpy woman who made it clear she did not want to be touring a bunch of rambunctious Americans around the Supreme Court, demanding silence of everyone (which was quite hard for many of us when she was talking about "retired justices" because her British accent made it sound like she was saying "retard justices"). The architecture of the building was fairly interesting though, there were many pyramidal structures to it and symbolism from Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures. I also learned that Israel does not utilize the jury system and that people are allowed to represent themselves in the Supreme Court. One last huge difference: the Israeli Supreme Court is not like the American one, where getting to make a case there is a privilege or great accomplishment--it has to hear every case that is brought before it.
We returned and made lunch, then spent the rest of the day doing nothing/going to the gym.
Part of the reason that the "week back" still felt so much like spring break is because that Wednesday was our only day of volunteering for the whole week. It was good to see Justus again, and he talked a little bit about his spring break--during which his daughter went to the crazy music festival Boombamella and his son took the car so he had to spend most of his break fairly immobile. Oh well.
Wednesday afternoon, we had to have a make-up class for missing classes during break and various other class absences to come due to holidays. It was just annoying because the class started at 7 and ended at 10, which, frankly, is just way too late to be stuck in a Year Course class right after spring break.
Thursday, we woke up early and drove down south for the Year Course tiyul that we had been promised for so long. It was nice to see the other sections. It was also nice to see the scouts. It was nicest, though, to see that the hike they had planned and bragged about was one that our section (and only ours) had done when we were in Arad. In any case, it was a bit longer this time, and with different company, so it was still fun. Additionally, I was forced to carry around a jerry can--a big plastic bottle full of water for everyone to share--and I made the task excessively obnoxious by throwing it everywhere. The entire hike was made quite fun by such shenanigans. At one point, where we stopped for lunch, Andrew was throwing rocks into a fairly large pond, and then Or asked him to "stop throwing rocks into the lake." After Andrew threw another one in, Or asked more sternly and made it clear that he REALLY didn't want Andrew to throw another rock in. Andrew then proceeded to throw a giant rock in, and, when Or started to get mad, simply said "that was more of a boulder than a rock, Or." At one point, Yael, the sports track director who was leading us in the trail, asked me what the name of the trail was, and I told her "Shvil Asinu C'var," which literally translates to "Trail We Did it Already." I had to repeat this to her several times before she realized I was making fun of Year Course for taking us on the same hike again. Andrew and I also took a very dangerous route at one point instead of getting wet, and harassed Or throughout most of the hike. All in all, it was quite fun:
After the hike was over, we drove to our Bedouin hospitality site. There we relaxed and mingled among different sections, rode some camels (nothing special, although it sounds like it. One of the girls in the religious program of our section, shalem, said "If you lean forward, it feels like a massage on your vagina!" Easily the highlight of the camel riding). That night, we received a hearty Bedouin dinner, had a bonfire, and had a massive party inside one of the bigger tents. We left Friday morning and returned to Jerusalem--all in all, the trip was pretty good.
Friday night, a small group of people went to services at a synagogue here. Not once in all my visits prior to this year nor all my time this year have I been so satisfied by a Friday night service in Israel. Kabbalat Shabbat at Shira Chadasha reminded me somewhat of services at home, and, although they had a mechitza (a separation between men and women in the synagogue that I'm principally opposed to), it was fairly opaque, women were leading parts of the service, the ark was split evenly on both sides of it, and it was drawn back several times during the service. It was an excellent experience with many tunes that I loved, and certainly a place I'll be going to every Friday that I'm in town for for the rest of my time here.
After services, we went to the big girls' apartment to have a potluck dinner as the first part of having a YJ shabbat weekend for Cera's birthday. After delicious dinner, lots of us came over to our apartment and hung out before going to sleep.
Saturday morning, I and several others held YJ Shabbat morning services in the beit knesset. Afterwards, we put on a botched version of parsha players for everyone on campus, and I spent several hours just lounging around.
On Sunday the 11th, I returned to volunteering once again. At volunteering, I was (and still am) doing research on Rachel Corrie. This is a very convoluted accident where an American girl standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer got run over and died, and, frankly, at this point, with 10 pages of research about it sitting on my computer, I don't want to talk much about it. If you're interested, I could send you a copy of the research to look at. But, trust me, you're not interested. :P
That afternoon, instead of classes, we had some peulot about the Holocaust, as Monday the 12th was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. At my activity, we were given several different events and asked which one we would put Yom Hashoah on. The events were things like Hitler's rise to power, Kristallnacht, Liberation Day, the conception of the "Final Solution," and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I chose (and this is ultimately the date that it IS set on) the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, because it's exemplary of the spirit of the new Jew in Israel, the Jew who stands up for themselves and won't take persecution silently. I thought it was pretty fitting and interesting. During the afternoon, a strange and harsh wind from the African plains flooded the country--the sky was hazy, and voluminous clouds of tan smog filled the air. It became cold and brisk and somber with a certain fitting discomfort. That night, we had a ceremony on the lawn of Beit Ar-El where we watched a video and each placed a rock with the name of someone who died in the Shoah next to a big tree. Immediately after the ceremony, everyone just went off in every which direction, off to do things for the night or go to sleep. I lingered for a while and looked at the rocks...sometimes I am astounded by how quickly people move past things. There's this idea that people die in several ways: their actual physical death, the death of everyone who knew them, and the death of their name, as in when it's not said anymore. I went on a short walk in the cold before returning to campus, where I watched Schindler's List. It had never seen it before; needless to say it evoked a strong emotional response. I had several conversations that evening, as well as the next day, about whether or not Jews would have the state of Israel if the Holocaust hadn't happened. Ultimately, I think we might have, but much later on if at all, and certainly not with the same spirit.
Monday morning I went to volunteering as usual, but at 10:00 walked outside with Laura to hear the national siren go off in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. It's a very loud air-raid siren that goes off in all of Israel for three minutes, and people all stop what they're doing to stand in memory. Cars stop and people get out of them in the middle of the highway; indeed, the entire nation halts, if only for a short moment. That afternoon, we didn't have classes but we did have mifgash dira with Emma, which went the same way it always does. That night I went to do stand up at the comedy club once again, but this time more spontaneously, which didn't turn out nearly as well as the first time did. Oh well--some parts were still funny, but it was just not nearly as funny as my first performance was. I'm still trying to find the right blend of improvisation and preparation for the act.
Tuesday the 12th was the WORST. SIYUR. EVER. My apartment awoke quite late by accident, and thus decided we were not going to go on the siyur. That is, until Emma called us and told us that we absolutely had to be there and that they were waiting for us (already 45 minutes late or so). Thus, we put on our Year Course shirts and shuffled down to Beit Ar-El to begin a day long tour with a Hadassah lady telling us all about Hadassah medical care in Jerusalem and how great Hadassah is. We went to several sites just to hear her talk before ultimately going to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital to hear a doctor talk about working with Israeli relief teams in Haiti. Aside from this one interesting part, the highlight of the day was fitting far too many people inside a revolving door:
The most convenient part about the siyur was that by the time we got back home, the gym was closed. Thus, that night we converged in a fairly large group to go play basketball. We went to a park nearby, and about half an hour into the game, Scott fell as he was trying to juke around someone. As he fell, he heard his ankle pop, so he thought it might have broken. People in the park were quite concerned, and someone said that we should call an ambulance (Scott was in quite audible and visible pain), so I did. By the time the ambulance arrived, Scott was not in nearly as much pain (or at least it appeared this way), so the ambulance took its time going to where else but...Hadassah Ein Kerem. I went there two too many times that day. It was the first time I've ever rode in an ambulance, which was kind of cool, but mostly concerning at the time. Long story short, after an x-ray and examination, Scott had nothing broken but did have a very sprained ankle, which they wrapped up and told him he had to get crutches for (what kind of a hospital doesn't give out crutches?!). After Emma bought us some treats, we went home and went to sleep.
Wednesday was volunteering in the morning, once again Rachel Corrie, and then a class once again in the late afternoon to make up for not having had classes on Sunday. Wednesday afternoon also had some activities on the schedule (i.e. "Conversational Hebrew"), that, as usual, did not happen. In fact, when I arrived at campus looking for conversational Hebrew on that Wednesday, I instead found a group of people meeting with the new shaliach (Israeli ambassador-type person) to the Young Judaea Midwest region, which I'm a part of. This is someone who both I and Karin will be working with at camp this summer, so it's a bit frustrating that neither of us were told about the meeting--in any case, though, I met her and briefly talked to her before storming home in childish frustration (not actually) over this and the lack of conversational Hebrew. In class that evening, we got an assignment to begin designing our ideal synagogue with our partner (Andrew), which, of course, nobody has started on.
Thursday was the usual business--volunteering, then Ulpan and writing class. We had a test in Ulpan and got time to just write some in my other class, which was good. After class, I did a small bit of planning for my trip to Tzfat that weekend. That night, we drank some of the things that Scott had bought at duty-free after his cruise during spring break and then proceeded to go to Ben Yehuda street (nothing too special, really) before going home.
Friday morning, after Andrew decided he wanted to stay home that weekend, Cera and I left for Tzfat. The timing of everything was perfect--we arrived at the central bus station, had lunch, and managed to take the last direct bus to Tzfat after a bit of hearty confusion. We arrived at around 3 that afternoon and met up with Shoshana, the owner of our "hostel." The youth "hostel" was actually just an extra apartment she owned that she gave us the key to. It was actually pretty funny, because when we first walked in she showed us a small room and asked if it would be okay, but then we basically had the entire apartment. After walking around for a bit that night, she took us to Shabbat services, which were interesting--not exactly done in a way I liked, but interesting nonetheless. I was surprised at the amount of Americans there. Halfway through the service, the lights went out because of construction happening down the street, which was a relief for me because I had been feeling self-conscious about forgetting to bring a kippah. I felt like every time someone looked at me all they could think was "no kippah." After the service was over, I ate at the soup kitchen across from the synagogue with several other men. I kept wanting to leap into the conversation, but at every opportune time something negative was said. For instance, one of the men mentioned Jerusalem, where I currently live, only to go on to say that it was a useless city where nobody could study Torah anymore--only in Tzfat can Torah be studied! After dinner, during the walk home, I had a long talk with Shoshana, who is Romanian (like my grandparents), about the Holocaust and about Israel in general, which was quite intriguing.
Saturday, we walked around all of Tzfat and enjoyed the beautiful views and true Shabbat atmosphere, something which I do not get living in the secular part of Jerusalem (I guess the man from dinner the night before has a point).
After exploring the city and being fed to no end by Shoshana, we caught a fairly late bus back to Jerusalem.
And then, there came Sunday the 18th. I awoke and went to volunteering as usual, but then, in the afternoon, we began to have program about Yom Hazikaron, "Remembrance Day." It's like the Israeli version of Memorial Day, except people don't have barbecues and enjoy a long weekend here--it's very somber and important for most of the population. That afternoon, we had a brief presentation from our madrichim about their experiences with Yom Hazikaron that ended up being quite poignant. That evening, we were taken to a MASA event (MASA is an organization that's affiliated with many many gap year and summer programs in Israel) for the beginning of Yom Hazikaron that I thought was pretty trite and cliche. It was seemed pointedly made for Americans and almost cheapened the memories of the people it was trying to commemorate with its cheesiness. The only meaningful part of the whole event was at the very beginning, when yet another national siren went off and we all stood in silence for several minutes.
Monday was the actual day of Yom Hazikaron. All of Year Course went to Har Herzl and volunteered, handing out flowers and water bottles to people who were mourning. On Yom Hazikaron, people from all over the nation come to Har Herzl to commemorate the people they know (often family) who died in military service. Additionally, each member of the army is required to go and visit a specific grave in order to make sure that none of them are left unvisited due to families not being able to come or not having any living descendants. It was intriguing to see the huge hordes of people walking around and visiting their (mostly childrens') graves, telling their stories to others passing by. After spending an hour in the morning handing out flowers, I got a chance to walk around. At 11, yet another siren went off, and then Andrew and I made our way into a giant ceremony on the top of the mountain. By the time we got in, though, it ended, so we only saw the stage, but had heard the President (Shimon Peres) and the Prime Minister (BiBi Netanyahu) speaking over the intercoms throughout the mountain.
Afterwards, Or gave Andrew, Nathan, and I a ride home in his car. Despite the fact that it us the better part of 2 hours to traverse a 20-minute drive, we had a good time--Or made the mistake of leaving the windows down, thus we were yelling many different things out of the car in a childish, stupid, but wildly hilarious way. They were particularly funny when Andrew said them, because they were different phrases in Hebrew that either meant something horrible that everyone was used to or were something atrocious that Nathan or I made up. When we got back, the same group went to Avazi to eat. Avazi is a cheap place that serves good meat kebabs in pita that Andrew has been talking about for 2 months now; it was pretty good, I guess. :P
That night, I went to campus to have a closing ceremony for Yom Hazikaron and the beginning of Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli independence day). I returned to my apartment afterwards and got dressed up before going out. Of course, Yom Ha’atzmaut ended up being exactly what I expected from Israel and Israelis: one giant, raving, extravagant party of pride and exorbitance. On my way to Ben Yehuda street, I saw fireworks sprout off the tip top of a skyscraper’s roof. I arrived at Ben Yehuda street and hung out with various Year Course people for a while before going with Nathan and his cousin to do some Israeli dancing outside of Jerusalem's city hall. After dancing, I went with a small group of people to the shuk, which ended up being a gigantic party, as well. There were erratic foods that I have almost never seen in Israel before (for some reason an abundance of egg rolls) and makeshift bars set up in the middle of the walkway. It was crowded beyond belief, and it took us almost an hour and a half to walk from one end of the market to the other (something that usually takes 5 minutes, 2 or 3 if you're rushing). Granted, we were dancing around and stopping to try out different foods, but still. Nathan and I caught a bus home at around 1 and went to sleep.
Tuesday was the actual day of Israel's independence. There was a barbecue on campus at around 12 and I spent most of my day there, enjoying time off, talking to people, and generally being ridiculous with Andrew, Nathan, and Scott. All in all, it was a pretty fun day.
Wednesday, I went to volunteering and had class late in the evening. There was nothing whatsoever interesting about Wednesday. It was probably one of the most routine, mundane days I have had this year.
Thursday, I went to volunteering again (where Justus has started to ask me ridiculous questions about the Rachel Corrie case, such as whether the entire bulldozer was moving or just the blade when it killed Rachel--what difference does it fucking make?! Some of these questions I end up finding that there are no answers to, and I just have to lie to him about them and try to convince him that the information is irrelevant). Then I had Ulpan and writing class, which was business as usual. After class, I rushed to pack and took a direct bus from the Jerusalem central bus station to Bat Yam--there was a party that night on the beach for three of the scout's birthdays (Nitzan, May, and Maya). The party ended up being on a scale which I never anticipated: usually, when someone says that people are congregating for a party at the Bat Yam beach, it is simply sitting on the beach and drinking, then maybe going swimming depending on how drunk everyone is. This time, however, there was a giant DJ stand and tables with food and drink, as well as torches and carpets on the beach. It was a very fun party, and I enjoyed seeing all the scouts again. I also got to stay at Tomer's new apartment (HUGE) that night with several of his roommates from other sections on Year Course, which was a hilarious time. We turned into robots, talked about how we've each been in the past months, and started to draw some things on the other roommate's faces who were asleep.
Friday, I awoke and went with Scott to Shuk HaCarmel in Tel Aviv. I bought some things before heading back to Bat Yam to take a taxi with Emilie, Tal, and Lizzy Feldman. I went to a seminar to meet the mishlachat (Israeli staff members) coming to camp this summer. The seminar was at Kibbutz Shfayim and was a good deal of fun. We simulated an entire Young Judaea Shabbat with the Israelis, with Friday night services, Parsha players (a funny skit about the torah reading of the week that we prepared and performed for them), Havdalah, and Israeli dancing on Saturday night. The food was delicious (and free), the room was big even though the bed poked poles into my back (but I'm not complaining, it was free), and it was so excellent to meet the mishlachat working at my camp and get to see Noah Gallagher, the director of camp, again. He always cracks me up. I also had a chance to get closer to Or, one of the Israeli madrichim in Jerusalem. I got home late Saturday night.
On Sunday, I woke up and went to volunteering. Afterwards, I went to campus for z'man madrich (a weekly meeting we have to have with our madrichim) and had to give a presentation about the importance of being on time. Our apartment had been a half an hour late to the Yom Hadassah siyur, so our punishment was to prepare a presentation about the importance of being on time. This consisted of getting up in front of the entire section as an apartment...and having me talk for 5 minutes. It ended up being quite the debacle, but also fairly funny. We then had an hour lecture from Mel, a very old and offensive man. I've talked about him before, and I'd rather not go in-depth about his disgusting personality once again. Suffice it to say that it was a lecture I have heard before, but, even if I hadn't, I would have been equally as bored.
I returned home for a bit before going to class (Zionist Art), and afterwards, Nathan, Scott, and I went out to BaBa, a delicious salad place that my volunteering often orders from. We then returned home.
Monday, I went to volunteering in the morning and then class and Ulpan in the afternoon, as well as an optional class that was being taught by Mike Schwartz, one of the madrichim, about basic written Arabic. I started to get familiar with some of the letters. Learning a bit of Arabic was also one of my goals coming to Israel this year, so starting on it (even though it is now the last stretch of the program) has been quite fulfilling. Monday was a very full day--after class, I went for a quick run and then went to a short Israel update talking about recent news with Or. After that, I went and did stand-up at the comedy club again. It was better than it was last time, but not as good as the first time--I think I'm only gonna do it once more before leaving, and try to go out with a bang.
Today (wow, I can't believe I've written up to here now!), I went on a siyur to the West Bank. We visited Hebron and Beit Lechem; we were toured around by a very right-wing settler who told us many things I didn't realize about most settler's opinions and lives. He carried a pistol around with him that he said he had whenever he walked around during the day. We visited Hebron to see marat hamachpala, an area with the graves of many Jewish ancestors, and went to Beit Lehem to see the grave of Rachel the matriarch. It was very interesting to be in the West Bank for the first time, and to hear what it is like from the side of the Jewish settlers who live there (who I think should leave, but let's not get into that-it's a very complicated situation). All in all, it was a good siyur.
The last month now should be fantastic, and I'm looking forward to taking advantage of many opportunities before I leave. I am excited for camp this summer, but of course sad to leave my friends and homeland here. I will try to make an effort to put up more blog posts in the last month here as I come closer and closer to camp and returning to America. I hope you are doing well, and feel almost definitely (as I haven't talked with many people in quite some time) that we should talk soon--this week is particularly busy for me, but in the next several amazing weeks we should definitely talk! Take it easy, world, talk soon!
:D
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Rest of Spring Break...
..was excellent :D
On Monday, I went to Pesach seder at my Uncle Yuval's house in Nirit. It was a good seder--for some reason, as a child, I remember the seder taking forever, but now and in the past several years it has always gone by excessively quickly. Whether this is due to my age or the fact that my Israeli relatives are quite secular and blaze through the Hagadah, I'm not entirely sure. In any case, dinner was delicious, and it was fun to sit around the table with family I haven't seen in a while. A couple of minutes before we left, I did an interview for an Israeli radio station about what it's like to be an American in Israel for Passover, which ended up being very short but interesting, as I discovered that most of the customs I'm used to for the seder are Israeli ones that aren't necessarily followed by American Jews. I'm just taking a wild guess here, but I think it's probably because my parents are Israeli.
On Tuesday, my grandfather drove me back to Jerusalem. I went for a quick run in an attempt to make up for slacking off the entire previous weekend and then jumped down to Beit Ar-El to see if anyone was home. There was almost nobody there (most people were either still at family or off on vacation somewhere), but on my way out I saw Arielle Stein, who needed a place to stay, which quickly turned into more people staying over, so we all had a nice sleepover that night. I was the only person who actually lived here in the apartment, which was strange but cool.
When I woke up on Wednesday, I went to Ben Yehuda street (which was most likely the first time I've been there during the day) to meet up with Elie, a girl going to Dartmouth next year who is also doing a gap year. We went to get coffee and talked about our respective years and our anticipations for Dartmouth next year--it was fun meeting someone who's going to be there and also decided to take a gap year.
Upon returning to the apartment that afternoon, I went to the gym for a bit before heading out with Jordan, Sam, and Mike to hike from the Mediterranean Sea to the Kinneret, going all the way across Israel. I have wanted to do this trip for a long time, and it ended up being very fulfilling. Here is the breakdown:
Wednesday
We arrived at the Tel Aviv train station around 6 and took a train to Israel's northernmost coastal city, Nahariya. It was so far North that I have never even heard of it. On the train ride there, Jordan and I got into an argument about whether "babyface" is a word in Hebrew. It's not, Israelis just know some English phrases like that, but in any case, Jordan asked a young girl sitting in the booth across from us if Sam had a "babyface." We ended up making small talk without her throughout the ride, and, near the end, we asked her how old she was. I always think that Israelis look much older than they are, but typically this also works in reverse. We were guessing somewhere around 17 or maybe 18, only to find out that she was 14. This made it extra creepy when, after we got off, she asked Jordan (and only Jordan, out of the 4 of us) for his facebook. Anyway, we got off in Nahariya and ate a big plate of shwarma from a kosher for Passover place. We then walked north to "Achziv" beach, where we were planning on spending the night. On the way there, Mike refused to wait to poop, which ended in disaster, and we wondered once out loud "where can we get wood for a fire tonight?" before immediately seeing it to our left. It was quite a walk, and, once we got to Achziv, we found out it cost money to stay there, so we went to a beach nearby. That night we were up fairly late, because we got there late, it took us a while to start the fire (as it ended up, our god-given wood was wet and useless), and because a drunken Israeli from a group of people nearby spent an hour or so telling us that we HAD to make aliyah and become lone soldiers. After he finally left, we went to sleep.
Thursday
We woke up much later than we should have, at about 10:30. I consumed a disgusting breakfast of an avocado (for the trip, each person got 4 avocados, 6 apples, 4 cans of beans, and a bag of nuts) and we then proceeded to skinny dip in the Mediterranean, although with some hesitance as old people arrived at the beach. Here is a picture of us at the beach on the first day before leaving:
I remembered the tradition that many people have on this hike of taking a bottle of water from their starting point to their destination, and asked Mike to fill up his extra bottle with Mediterranean water. He was convinced I was playing an April Fools' joke on him (this Thursday was April 1st), but I managed to talk him out of it and actually get him excited about the idea.
We spent most of the afternoon following an unmarked trail along the path of a very dried-up riverbed. It was prickly and rocky and there were many thick patches of underbrush that we did not think we could go through at first, but we did eventually get to a green path that we were supposed to find. On our way along the green path, we picked some delicious lemons (never did I think I would love eating a raw lemon so much) and took a pleasant lunch break. We continued along this path much, much longer than any of us would have liked. Due to our waking up so late, we were still on this path (that kind of ran at the bottom of this canyon) when dusk struck and we heard the howling of coyotes in the distance. We then tripled our pace until we came to the black path we were taking out of the canyon to the city for the night (Abirim). On our way out using the black path, we had to utilize a flashlight--of course, Mike was somehow the only person who remembered to bring one. This entailed me walking at the front slowly enough for the people behind to mimic my footsteps, but later turned into a system of me running ahead with the flashlight and then turning back to light up the path. When we finally arrived in the city, we were ecstatic to be sleeping on the ground next to the sidewalk and happy that the day was over.
Friday
On Friday, we awoke at a reasonable hour and left Abirim. On our way out, we saw the people we had accidentally awoken the night before in their tent to check that we were in the right place. We were also discouraged as we could still see the Mediterranean Sea, but we headed out with resolve regardless. After hiking on highway for the better part of the morning, we came upon a blue trail we were taking that ran through some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen. It kind of reminded me of what I imagine Ireland would be like, except with more trees. We eventually stopped for lunch in this huge path crossing clearing on the side of a hill, where we filled up on water that some girl bathed in and was surely unsanitary.
While there, we also saw a stampede of goats and were reassured by a couple of people that we could not make it to our destination that day. We proceeded to ascend a mountain that we were told we should just give up at, and got a great view of both the Mediterranean and the Kinneret from the same vantage point. We then traveled along the Israel National Trail for the rest of the day until about 6, when we arrived at Meron, a giant campsite on a hill with many plateaus. We made a fire that night, talked for a bit, and quickly passed out.
Saturday
We awoke with the determination to make it to the Kinneret that day. We began hiking again along the Israel National Trail (orange-blue-white), which I have always kind of idealized:
The first part of this hike was quite easy, and we stopped in the middle of the morning at a beautiful waterfall area to go swimming.
On our way out of easyville, we were stopped by a park ranger who, I think due partially to our Americanness, stopped us and insisted that it would be impossible to make it to the Kinneret that day and requested (or should I say demanded?) that we stop at a place nearby and just call it a day. Mind you it was about 12:30 at this time, and we were used to spending most of the day hiking, so we placated him and then left regardless. The trail thereafter got quite difficult, with many uphill parts where we basically had to climb over boulders. After about two hours of this, however, the rest of the day devolved into the easiest trail thus far on the trip, consisting of pathways where it almost seemed cars had been before. The only issue for the rest of the day was dehydration, but we happened upon a freshwater pond and a group of people who gave us purification tablets in order to drink said pond water, so we ended up being fine. We arrived at the Kinneret at exactly 5:40 and gladly poured out Mike's water bottle. We then went skinny dipping once again.
On our walk to Tiberias, we met a German man who gave us directions who said (in fairly broken English) that he was in Israel because he was praying for his health. We arrived at the central bus station just as a bus to Jerusalem was about to leave, so the timing could not have been any better.
On the bus back, I had a long conversation with the soldier who sat next to me. She was about my age (despite my initial thought that she was MUCH older) and told me all about how she wants to leave Israel and move to America right after the army so she can find a rich man to marry. Oh, she said, but I should definitely make aliyah. Israel needs more Jews. Putting aside her somewhat hypocritical viewpoint, it was interesting to meet an Israeli and have such a long conversation with them. This is something I've been wanting to do all year, so I felt quite accomplished afterwards.
That night I arrived home and just relaxed. On Sunday and Monday, we cleaned up the apartment a little bit and all caught up with each other, but spent most of those days just slacking off, which I was totally fine with after spending three straight days hiking (my feet still hurt a good deal). Nathan got back Monday night, so we were finally all together again, which was nice. We went out to Ben Yehuda street and spent most of our time at Zolli's, which ended up being a great deal of fun as we met up with many of our friends from Beit Ar-El and all got to see each other after the break.
And then, on Tuesday, we returned to normal Year Course--well, kind of. But I will have to get to that tomorrow, it is late here and this has been kind of a long evening (it's Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day). I hope all is well with you and that we talk soon! If you are reading this, chances are I miss you a good deal and would love to speak with you. Take it easy!
:)
On Monday, I went to Pesach seder at my Uncle Yuval's house in Nirit. It was a good seder--for some reason, as a child, I remember the seder taking forever, but now and in the past several years it has always gone by excessively quickly. Whether this is due to my age or the fact that my Israeli relatives are quite secular and blaze through the Hagadah, I'm not entirely sure. In any case, dinner was delicious, and it was fun to sit around the table with family I haven't seen in a while. A couple of minutes before we left, I did an interview for an Israeli radio station about what it's like to be an American in Israel for Passover, which ended up being very short but interesting, as I discovered that most of the customs I'm used to for the seder are Israeli ones that aren't necessarily followed by American Jews. I'm just taking a wild guess here, but I think it's probably because my parents are Israeli.
On Tuesday, my grandfather drove me back to Jerusalem. I went for a quick run in an attempt to make up for slacking off the entire previous weekend and then jumped down to Beit Ar-El to see if anyone was home. There was almost nobody there (most people were either still at family or off on vacation somewhere), but on my way out I saw Arielle Stein, who needed a place to stay, which quickly turned into more people staying over, so we all had a nice sleepover that night. I was the only person who actually lived here in the apartment, which was strange but cool.
When I woke up on Wednesday, I went to Ben Yehuda street (which was most likely the first time I've been there during the day) to meet up with Elie, a girl going to Dartmouth next year who is also doing a gap year. We went to get coffee and talked about our respective years and our anticipations for Dartmouth next year--it was fun meeting someone who's going to be there and also decided to take a gap year.
Upon returning to the apartment that afternoon, I went to the gym for a bit before heading out with Jordan, Sam, and Mike to hike from the Mediterranean Sea to the Kinneret, going all the way across Israel. I have wanted to do this trip for a long time, and it ended up being very fulfilling. Here is the breakdown:
Wednesday
We arrived at the Tel Aviv train station around 6 and took a train to Israel's northernmost coastal city, Nahariya. It was so far North that I have never even heard of it. On the train ride there, Jordan and I got into an argument about whether "babyface" is a word in Hebrew. It's not, Israelis just know some English phrases like that, but in any case, Jordan asked a young girl sitting in the booth across from us if Sam had a "babyface." We ended up making small talk without her throughout the ride, and, near the end, we asked her how old she was. I always think that Israelis look much older than they are, but typically this also works in reverse. We were guessing somewhere around 17 or maybe 18, only to find out that she was 14. This made it extra creepy when, after we got off, she asked Jordan (and only Jordan, out of the 4 of us) for his facebook. Anyway, we got off in Nahariya and ate a big plate of shwarma from a kosher for Passover place. We then walked north to "Achziv" beach, where we were planning on spending the night. On the way there, Mike refused to wait to poop, which ended in disaster, and we wondered once out loud "where can we get wood for a fire tonight?" before immediately seeing it to our left. It was quite a walk, and, once we got to Achziv, we found out it cost money to stay there, so we went to a beach nearby. That night we were up fairly late, because we got there late, it took us a while to start the fire (as it ended up, our god-given wood was wet and useless), and because a drunken Israeli from a group of people nearby spent an hour or so telling us that we HAD to make aliyah and become lone soldiers. After he finally left, we went to sleep.
Thursday
We woke up much later than we should have, at about 10:30. I consumed a disgusting breakfast of an avocado (for the trip, each person got 4 avocados, 6 apples, 4 cans of beans, and a bag of nuts) and we then proceeded to skinny dip in the Mediterranean, although with some hesitance as old people arrived at the beach. Here is a picture of us at the beach on the first day before leaving:
I remembered the tradition that many people have on this hike of taking a bottle of water from their starting point to their destination, and asked Mike to fill up his extra bottle with Mediterranean water. He was convinced I was playing an April Fools' joke on him (this Thursday was April 1st), but I managed to talk him out of it and actually get him excited about the idea.
We spent most of the afternoon following an unmarked trail along the path of a very dried-up riverbed. It was prickly and rocky and there were many thick patches of underbrush that we did not think we could go through at first, but we did eventually get to a green path that we were supposed to find. On our way along the green path, we picked some delicious lemons (never did I think I would love eating a raw lemon so much) and took a pleasant lunch break. We continued along this path much, much longer than any of us would have liked. Due to our waking up so late, we were still on this path (that kind of ran at the bottom of this canyon) when dusk struck and we heard the howling of coyotes in the distance. We then tripled our pace until we came to the black path we were taking out of the canyon to the city for the night (Abirim). On our way out using the black path, we had to utilize a flashlight--of course, Mike was somehow the only person who remembered to bring one. This entailed me walking at the front slowly enough for the people behind to mimic my footsteps, but later turned into a system of me running ahead with the flashlight and then turning back to light up the path. When we finally arrived in the city, we were ecstatic to be sleeping on the ground next to the sidewalk and happy that the day was over.
Friday
On Friday, we awoke at a reasonable hour and left Abirim. On our way out, we saw the people we had accidentally awoken the night before in their tent to check that we were in the right place. We were also discouraged as we could still see the Mediterranean Sea, but we headed out with resolve regardless. After hiking on highway for the better part of the morning, we came upon a blue trail we were taking that ran through some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen. It kind of reminded me of what I imagine Ireland would be like, except with more trees. We eventually stopped for lunch in this huge path crossing clearing on the side of a hill, where we filled up on water that some girl bathed in and was surely unsanitary.
While there, we also saw a stampede of goats and were reassured by a couple of people that we could not make it to our destination that day. We proceeded to ascend a mountain that we were told we should just give up at, and got a great view of both the Mediterranean and the Kinneret from the same vantage point. We then traveled along the Israel National Trail for the rest of the day until about 6, when we arrived at Meron, a giant campsite on a hill with many plateaus. We made a fire that night, talked for a bit, and quickly passed out.
Saturday
We awoke with the determination to make it to the Kinneret that day. We began hiking again along the Israel National Trail (orange-blue-white), which I have always kind of idealized:
The first part of this hike was quite easy, and we stopped in the middle of the morning at a beautiful waterfall area to go swimming.
On our way out of easyville, we were stopped by a park ranger who, I think due partially to our Americanness, stopped us and insisted that it would be impossible to make it to the Kinneret that day and requested (or should I say demanded?) that we stop at a place nearby and just call it a day. Mind you it was about 12:30 at this time, and we were used to spending most of the day hiking, so we placated him and then left regardless. The trail thereafter got quite difficult, with many uphill parts where we basically had to climb over boulders. After about two hours of this, however, the rest of the day devolved into the easiest trail thus far on the trip, consisting of pathways where it almost seemed cars had been before. The only issue for the rest of the day was dehydration, but we happened upon a freshwater pond and a group of people who gave us purification tablets in order to drink said pond water, so we ended up being fine. We arrived at the Kinneret at exactly 5:40 and gladly poured out Mike's water bottle. We then went skinny dipping once again.
On our walk to Tiberias, we met a German man who gave us directions who said (in fairly broken English) that he was in Israel because he was praying for his health. We arrived at the central bus station just as a bus to Jerusalem was about to leave, so the timing could not have been any better.
On the bus back, I had a long conversation with the soldier who sat next to me. She was about my age (despite my initial thought that she was MUCH older) and told me all about how she wants to leave Israel and move to America right after the army so she can find a rich man to marry. Oh, she said, but I should definitely make aliyah. Israel needs more Jews. Putting aside her somewhat hypocritical viewpoint, it was interesting to meet an Israeli and have such a long conversation with them. This is something I've been wanting to do all year, so I felt quite accomplished afterwards.
That night I arrived home and just relaxed. On Sunday and Monday, we cleaned up the apartment a little bit and all caught up with each other, but spent most of those days just slacking off, which I was totally fine with after spending three straight days hiking (my feet still hurt a good deal). Nathan got back Monday night, so we were finally all together again, which was nice. We went out to Ben Yehuda street and spent most of our time at Zolli's, which ended up being a great deal of fun as we met up with many of our friends from Beit Ar-El and all got to see each other after the break.
And then, on Tuesday, we returned to normal Year Course--well, kind of. But I will have to get to that tomorrow, it is late here and this has been kind of a long evening (it's Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day). I hope all is well with you and that we talk soon! If you are reading this, chances are I miss you a good deal and would love to speak with you. Take it easy!
:)
Monday, March 29, 2010
חג פסח שמח!
The 10k on Thursday went well. I ended up clocking in at 48:34, which was good considering the hills, higher altitude, and more polluted air in Jerusalem that I wasn't used to yet. The race itself was well organized and well-worth it--we got two free t-shirts (you usually only get one) with interesting designs on them, as well as a keychain medal and some popsicles. When we were first informed about this race a couple months ago, the first question people asked afterwards was whether or not there were going to be t-shirts. It's funny how much of a motivator something as simple as a t-shirt can be: it seems like people, myself included, sometimes utilize them as their main motivation. This was certainly true of this race (well, I probably would have run it either way, but I was also very intrigued at first as to the question of t-shirts), as the cause we were running for was lone soldiers--people who move to Israel and join the army without their immediate family here. I can understand where they might need money, but I can think of much more important causes, especially in Israel. Regardless, the whole experience was, as usual, good fun.
After this, I rushed home to go to Ulpan. We had a test on Thursday that I found relatively easy, partly because I studied and partly because this is easily the most legitimate Ulpan class I've had all year. From this one class I've already learned so many words that I'm actually incorporating into my conversation. After this, I had my Creative Non-Fiction Writing class and then headed home. That night, me, Nathan, Scott, and Andrew headed down to Ben Yehuda street and spent a while going in between bars before returning home. When we finally got back to the apartment (at like 2:30), Jesse came upstairs and started trying to wake everyone up for no good reason whatsoever. It was pretty obnoxious, but also quite hilarious.
Friday morning, I went with some other people to a scouts' seminar to talk to Israeli scouts who are going to be working at American camps this summer. This basically just consisted of us answering their questions, which was good for them (although Adi later described it as "not going so well"). We got free lunch, and I got to meet the male scout coming to Midwest this summer, Amit--he is from the same tribe as Zohar, the female scout from last year. I only got to talk to him for a minute or two, but he seemed like a nice guy. That night lots of guys came over to our apartment and hung out, and we didn't do anything particularly special.
Saturday I woke up later than I anticipated (as usual) and managed to clean up a bit around the apartment as well as get some other chores done. I went to campus for a little while to partake in a watermelon that ended up tasting awful before coming back home and spending a quiet evening in.
On Sunday, I went to volunteering and continued doing research on the Rachel Corrie case. I returned home via new shortcut that Chanya showed me--I cannot believe I took Emma's circuitous route to work for so long! Upon arriving at home, I had lunch and relaxed for a bit before going to my Jewish Art class. We began looking at many Jewish things from the 20th century, which were quite intriguing. After this, I hung out on campus for a bit with people before going back to Derech Hebron to the gym. After working out and eating dinner, Simon, Nathan, and I watched a movie called "Black Dynamite." It's a satire of stereotypical black action films from the 70's, and was pretty good (Simon and I have been wanting to watch it for a while).
Monday was a truly full day. I went to volunteering and worked more on Rachel Corrie, got shwarma there for lunch, and then rushed over to campus for something that WAS written on the schedule--optional Arabic class. Once I got there, though, Mike was mysteriously absent, so I called him up and he came down. In no mood to teach Arabic, he instead sat and sporcled with me for about a half an hour before Ulpan began. (Sporcle is a trivia quiz website, I'd tell you more about it but you don't want to know more about it, trust me). Mike promised that we would begin learning the Arabic alphabet after break, despite only me and two other people showing up. In Ulpan, we learned some Hebrew and got our tests back, which was pleasant. After Ulpan I once again went to writing class, which was business as usual. I decided that, for our "magnum opus" for that class (because she wants us to have some big work to give to her at the end of the trimester), I'm just going to write the first chapter of a potential book about this year.
After class, I rushed home to grab some things and we had a quick mifgash dira before I went to campus to meet up with Moron (her actual name is Moran, but when you pronounce it really Americanly it sounds like moron) for a tour of the Musrara neighborhood in Jerusalem. I had to call her and heckle her into it because nobody else was going to go--I'm so sick of optional activities being canceled here because not enough people show up! In the end, I went with her, Chanya, and Emma to tour the neighborhood before we met up with many people (including all the madrichim except for Mike) at the comedy club across from Ben Yehuda street. Oh, the neighborhood tour was fun and slightly informative, but mostly good for taking ridiculous pictures of Emma:
This is the woman currently responsible for the lives of 20-some 18 and 19 year olds. Excellent. :P
Anyway, at the comedy club I did my first ever stand up routine. It went over really well, but I have to question whether it was because I was actually funny or because so many of my friends were there. Nathan videotaped the whole thing, so hopefully I'll be able to put that up sometime soon (along with some other videos I have from this year). I think I wrote up too many things for the routine, as some of it seemed rehearsed--next time, I should just write down a few ideas and go up there and talk. I hope to do another one again soon when there are less people I know there and when there are less un-funny people before me:
After this, we hung out on Ben Yehuda for a very short period of time to celebrate Ben Yaniv's birthday, and then headed home. Tuesday was Yom Sport--all three sections of Year Course met up at the Sportec in Tel Aviv to play volleyball, soccer ("football"), and basketball against each other. We also played an intense game of frisbee in the afternoon for fun that Section 2 of course won. We got free lunch, got to see Capoeira as entertainment (it's a dancing form of martial arts, it's quite cool, I'd suggest giving it a looksie if you've never heard of it), and got to see people from the other sections. All in all, it was a good and funny day:
As you can see, our team color was green, which gave me a good chance to wear the koffiyah (Arab scarf) I brought with me to Israel--I knew it would pay off sooner or later. We got home pretty late that day and did pretty much nothing.
On Wednesday, I spent most of my time at volunteering listening to a guest lecturer discuss the Jewish population in Philadelphia. This was somewhat interesting, but not very relevant or exciting, which explains why all the interns were required to go--they wanted to boost attendance so as not to embarrass the speaker. Upon returning from volunteering (we got Holy Bagel for lunch that day), I went with Jake and Nathan to the shuk, as we had almost no food in the apartment and very scarce money left on our stipend. We're not entirely sure we we came so close to running out, but we have to be more careful next month. At Machane Yehuda, we got some dirt-cheap pita (something like 20 pitot for 15 shekels), some chicken cutlets, and some veggies. I would call it a successful trip, and the first time that we actually went to the shuk to buy food for the apartment.
That night, we went to a reggae club on Ben Yehuda street. The club ended up being fairly disappointing, and not at all reggae, which often seems to happen in Jerusalem. Nathan was also telling me about something he went to last week that was supposed to be jazz but ended up being more like Latino/world music. This reggae thing ended up being more like trance music...perhaps there is some code? I'm not entirely sure yet. In any case, we wandered around Ben Yehuda street for a bit after exiting the club before taking a bus home.
On Thursday, I spent most of my time at volunteering listening to an actually interesting speaker, Dore Gold, talk about the issue of Jerusalem and what's happening with Israel's policies there in regards to America's stance. Granted, it was a fairly right-wing speech, as the center is very right, but it was interesting nonetheless. The issue in Jerusalem is the building of Jewish housing and buildings in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as theirs and one day want as their nation's capital. Of course, the U.S. wants Israel to halt all building there, and religious Jews want to build more so that more people can live there. It's a sticky situation, to be sure. Something interesting though, is that a lot of the time when people are heckling over "settlements in East Jerusalem" and "building" there, this could be something as simple as someone renovating or installing a new porch. Because Gold is one of the center's main speakers, there was a big spread before the lecture that ended up being our lunch afterwards.
I got home and quickly rushed off to Ulpan, where we read an Israeli children's story about animals living in an apartment building and trying to rent out one of the apartments. All these different animals come by and claim to be pleased by the apartment, but refuse to live in the building because of some of the habits of its residents (that, most of the time, do not interfere with or intrude upon their lives at all!). A pig who comes even simply says "I can't live in this building, the cat is black." In the end, a dove or something comes and says that they don't like the apartment itself so much, but will live there because they like the neighbors a lot. It's an interesting message to send to Israeli kids--our teacher said that pretty much every kid in Israel knows this book, similar to the Green Eggs and Ham story.
After this I had writing class, and then went home and packed quickly to take a direct bus to Bat Yam. That night, there was a birthday party on the beach that could have gone better, but it was nice to see the scouts and hang out in Bat Yam again.
On Friday, I went to the Tel Aviv central bus station and was picked up there by my cousin Gil, who lives in Kfar Saba. I spent the night there at my aunt's house, and Saturday morning went to my cousin Yuval's Bar Mitzvah. An Israeli Bar Mitzvah is interesting: most of the time, they just read from the Torah without trope (the musical part) and don't do any of the service, but Yuval did do it with trope and did a haftarah afterwards, something you don't usually see in Israeli Bar Mitzvot. This was the second part of his Bar Mitzvah, I attended a ceremony at the Kotel for him the Tuesday before Sports Day.
Saturday night, I went with my cousin Gil and some of his friends to a local bar called "The Coffee Tree" and had a delicious Czechian beer called Krusciosciev or something of that nature. It was a relaxing night.
Sunday, I woke up and Gil took me to see my grandfather's gravestone, which was an interesting experience. I then went to my grandparent's retirement living kibbutz near Netanya and spent the rest of the day relaxing, being well fed, and typing some things up. I went with them to a presentation of short clips of orchestras playing in their presentation hall that was kind of interesting, which I imagine means it was extraordinarily interesting for lots of the old people here.
Today, I have done nothing exciting. I awoke late and am going in about an hour to celebrate the Passover seder at my uncle's house in Nirit, which I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about later. I am supposed to be interviewed (via telephone) in about a half an hour for an Israeli radio station about what it means to me to be spending Passover in Israel, so I'm kind of in a rush. Actually, I should really stop here and get going.
I hope you have a great Passover wherever you are! I am on Passover break right now, and on Wednesday I'm going hiking, but until then I would love to talk to you, especially since I am not doing too much. Take it easy, chag sameach!
After this, I rushed home to go to Ulpan. We had a test on Thursday that I found relatively easy, partly because I studied and partly because this is easily the most legitimate Ulpan class I've had all year. From this one class I've already learned so many words that I'm actually incorporating into my conversation. After this, I had my Creative Non-Fiction Writing class and then headed home. That night, me, Nathan, Scott, and Andrew headed down to Ben Yehuda street and spent a while going in between bars before returning home. When we finally got back to the apartment (at like 2:30), Jesse came upstairs and started trying to wake everyone up for no good reason whatsoever. It was pretty obnoxious, but also quite hilarious.
Friday morning, I went with some other people to a scouts' seminar to talk to Israeli scouts who are going to be working at American camps this summer. This basically just consisted of us answering their questions, which was good for them (although Adi later described it as "not going so well"). We got free lunch, and I got to meet the male scout coming to Midwest this summer, Amit--he is from the same tribe as Zohar, the female scout from last year. I only got to talk to him for a minute or two, but he seemed like a nice guy. That night lots of guys came over to our apartment and hung out, and we didn't do anything particularly special.
Saturday I woke up later than I anticipated (as usual) and managed to clean up a bit around the apartment as well as get some other chores done. I went to campus for a little while to partake in a watermelon that ended up tasting awful before coming back home and spending a quiet evening in.
On Sunday, I went to volunteering and continued doing research on the Rachel Corrie case. I returned home via new shortcut that Chanya showed me--I cannot believe I took Emma's circuitous route to work for so long! Upon arriving at home, I had lunch and relaxed for a bit before going to my Jewish Art class. We began looking at many Jewish things from the 20th century, which were quite intriguing. After this, I hung out on campus for a bit with people before going back to Derech Hebron to the gym. After working out and eating dinner, Simon, Nathan, and I watched a movie called "Black Dynamite." It's a satire of stereotypical black action films from the 70's, and was pretty good (Simon and I have been wanting to watch it for a while).
Monday was a truly full day. I went to volunteering and worked more on Rachel Corrie, got shwarma there for lunch, and then rushed over to campus for something that WAS written on the schedule--optional Arabic class. Once I got there, though, Mike was mysteriously absent, so I called him up and he came down. In no mood to teach Arabic, he instead sat and sporcled with me for about a half an hour before Ulpan began. (Sporcle is a trivia quiz website, I'd tell you more about it but you don't want to know more about it, trust me). Mike promised that we would begin learning the Arabic alphabet after break, despite only me and two other people showing up. In Ulpan, we learned some Hebrew and got our tests back, which was pleasant. After Ulpan I once again went to writing class, which was business as usual. I decided that, for our "magnum opus" for that class (because she wants us to have some big work to give to her at the end of the trimester), I'm just going to write the first chapter of a potential book about this year.
After class, I rushed home to grab some things and we had a quick mifgash dira before I went to campus to meet up with Moron (her actual name is Moran, but when you pronounce it really Americanly it sounds like moron) for a tour of the Musrara neighborhood in Jerusalem. I had to call her and heckle her into it because nobody else was going to go--I'm so sick of optional activities being canceled here because not enough people show up! In the end, I went with her, Chanya, and Emma to tour the neighborhood before we met up with many people (including all the madrichim except for Mike) at the comedy club across from Ben Yehuda street. Oh, the neighborhood tour was fun and slightly informative, but mostly good for taking ridiculous pictures of Emma:
This is the woman currently responsible for the lives of 20-some 18 and 19 year olds. Excellent. :P
Anyway, at the comedy club I did my first ever stand up routine. It went over really well, but I have to question whether it was because I was actually funny or because so many of my friends were there. Nathan videotaped the whole thing, so hopefully I'll be able to put that up sometime soon (along with some other videos I have from this year). I think I wrote up too many things for the routine, as some of it seemed rehearsed--next time, I should just write down a few ideas and go up there and talk. I hope to do another one again soon when there are less people I know there and when there are less un-funny people before me:
After this, we hung out on Ben Yehuda for a very short period of time to celebrate Ben Yaniv's birthday, and then headed home. Tuesday was Yom Sport--all three sections of Year Course met up at the Sportec in Tel Aviv to play volleyball, soccer ("football"), and basketball against each other. We also played an intense game of frisbee in the afternoon for fun that Section 2 of course won. We got free lunch, got to see Capoeira as entertainment (it's a dancing form of martial arts, it's quite cool, I'd suggest giving it a looksie if you've never heard of it), and got to see people from the other sections. All in all, it was a good and funny day:
As you can see, our team color was green, which gave me a good chance to wear the koffiyah (Arab scarf) I brought with me to Israel--I knew it would pay off sooner or later. We got home pretty late that day and did pretty much nothing.
On Wednesday, I spent most of my time at volunteering listening to a guest lecturer discuss the Jewish population in Philadelphia. This was somewhat interesting, but not very relevant or exciting, which explains why all the interns were required to go--they wanted to boost attendance so as not to embarrass the speaker. Upon returning from volunteering (we got Holy Bagel for lunch that day), I went with Jake and Nathan to the shuk, as we had almost no food in the apartment and very scarce money left on our stipend. We're not entirely sure we we came so close to running out, but we have to be more careful next month. At Machane Yehuda, we got some dirt-cheap pita (something like 20 pitot for 15 shekels), some chicken cutlets, and some veggies. I would call it a successful trip, and the first time that we actually went to the shuk to buy food for the apartment.
That night, we went to a reggae club on Ben Yehuda street. The club ended up being fairly disappointing, and not at all reggae, which often seems to happen in Jerusalem. Nathan was also telling me about something he went to last week that was supposed to be jazz but ended up being more like Latino/world music. This reggae thing ended up being more like trance music...perhaps there is some code? I'm not entirely sure yet. In any case, we wandered around Ben Yehuda street for a bit after exiting the club before taking a bus home.
On Thursday, I spent most of my time at volunteering listening to an actually interesting speaker, Dore Gold, talk about the issue of Jerusalem and what's happening with Israel's policies there in regards to America's stance. Granted, it was a fairly right-wing speech, as the center is very right, but it was interesting nonetheless. The issue in Jerusalem is the building of Jewish housing and buildings in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as theirs and one day want as their nation's capital. Of course, the U.S. wants Israel to halt all building there, and religious Jews want to build more so that more people can live there. It's a sticky situation, to be sure. Something interesting though, is that a lot of the time when people are heckling over "settlements in East Jerusalem" and "building" there, this could be something as simple as someone renovating or installing a new porch. Because Gold is one of the center's main speakers, there was a big spread before the lecture that ended up being our lunch afterwards.
I got home and quickly rushed off to Ulpan, where we read an Israeli children's story about animals living in an apartment building and trying to rent out one of the apartments. All these different animals come by and claim to be pleased by the apartment, but refuse to live in the building because of some of the habits of its residents (that, most of the time, do not interfere with or intrude upon their lives at all!). A pig who comes even simply says "I can't live in this building, the cat is black." In the end, a dove or something comes and says that they don't like the apartment itself so much, but will live there because they like the neighbors a lot. It's an interesting message to send to Israeli kids--our teacher said that pretty much every kid in Israel knows this book, similar to the Green Eggs and Ham story.
After this I had writing class, and then went home and packed quickly to take a direct bus to Bat Yam. That night, there was a birthday party on the beach that could have gone better, but it was nice to see the scouts and hang out in Bat Yam again.
On Friday, I went to the Tel Aviv central bus station and was picked up there by my cousin Gil, who lives in Kfar Saba. I spent the night there at my aunt's house, and Saturday morning went to my cousin Yuval's Bar Mitzvah. An Israeli Bar Mitzvah is interesting: most of the time, they just read from the Torah without trope (the musical part) and don't do any of the service, but Yuval did do it with trope and did a haftarah afterwards, something you don't usually see in Israeli Bar Mitzvot. This was the second part of his Bar Mitzvah, I attended a ceremony at the Kotel for him the Tuesday before Sports Day.
Saturday night, I went with my cousin Gil and some of his friends to a local bar called "The Coffee Tree" and had a delicious Czechian beer called Krusciosciev or something of that nature. It was a relaxing night.
Sunday, I woke up and Gil took me to see my grandfather's gravestone, which was an interesting experience. I then went to my grandparent's retirement living kibbutz near Netanya and spent the rest of the day relaxing, being well fed, and typing some things up. I went with them to a presentation of short clips of orchestras playing in their presentation hall that was kind of interesting, which I imagine means it was extraordinarily interesting for lots of the old people here.
Today, I have done nothing exciting. I awoke late and am going in about an hour to celebrate the Passover seder at my uncle's house in Nirit, which I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about later. I am supposed to be interviewed (via telephone) in about a half an hour for an Israeli radio station about what it means to me to be spending Passover in Israel, so I'm kind of in a rush. Actually, I should really stop here and get going.
I hope you have a great Passover wherever you are! I am on Passover break right now, and on Wednesday I'm going hiking, but until then I would love to talk to you, especially since I am not doing too much. Take it easy, chag sameach!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
It is so cold!
Saturday evening, Scott and I played some Euchre on campus before going out to dinner with Andrew's family--we went to Ben Yehuda street and had delicious shwarma, made even deliciouser by the Crompton family's good humor and insistence on paying for us. We proceeded to spend some time in Andrew's parents' apartment before going to Aldo for ice cream (which was fantastic, particularly because we ate it in front of a competing ice cream store across the street).
Sunday morning, I went to volunteering in an excellent mood. ;) Justus had me start looking into the case of Rachel Corrie, a kind of radical left-wing peace activist who came to Israel in 2003 and kneeled in front of a giant bulldozer. Thus, the bulldozer did not see her and ran her over, accidentally killing her. The point is, now her parents are trying to sue the Israeli government, saying that the bulldozer driver intentionally ran her over in cold blood. So now I'm doing research into talking points about the situation so that Justus can speak about it should he go on a lecture circuit. It's actually pretty interesting stuff. Sunday was also the first day I stayed for lunch and actually got to eat it with other interns, which was pretty cool--we ended up getting Holy Bagel.
When I got back from volunteering, Andrew was getting some beauty rest. He is sitting next to me and insisted that I write that. He was also particular about having me write "beauty rest" instead of "taking a nap," which is what I initially wrote. In any case, I awoke him and we went to our second Introduction to Jewish Art class, which was pretty good. We talked a lot about icons and images throughout Christian art history and started to get into Jewish art near the very end, which is what I've been waiting for.
Sunday was the first day the gym under Derech Hebron was open, so after class Nathan and I went down there and worked out for a while, which was good. After that, we headed down to campus for a bit to say goodbye to the Kuma people who left for Poland for a week.
Monday morning, instead of going to volunteering, I went to Beit Ar-El to be part of a panel for some Hadassah fundraising people to ask us questions. When I called Justus to inform him of this about a half an hour after I would usually get to volunteering, he told me that it was okay that I couldn't come, but I should try to make it in every day in the future, as people had been asking where I was ALL DAY. I somehow doubt that, and I kind of chuckled when he told me that. The Hadassah thing was fine, and afterwards I returned to the apartment and ate lunch before going to Ulpan and then Creative Non-Fiction Writing. Both of these were good, except for the fact that in Ulpan our teacher told us we were having a big test Thursday (tomorrow). In writing, we wrote a small piece about why Israel is a good place, and got our first real assignment, which is to write three pages about a specific thing on Year Course. That class just seems to be getting better and better.
After class, we had mifgash dirah with Emma, which was hysterical as usual. Then I went to the gym before going to sleep.
On Tuesday, instead of going to a siyur, I went to the Kotel and met my father's side of the family for my cousin Yuval's bar mitzvah. It was pretty cool, and Tuesday was the first day it was cold here. We met with a middle-aged religious guy who facilitated the whole thing across the mechitza. The ceremony was quite different from what I'm used to in America, and only consisted of a couple prayers and the reading of four aliyot. While we were there, Jews kept trying to go up to the temple mount (where the Dome of the Rock is) and I saw police grabbing them and literally throwing them back down the ramp up. After the ceremony, we went to a museum next to the kotel about the chain of generations in Judaism that was fairly corny, but after that we went to a delicious lunch at a restaurant called Carma. After lunch, my cousin Gil dropped me off at the top of Har Herzl, and I tried to find my way back with a bus. I took one bus towards Jaffa gate, got off at the central bus station, took an 18 (which stops near home) heading the wrong way and ended up exactly where I had started, then took an 18 in the opposite direction and got off at a stop for a 71, which goes right to my apartment. All in all, what should've taken something like half an hour took me three hours. It was fun to be lost for a while though. :P
When I finally got back on Tuesday, I took my clothes down to Beit Ar-El to do some laundry with Andrew, and it ended up taking far longer than I expected. We sat in a classroom for most of that time talking to Emma, which was good and quite funny.
Then today I awoke and went to volunteering, still working on the Rachel Corrie research. We had some great shwarma for lunch and I then returned to the apartment. Shortly after this, Nathan was down on campus and saw a great couch, so he called me and Scott and we went down to bring it up to the apartment. It is much better and comfier than our old couch, and we put it down for a little while on the way back to sit on it in the middle of the street:
When we got back, we put our old couch in front of Abby's apartment door to barricade them in and brought the new one out to our porch. It is fantastic so far, but there is concern among the apartment that on warmer days the fake leather will heat up and make it uncomfortable. We'll see.
I went to the gym very briefly before going to meet with Nathan's grandfather to get a free dinner, which was excellent, especially considering that we are very low on money on our apartment's food budget. When I got back, a lot of people in the building got in trouble for being belligerently drunk and then made their way away from the apartments. I decided not to join them because I have a lot of work to do tonight, and also because I'm participating in a 10k race for lone soldiers tomorrow. I haven't been training for it nearly as much as I had for the Nike Night Run or the Be'er Sheva 10k, but I hope I can maybe break 48 minutes--we'll see.
I hope you are doing well and that it is not nearly as cold wherever you are as it is here. Take it easy!
Sunday morning, I went to volunteering in an excellent mood. ;) Justus had me start looking into the case of Rachel Corrie, a kind of radical left-wing peace activist who came to Israel in 2003 and kneeled in front of a giant bulldozer. Thus, the bulldozer did not see her and ran her over, accidentally killing her. The point is, now her parents are trying to sue the Israeli government, saying that the bulldozer driver intentionally ran her over in cold blood. So now I'm doing research into talking points about the situation so that Justus can speak about it should he go on a lecture circuit. It's actually pretty interesting stuff. Sunday was also the first day I stayed for lunch and actually got to eat it with other interns, which was pretty cool--we ended up getting Holy Bagel.
When I got back from volunteering, Andrew was getting some beauty rest. He is sitting next to me and insisted that I write that. He was also particular about having me write "beauty rest" instead of "taking a nap," which is what I initially wrote. In any case, I awoke him and we went to our second Introduction to Jewish Art class, which was pretty good. We talked a lot about icons and images throughout Christian art history and started to get into Jewish art near the very end, which is what I've been waiting for.
Sunday was the first day the gym under Derech Hebron was open, so after class Nathan and I went down there and worked out for a while, which was good. After that, we headed down to campus for a bit to say goodbye to the Kuma people who left for Poland for a week.
Monday morning, instead of going to volunteering, I went to Beit Ar-El to be part of a panel for some Hadassah fundraising people to ask us questions. When I called Justus to inform him of this about a half an hour after I would usually get to volunteering, he told me that it was okay that I couldn't come, but I should try to make it in every day in the future, as people had been asking where I was ALL DAY. I somehow doubt that, and I kind of chuckled when he told me that. The Hadassah thing was fine, and afterwards I returned to the apartment and ate lunch before going to Ulpan and then Creative Non-Fiction Writing. Both of these were good, except for the fact that in Ulpan our teacher told us we were having a big test Thursday (tomorrow). In writing, we wrote a small piece about why Israel is a good place, and got our first real assignment, which is to write three pages about a specific thing on Year Course. That class just seems to be getting better and better.
After class, we had mifgash dirah with Emma, which was hysterical as usual. Then I went to the gym before going to sleep.
On Tuesday, instead of going to a siyur, I went to the Kotel and met my father's side of the family for my cousin Yuval's bar mitzvah. It was pretty cool, and Tuesday was the first day it was cold here. We met with a middle-aged religious guy who facilitated the whole thing across the mechitza. The ceremony was quite different from what I'm used to in America, and only consisted of a couple prayers and the reading of four aliyot. While we were there, Jews kept trying to go up to the temple mount (where the Dome of the Rock is) and I saw police grabbing them and literally throwing them back down the ramp up. After the ceremony, we went to a museum next to the kotel about the chain of generations in Judaism that was fairly corny, but after that we went to a delicious lunch at a restaurant called Carma. After lunch, my cousin Gil dropped me off at the top of Har Herzl, and I tried to find my way back with a bus. I took one bus towards Jaffa gate, got off at the central bus station, took an 18 (which stops near home) heading the wrong way and ended up exactly where I had started, then took an 18 in the opposite direction and got off at a stop for a 71, which goes right to my apartment. All in all, what should've taken something like half an hour took me three hours. It was fun to be lost for a while though. :P
When I finally got back on Tuesday, I took my clothes down to Beit Ar-El to do some laundry with Andrew, and it ended up taking far longer than I expected. We sat in a classroom for most of that time talking to Emma, which was good and quite funny.
Then today I awoke and went to volunteering, still working on the Rachel Corrie research. We had some great shwarma for lunch and I then returned to the apartment. Shortly after this, Nathan was down on campus and saw a great couch, so he called me and Scott and we went down to bring it up to the apartment. It is much better and comfier than our old couch, and we put it down for a little while on the way back to sit on it in the middle of the street:
When we got back, we put our old couch in front of Abby's apartment door to barricade them in and brought the new one out to our porch. It is fantastic so far, but there is concern among the apartment that on warmer days the fake leather will heat up and make it uncomfortable. We'll see.
I went to the gym very briefly before going to meet with Nathan's grandfather to get a free dinner, which was excellent, especially considering that we are very low on money on our apartment's food budget. When I got back, a lot of people in the building got in trouble for being belligerently drunk and then made their way away from the apartments. I decided not to join them because I have a lot of work to do tonight, and also because I'm participating in a 10k race for lone soldiers tomorrow. I haven't been training for it nearly as much as I had for the Nike Night Run or the Be'er Sheva 10k, but I hope I can maybe break 48 minutes--we'll see.
I hope you are doing well and that it is not nearly as cold wherever you are as it is here. Take it easy!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Apartments Smells a Lot like Fish...
...and I'm not entirely sure why.
Wednesday evening, after tossing frisbee for a while I attempted to go to a salsa club. We went to a place called "The Yellow Submarine" only to find out that it was not there, and, after several phone calls, discovered that it was actually quite far away--so we decided to try for it another time.
Thursday morning was considerably more interesting than Wednesday. Justus had me draft an e-mail for him a couple of times, organize his many post-it note business cards, and start doing some research about different Israel journals and talking points for a lecture. He also asked me about youtube and myspace, which kind of made me chuckle. I had to leave before lunch though because my first ulpan class started a bit earlier than it usually will.
Ulpan was good; it's great to have a bigger class again now that all the marva kids are with us. A couple of people have also moved up to my level, which is cool. We didn't do too much the first day, but we did read a story by Etgar Karet (a very eclectic Israeli author) about a kid's piggy bank and then write our own endings to it, which was fun. To give you an idea of what kind of author he is, the story was about a kid who wants his parents to buy him a doll, but his dad demands that he save up money for it so instead buys him a piggy bank. Every morning, they force the kid to drink chocolate milk (which doesn't really seem like a punishment to me) and give him a shekel each time he does to put in the piggy bank. When the kid finally has enough money, the dad comes up to his room with a hammer intending to break the pig open, but the kid's grown attached to it and doesn't want to break it, so he tells his dad that he wants to put one more shekel in the next day before they break it. In the real ending to the story, he hides the pig, but in my ending, the kid pukes chocolate milk up on his father before they run up to his room as the father (now obsessed with the doll the child wanted earlier on in the story) violently swings at the pig, misses, and accidentally kills the kid. When we were talking about the story afterwards, I insisted that the father was an "arse," an Israeli guido of sorts, and the teacher was just like "You made him that way!" It should be a good class.
After that, I took a nap before going to Creative Non-Fiction writing, which was much better the second time around because we got many more chances to write. When class ended, I hung around campus for a little bit before returning home.
Thursday night we went to Ben Yehuda street to check out this bar Carlos told us about. It was nice but fairly empty, and had a couple good deals. We hung out on Ben Yehuda for a while after that before we returned home.
On Friday, I woke up and went with Andrew, Scott, Nathan, and Simon to the mall for lunch. We happened to see Emma there, and then Andrew and I saw her again shortly after that at the grocery store. She looked at the two of us standing in front of the alcohol aisle and simply said "I hope you're not bringing that back to the apartment." We reassured her that we of course were not, and then, a couple minutes later, I called her and asked if she could clarify what the Year Course policy was on alcohol in the apartments. We're not supposed to have it in the apartment, it's pretty much the most well-known rule, so that's why this is funny (or obnoxious).
Upon arriving home, Scott and I took a bus to meet Jake and David Gans at Ben Yehuda street so we could walk to Gan Soccer, a giant park next to the Knesset (Israel's parliamentary building). We met up there with 12 or so random Israelis who play ultimate frisbee every Friday. They ended up being pretty decent, and we played for almost three hours. The entire experience was excellent, not only because we had a really good game going, but also because I got to meet some Israelis my age and talk to them for a while afterwards. Hopefully this'll become a weekly thing for us, as it was quite awesome.
We walked back home from there (buses had stopped running for Shabbat by the time we were done), and I went to Shabbat dinner at Jackie's apartment to celebrate Hannah's visiting/Simon's birthday. All of Derech Hebron then relaxed on our porch for a while before we went to Ben Yehuda street. We spent some time there at a nice bar called Zolli's before going to a dance bar called Herzl's before returning home. All in all, it was a good night.
I woke up much later than I wanted to today, but then again, it is a Saturday. I think I'm going to head over to campus in a bit and see what everyone else is up to. I hope you're having an excellent Shabbat and a great weekend!
Wednesday evening, after tossing frisbee for a while I attempted to go to a salsa club. We went to a place called "The Yellow Submarine" only to find out that it was not there, and, after several phone calls, discovered that it was actually quite far away--so we decided to try for it another time.
Thursday morning was considerably more interesting than Wednesday. Justus had me draft an e-mail for him a couple of times, organize his many post-it note business cards, and start doing some research about different Israel journals and talking points for a lecture. He also asked me about youtube and myspace, which kind of made me chuckle. I had to leave before lunch though because my first ulpan class started a bit earlier than it usually will.
Ulpan was good; it's great to have a bigger class again now that all the marva kids are with us. A couple of people have also moved up to my level, which is cool. We didn't do too much the first day, but we did read a story by Etgar Karet (a very eclectic Israeli author) about a kid's piggy bank and then write our own endings to it, which was fun. To give you an idea of what kind of author he is, the story was about a kid who wants his parents to buy him a doll, but his dad demands that he save up money for it so instead buys him a piggy bank. Every morning, they force the kid to drink chocolate milk (which doesn't really seem like a punishment to me) and give him a shekel each time he does to put in the piggy bank. When the kid finally has enough money, the dad comes up to his room with a hammer intending to break the pig open, but the kid's grown attached to it and doesn't want to break it, so he tells his dad that he wants to put one more shekel in the next day before they break it. In the real ending to the story, he hides the pig, but in my ending, the kid pukes chocolate milk up on his father before they run up to his room as the father (now obsessed with the doll the child wanted earlier on in the story) violently swings at the pig, misses, and accidentally kills the kid. When we were talking about the story afterwards, I insisted that the father was an "arse," an Israeli guido of sorts, and the teacher was just like "You made him that way!" It should be a good class.
After that, I took a nap before going to Creative Non-Fiction writing, which was much better the second time around because we got many more chances to write. When class ended, I hung around campus for a little bit before returning home.
Thursday night we went to Ben Yehuda street to check out this bar Carlos told us about. It was nice but fairly empty, and had a couple good deals. We hung out on Ben Yehuda for a while after that before we returned home.
On Friday, I woke up and went with Andrew, Scott, Nathan, and Simon to the mall for lunch. We happened to see Emma there, and then Andrew and I saw her again shortly after that at the grocery store. She looked at the two of us standing in front of the alcohol aisle and simply said "I hope you're not bringing that back to the apartment." We reassured her that we of course were not, and then, a couple minutes later, I called her and asked if she could clarify what the Year Course policy was on alcohol in the apartments. We're not supposed to have it in the apartment, it's pretty much the most well-known rule, so that's why this is funny (or obnoxious).
Upon arriving home, Scott and I took a bus to meet Jake and David Gans at Ben Yehuda street so we could walk to Gan Soccer, a giant park next to the Knesset (Israel's parliamentary building). We met up there with 12 or so random Israelis who play ultimate frisbee every Friday. They ended up being pretty decent, and we played for almost three hours. The entire experience was excellent, not only because we had a really good game going, but also because I got to meet some Israelis my age and talk to them for a while afterwards. Hopefully this'll become a weekly thing for us, as it was quite awesome.
We walked back home from there (buses had stopped running for Shabbat by the time we were done), and I went to Shabbat dinner at Jackie's apartment to celebrate Hannah's visiting/Simon's birthday. All of Derech Hebron then relaxed on our porch for a while before we went to Ben Yehuda street. We spent some time there at a nice bar called Zolli's before going to a dance bar called Herzl's before returning home. All in all, it was a good night.
I woke up much later than I wanted to today, but then again, it is a Saturday. I think I'm going to head over to campus in a bit and see what everyone else is up to. I hope you're having an excellent Shabbat and a great weekend!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
שבוע שלם ומספק בירושלים
Wednesday night we went to Beit Ar-El and had pizza while hanging out with the madrichim. The tzevet here seems much more friendly and significantly more competent than the tzevet in Arad was, and they also appreciate good humor much more. In the week or so I've been here, they've already done a good deal more for me than madrichim in Arad ever did.
On Thursday we had various orientation activities--in the morning we listened to a lot of speeches, one of which was from Mel Reisfeld, an uppity old man who used to work at Tel Yehuda. When he first came in, he saw Chanya, shook her hand, and then said "You know, in Israel, over the age of 80, there is no such thing as sexual molestation." Throughout the course of his lecture, he also got very mad at some people for talking and yelled at one person "hey stupid, be quiet." At the end, he apologized to them, but also flicked another group of people off on his way out. So I guess you could say he's a pretty crazy guy. We also signed up for classes, which I'm very excited about--after going three months without any legitimate courses, I'm ready to learn some things again. In this last trimester, I'm taking one class called Introduction to Jewish Art (with Avi Rose, who's the head of academics in Jerusalem and a great teacher from what I've heard and seen) and a class called Creative Non-fiction Writing. We also found out our volunteering placements on Thursday--I'm working at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which was my second choice. It's essentially a research internship which looks like it'll be a lot of fun. I just figured that after 6 months of working with kids (almost 9, if you count the summer before I came), it was time for a change.
Thursday afternoon, after all the orientation activities were over, a bunch of guys (myself included) got on the roof of one of the Beit Ar-El buildings and started throwing a football from roof to roof. This got obnoxious quickly, as every time the football didn't make it to another roof or balcony and fell instead onto the quad-type area, we would all yell "FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL!" until someone retrieved the ball and threw it back up. This activity went on for about an hour, and included throwing the football onto our madricha Emma's porch against her will, yelling at the top of our lungs, and switching roofs a couple of times. As ridiculous as it sounds, it's probably one of the most fun times I've had on Year Course.
After this, I went with a small group of people to check out the shuk in the old city. To me, a successful trip to the shuk involves spending less than 100 shekels (about 25 dollars), but getting something that I'm going to utilize more than once. This was not a successful trip to the shuk.
That night, we went to Ben Yehuda street. Ben Yehuda street is one of Jerusalem's main attractions, where a lot of Americans go to buy things and get drunk. If you're not going to do one of those two things, though, it's not a terribly interesting place to hang out--sure, there are religious Jews in the street doing dances and singing and sometimes an assortment of other tricks, but, to a large extent, Ben Yehuda represents everything I don't like about Jerusalem--touristy loud Americans. It's still nice to hang out there every once in a while though.
On Friday we woke up and took a bus to go to Abu Ghoush at Sam's request. Abu Ghoush is both a small city nearby and a delicious hummus place, however, I am yet to go there, because the bus we took instead went to Ramot, a Jewish suburbia that is technically part of the West Bank. Once we realized this, we got off the bus and headed to Machane Yehuda, a big shuk area in Jerusalem. We got lunch there (probably one of the most crowded places I've ever been, and with some of the slowest walking people) and then headed home.
Upon getting back, we quickly prepared for Shabbat and then headed towards campus. The entire section went to the Jerusalem "Great Synagogue" (that is its name, not its quality) for Kabbalat Shabbat services. Initially we had been supposed to go to the Kotel for Friday night services, but during the afternoon on Friday some Arabs on the Temple Mount throw stones at police in a riot, so Year Course decided it wasn't worth the security risk. Something interesting I read about that afternoon later on is that many Muslim people helped subdue the rioters throwing stones.
After the service ended, we had dinner at a place nearby and then headed home. That night we had my Bar Mitzvah themed party, which, needless to say, was fantastic. Nathan and Scott prepared speeches as my gay fathers and we had a candle lighting ceremony, the whole night was great.
Saturday, we woke up late and went to the promenade nearby with Andrew's family who are in town. Technically, parts of the promenade are in the West Bank. If you've ever seen pictures of Jerusalem, it's likely that they were taken from there, because it affords one of the best views of the old city and the Dome of the Rock. When we got back I went for a run--running in Jerusalem is so much harder than it was in Arad for multiple reasons:
1. It is higher altitude here, so I have to breathe in more air to get the same amount of oxygen.
2. It is hotter here (mostly because it's turning into summer now all over the nation).
3. There are cars and buses everywhere that I have to stop and wait for at lights.
4. There are cars and buses everywhere that are polluting the air.
5. There's no magic in the air here.
6. There are always all these people in the streets I have to run around.
7. There are always these annoying people who are also trying to stay in shape running around the city.
8. On part of my loop, I run down Emek Refaim, a street infamous for delicious food, and it always smells fantastic.
9. It's hilly here.
10. People try to punch me as I run.
11. It's technically illegal to run on the sidewalks in Jerusalem, so every time I see a cop, I have to pretend I'm walking.
12. I have been running barefoot.
13. There are wild creatures running around whose natural prey are redheads.
Okay, so the last 4 reasons are bullshit, but you get my point.
Sunday morning I went to volunteering for the first time. Because it's more like an internship than anything else, we were told to bring in resumes, so I updated one that I had from last year and brought it in. We met the boss of the place, Justus Weiner, who's an international justice lawyer. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a pretty right-wing place, and, although I don't quite agree with that, it seems like it'll be fun to work there. They also order in lunch for free from Emek Refaim street every day, which is a definite plus. After Justus talked to us for a while and found out what we each wanted to do (Chanya, Laura, Maya, Tal, and Josh are at this volunteering with me), we went to Tal Bagels for brunch. It was tasty, but more expensive than I'd like it to be, so I am determined to find another bagel place. In the afternoon I went to my first class, Introduction to Jewish Art. We discussed the idea of whether or not it's okay for Jews (and religions in general) to make images out of any part of their dogma, considering that idol worship is prohibited in most modern-day religions. We also looked at some art and talked about the first and second commandments (that there are no other gods before god, and not to worship other false gods because god is jealous), which was a very interesting point, as they both seem to imply that there are a lot of other gods out there. I guess that's particularly interesting because I tend to think of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as monotheistic religions, but these commandments (given from god) acknowledge the existence of other gods. We spent most of that class talking about how the class was going to go and doing introductions, but it was still very interesting.
Sunday was Jake's birthday, so that night we went to Ben Yehuda street and just hung out for a while, not doing anything particularly special. We played this game called "clusterfuck" that was a good deal of fun, and I want to make a point of remembering it.
On Monday I awoke much later than I wanted to via a call from Justus. He wanted me to come in to do an interview and discuss my resume, and then we decided that I would come in for my first day on Wednesday. I left JCPA for Beit Ar-El and went to a Garin Tzedek meeting discussing what we want to do this trimester in terms of trips and optional peulot during the week. That afternoon I went to Creative Non-fiction Writing, which I'm not sure how I feel about yet. We discussed a few basic writing concepts I'm already very familiar with from taking Creative Writing in high school, and then we did a rudimentary writing exercise where we wrote the first sentence of a story--hopefully it's going to pick up as the class progresses, but I'll be fine either way as long as we get chances to write.
That night, I went to an English-speaking comedy club near Ben Yehuda street. By the time we got there, it was just karaoke, which was a good deal of fun--Scott, Nathan, and I sang "Under the Bridge," which is kind of a tradition of ours. Nathan and I have also been wanting to do karaoke since we came on Year Course, so it was about time. The club also has open mic comedy night until 10:30 on Mondays, so I think I may go next week and see if I can do stand-up. I'm pretty excited about it; I heard from the people who were in Jerusalem before us that it can be a good deal of fun if you go with a big group of people. I also am anxious about the prospect of being good at stand-up, but we'll see how it goes.
Tuesday was the first siyur in Jerusalem. We went to the Christian quarter and walked the via dolorosa, where Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion. It was pretty good as far as siyurim go, especially considering that I've never been to the Christian quarter and that me, Nathan, Scott, Max, and Andrew had some delicious shwarma afterwards. We returned in the afternoon completely exhausted and pretty much everyone in the apartment took a nap. When we woke up, we went shopping at Mega Bul--a grocery store brand that we loved in Arad--across the street. It wasn't the haven of food that it had been in Arad, but it was still quite satisfying and cheaper than our earlier groceries. We returned home and made a stir fry dinner, I went for a run, and then went to campus to watch "Wet Hot American Summer" before returning home to go to sleep.
Today was my first real day of volunteering. I went in at about 8:40, but Justus didn't arrive until 9:15. We spent most of the morning editing one of his research papers which is getting published. This consisted of me reading it aloud to him, which included saying things like "comma, period, paragraph break, open quotes," etc. I was then given 25 shekels to buy lunch, because I was one of the only interns who came today so they decided not to order in. I went to Holy Bagel and got a card that entitles me to one free bagel after I buy ten, so this was easily the most exciting part of my day. I stopped by Beit Ar-El on my way home and hung out for a while before coming back to Derech Hebron. Wednesday afternoons are usually full of optional activities, but most of them have not existed today because it's the first real week. Thus, Scott, Nathan and I are going to go down to campus now and play frisbee for a while.
I hope all is well with you, and that you are also enjoying frisbee or some other sport at the moment! I'm sure I'd love to hear from you, especially if we've not talked in a while. Take it easy!
On Thursday we had various orientation activities--in the morning we listened to a lot of speeches, one of which was from Mel Reisfeld, an uppity old man who used to work at Tel Yehuda. When he first came in, he saw Chanya, shook her hand, and then said "You know, in Israel, over the age of 80, there is no such thing as sexual molestation." Throughout the course of his lecture, he also got very mad at some people for talking and yelled at one person "hey stupid, be quiet." At the end, he apologized to them, but also flicked another group of people off on his way out. So I guess you could say he's a pretty crazy guy. We also signed up for classes, which I'm very excited about--after going three months without any legitimate courses, I'm ready to learn some things again. In this last trimester, I'm taking one class called Introduction to Jewish Art (with Avi Rose, who's the head of academics in Jerusalem and a great teacher from what I've heard and seen) and a class called Creative Non-fiction Writing. We also found out our volunteering placements on Thursday--I'm working at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which was my second choice. It's essentially a research internship which looks like it'll be a lot of fun. I just figured that after 6 months of working with kids (almost 9, if you count the summer before I came), it was time for a change.
Thursday afternoon, after all the orientation activities were over, a bunch of guys (myself included) got on the roof of one of the Beit Ar-El buildings and started throwing a football from roof to roof. This got obnoxious quickly, as every time the football didn't make it to another roof or balcony and fell instead onto the quad-type area, we would all yell "FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL!" until someone retrieved the ball and threw it back up. This activity went on for about an hour, and included throwing the football onto our madricha Emma's porch against her will, yelling at the top of our lungs, and switching roofs a couple of times. As ridiculous as it sounds, it's probably one of the most fun times I've had on Year Course.
After this, I went with a small group of people to check out the shuk in the old city. To me, a successful trip to the shuk involves spending less than 100 shekels (about 25 dollars), but getting something that I'm going to utilize more than once. This was not a successful trip to the shuk.
That night, we went to Ben Yehuda street. Ben Yehuda street is one of Jerusalem's main attractions, where a lot of Americans go to buy things and get drunk. If you're not going to do one of those two things, though, it's not a terribly interesting place to hang out--sure, there are religious Jews in the street doing dances and singing and sometimes an assortment of other tricks, but, to a large extent, Ben Yehuda represents everything I don't like about Jerusalem--touristy loud Americans. It's still nice to hang out there every once in a while though.
On Friday we woke up and took a bus to go to Abu Ghoush at Sam's request. Abu Ghoush is both a small city nearby and a delicious hummus place, however, I am yet to go there, because the bus we took instead went to Ramot, a Jewish suburbia that is technically part of the West Bank. Once we realized this, we got off the bus and headed to Machane Yehuda, a big shuk area in Jerusalem. We got lunch there (probably one of the most crowded places I've ever been, and with some of the slowest walking people) and then headed home.
Upon getting back, we quickly prepared for Shabbat and then headed towards campus. The entire section went to the Jerusalem "Great Synagogue" (that is its name, not its quality) for Kabbalat Shabbat services. Initially we had been supposed to go to the Kotel for Friday night services, but during the afternoon on Friday some Arabs on the Temple Mount throw stones at police in a riot, so Year Course decided it wasn't worth the security risk. Something interesting I read about that afternoon later on is that many Muslim people helped subdue the rioters throwing stones.
After the service ended, we had dinner at a place nearby and then headed home. That night we had my Bar Mitzvah themed party, which, needless to say, was fantastic. Nathan and Scott prepared speeches as my gay fathers and we had a candle lighting ceremony, the whole night was great.
Saturday, we woke up late and went to the promenade nearby with Andrew's family who are in town. Technically, parts of the promenade are in the West Bank. If you've ever seen pictures of Jerusalem, it's likely that they were taken from there, because it affords one of the best views of the old city and the Dome of the Rock. When we got back I went for a run--running in Jerusalem is so much harder than it was in Arad for multiple reasons:
1. It is higher altitude here, so I have to breathe in more air to get the same amount of oxygen.
2. It is hotter here (mostly because it's turning into summer now all over the nation).
3. There are cars and buses everywhere that I have to stop and wait for at lights.
4. There are cars and buses everywhere that are polluting the air.
5. There's no magic in the air here.
6. There are always all these people in the streets I have to run around.
7. There are always these annoying people who are also trying to stay in shape running around the city.
8. On part of my loop, I run down Emek Refaim, a street infamous for delicious food, and it always smells fantastic.
9. It's hilly here.
10. People try to punch me as I run.
11. It's technically illegal to run on the sidewalks in Jerusalem, so every time I see a cop, I have to pretend I'm walking.
12. I have been running barefoot.
13. There are wild creatures running around whose natural prey are redheads.
Okay, so the last 4 reasons are bullshit, but you get my point.
Sunday morning I went to volunteering for the first time. Because it's more like an internship than anything else, we were told to bring in resumes, so I updated one that I had from last year and brought it in. We met the boss of the place, Justus Weiner, who's an international justice lawyer. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a pretty right-wing place, and, although I don't quite agree with that, it seems like it'll be fun to work there. They also order in lunch for free from Emek Refaim street every day, which is a definite plus. After Justus talked to us for a while and found out what we each wanted to do (Chanya, Laura, Maya, Tal, and Josh are at this volunteering with me), we went to Tal Bagels for brunch. It was tasty, but more expensive than I'd like it to be, so I am determined to find another bagel place. In the afternoon I went to my first class, Introduction to Jewish Art. We discussed the idea of whether or not it's okay for Jews (and religions in general) to make images out of any part of their dogma, considering that idol worship is prohibited in most modern-day religions. We also looked at some art and talked about the first and second commandments (that there are no other gods before god, and not to worship other false gods because god is jealous), which was a very interesting point, as they both seem to imply that there are a lot of other gods out there. I guess that's particularly interesting because I tend to think of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as monotheistic religions, but these commandments (given from god) acknowledge the existence of other gods. We spent most of that class talking about how the class was going to go and doing introductions, but it was still very interesting.
Sunday was Jake's birthday, so that night we went to Ben Yehuda street and just hung out for a while, not doing anything particularly special. We played this game called "clusterfuck" that was a good deal of fun, and I want to make a point of remembering it.
On Monday I awoke much later than I wanted to via a call from Justus. He wanted me to come in to do an interview and discuss my resume, and then we decided that I would come in for my first day on Wednesday. I left JCPA for Beit Ar-El and went to a Garin Tzedek meeting discussing what we want to do this trimester in terms of trips and optional peulot during the week. That afternoon I went to Creative Non-fiction Writing, which I'm not sure how I feel about yet. We discussed a few basic writing concepts I'm already very familiar with from taking Creative Writing in high school, and then we did a rudimentary writing exercise where we wrote the first sentence of a story--hopefully it's going to pick up as the class progresses, but I'll be fine either way as long as we get chances to write.
That night, I went to an English-speaking comedy club near Ben Yehuda street. By the time we got there, it was just karaoke, which was a good deal of fun--Scott, Nathan, and I sang "Under the Bridge," which is kind of a tradition of ours. Nathan and I have also been wanting to do karaoke since we came on Year Course, so it was about time. The club also has open mic comedy night until 10:30 on Mondays, so I think I may go next week and see if I can do stand-up. I'm pretty excited about it; I heard from the people who were in Jerusalem before us that it can be a good deal of fun if you go with a big group of people. I also am anxious about the prospect of being good at stand-up, but we'll see how it goes.
Tuesday was the first siyur in Jerusalem. We went to the Christian quarter and walked the via dolorosa, where Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion. It was pretty good as far as siyurim go, especially considering that I've never been to the Christian quarter and that me, Nathan, Scott, Max, and Andrew had some delicious shwarma afterwards. We returned in the afternoon completely exhausted and pretty much everyone in the apartment took a nap. When we woke up, we went shopping at Mega Bul--a grocery store brand that we loved in Arad--across the street. It wasn't the haven of food that it had been in Arad, but it was still quite satisfying and cheaper than our earlier groceries. We returned home and made a stir fry dinner, I went for a run, and then went to campus to watch "Wet Hot American Summer" before returning home to go to sleep.
Today was my first real day of volunteering. I went in at about 8:40, but Justus didn't arrive until 9:15. We spent most of the morning editing one of his research papers which is getting published. This consisted of me reading it aloud to him, which included saying things like "comma, period, paragraph break, open quotes," etc. I was then given 25 shekels to buy lunch, because I was one of the only interns who came today so they decided not to order in. I went to Holy Bagel and got a card that entitles me to one free bagel after I buy ten, so this was easily the most exciting part of my day. I stopped by Beit Ar-El on my way home and hung out for a while before coming back to Derech Hebron. Wednesday afternoons are usually full of optional activities, but most of them have not existed today because it's the first real week. Thus, Scott, Nathan and I are going to go down to campus now and play frisbee for a while.
I hope all is well with you, and that you are also enjoying frisbee or some other sport at the moment! I'm sure I'd love to hear from you, especially if we've not talked in a while. Take it easy!
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