יצחק רבין

The Sea Scouts siyur on Tuesday was excellent--we went to the beach at around 12 and played some fun games with the scouts.  We talked about how Israel doesn't do enough to fix its internal problems (increased violence, a water shortage, and, to some extent, even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) because it is faced with going out of existence due to external problems (i.e. a nuclear Iran).  Then the sea scouts arrived and we went kayaking out in the ocean, which was pretty awesome.  The waves were huge and Nathan and I took a double kayak, so we felt them even more.  There were also a plethora of rocky outcroppings and reefs, which gave the entire siyur a high chance of death (making it that much more fun).

We returned from this and shortly thereafter I went into Tel Aviv to work with both the Darfuri children in their home (Talal, Musa, and Shima) and the adult class right after.  The adult class was hard, because Adam, their teacher, just gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted this time.  Last time, he gave me a textbook to work with them out of, so I had some sort of structure.  This time, I just worked with them on their spoken English and explained some concepts to them that they could use.  I am going again tomorrow, I think it'll be best to have a lesson plan this time.  In addition to this, we had some time to hang up a few laminated things in the gan--namely, the alef-bet and the numbers 0-10.  It was pretty cool to see how the gan will start to look after we hang more things up.  I'm very excited for the "after" picture of the room.  Before we left, I asked Adam to come and be a speaker at the "Darfuri Dessert and Discuss" we're having tomorrow at Ulpan.  I'm pretty excited about it, because now we have two different speakers from entirely different backgrounds (the other one is Nic, he is British and that's pretty much all I know about him).  It's awesome that they gave us the Dessert and Discuss time slot for this week, too.  When I got back home from Tel Aviv, I went for a run and then to bed.

This morning I woke up and did the dishes.  Then I went to class, and something very interesting was illuminated to me: for years I've been hearing things like "Iran will have a nuke within 12 months" (or sometimes less) and the number has rarely gone down.  How could it remain constant when time is always passing?  Well, apparently, many Iranian nuclear scientists have died highly suspicious deaths that suggest that either U.S. or Israeli intelligence forces may be assassinating them.  It's gotten to the point where Iranian scientists have to have a bodyguard with them at all times.

Then, in the David Project, we split into two sides and had a debate over how the Israeli barrier fence disrupts Palestinian lives: this wouldn't've been bad at all, except that I was pretty much the only person on my side (the Israeli one) to speak up, which made me feel like everyone was ganging up on me and, naturally, reduced my effectiveness--but I guess that's kind of representative of the situation on college campuses, now isn't it?  It's interesting, the more I learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more conflicted I am about the entire situation.

Anyway, after classes, we went to the Ulpan to have a peulah with the tsofim about Rabin's death, and what it meant symbolically for Israel, as well as its farther-reaching effects.  We read a letter by his killer, a highly religious Jew (Yigal Amir) who thought he was steering the country in the wrong direction.  Yigal thought that, 20 years after his imprisonment, the state would see that they had been wrong to imprison him and they would release him with much jubilation.  This seems to be a very real concern, as the Bat Yam ceremony for Yitzhak Rabin that we attended shortly after the peulah focused not so much on the man but on the idea of "not murdering."  Modern Israeli society is concerned with emphasizing freedom of speech and opinion, but only up until the point where it begins to affect other people (i.e. murder or general violence).  This is a reasonable thing for the society to be concerned about right now, because, as I said before, there has been a drastic increase in violence and murder in Israel in the past two months.  The entire ceremony was very somber: there was no clapping, and all the speakers spoke with a certain deep sense of sobriety.  There were some songs by a choir and one performance by an interpretive dance group, but even these things were done with a distinct resignation and sorrow.  At the end, we sang the Israeli national anthem: התקוה, "Hatikva" (the hope).   Hatikva is one of the most poignant things in the world to me: whenever I sing or hear it, I feel a deep sense of pride and patriotism for Israel, in a way that I can't get from the American national anthem.  It manages to be both optimistic and sorrowful while maintaining an air of dignity.  It's hard to explain if you haven't heard it, and even harder if you don't speak Hebrew.

After the ceremony, we returned home, I played some Euchre with Jake, Nathan, and Scott, and now I'm here.  And that's that.  I have to get up early for volunteering tomorrow, so I'd better get to bed.  Laila tov! (Good night)