שלום, חבר

Come Saturday, Nathan and I woke up at about 12 and worked on our project for Sheldon's class before my grandfather, Bruno, took us home.  On the way home, I came up with all of the assignments for the game of assassin that my section is now playing.  If you've never played assassin, it's a game where each person gets another person's name and a task that they have to do to kill that person--generally, the tasks are pretty person-specific--for instance, when I had long hair, the task to kill me one time was to get my permission to play with it.

Saturday night, we went to the Yitzhak Rabin memorial ceremony in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.  It was highly intriguing--the whole thing was very political, there were a lot of left-wing parties from the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) there trying to recruit people and many signs for parties were being held up.  Lots of people also held up "שלום עכשיו" (Peace Now) signs that I suppose were meant to honor Rabin's peace-loving spirit.  In case you're not too familiar with recent Israeli history, Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1994, a year before he was assassinated (hence the memorial ceremony).  The Oslo Accords were meant to be a positive step towards peace that more or less failed due to Arafat's calls for violence shortly after the signing of the documents, and the Israeli government's failure to do anything about this--rather than call Arafat out or renege on the deal, Israel went through with having Israeli soldiers leave many Palestinian towns and arm the Palestinian military.  It's unfortunate, but Rabin's decision to unilaterally carry through on the peace process has created a very strange and difficult dynamic to deal with today.  We are still feeling the effects to a great degree.  At the ceremony, there was also a (clearly pre-recorded) speech by Obama broadcast over the screens about wanting peace in which he said "The Israeli people have to realize that they won't have security until the Palestinians' legitimate grievances are acknowledged, and the Palestinians have to realize they won't have a state until Israel has security."  The whole speech came off as very two-faced in light of his recent history of Mid-East policy (criticizing Israel and getting closer to Iran).  Regardless, it was interesting.

Sunday morning, Nathan, Cera, Emilie and I went into Tel Aviv to have breakfast at 10 with Adam--he offered to cook us a barbecue breakfast last Thursday, and we gladly accepted.  It was pretty awesome.  We then returned and had classes, and the assassin game began that day.  That night I, Emilie, Cera, Simon, and Laura went to a dinner with some Year Course promoters to tell them how to get more people to come on the program.  The dinner was okay, although I felt kind of useless--at least it was free food.  When I got back home, I saw my father for the first time in 3 months or so as he and my cousin Gil came to the apartment to pick me up.  We went to my grandparents' in Netanya, where I also saw my mother and siblings, but not before stopping by my dad's mom's place in Kfar Saba.  I had a conversation with her about the Darfuris, and it basically boiled down to here being pretty racist and closed-minded--an interesting conversation to have, though.  I also discussed many things about Israeli politics and Middle Eastern relations with my dad, who is very right-wing in terms of Israel.  It was strange.

Monday morning, I went to my grandfather's funeral in Kfar Saba.  It was the first funeral I'd ever been to.  They wheeled his body out on a gurney, and he was covered with a body-sized tallas.  One of his close friends gave a speech, as did one of my aunts.  The whole thing was very surreal--my father was saying hello to all these people who lived near him or knew his dad that he hasn't seen since he left Israel almost 30 years ago.  I put a rock on the grave before we all left, and some people told me that I looked like him when he was younger--gingi hachazak, the strong redhead.  I will miss him.  He lived a full life, and always enjoyed himself.  My dad told me that he had said to him he wanted to go quickly, and, indeed, he did.

I then returned to Bat Yam and went to Zman Madrich and an evaluation of Noa with the rakezet of our section, Sharon.  We have no Ulpan this week, because many people are in Uganda for Olami.  After all of this, Cera and I went to the Mohammed house and taught Talal and Musa (Shaima was out with her mother).

Then, today, I woke up for a siyur with other tsofim on shnat sherut (year of service), like our tsofim.  We talked with them about our volunteering and what we hope to accomplish here.  We also saw a one-man play about a guy who is late to be a shaliach (Israeli ambassador to convince Jews in the diaspora to move to Israel) because of a terrorist attack where his daughter almost dies.  He portrayed Israeli culture very negatively, which isn't a perspective I often get.

After the siyur ended, I went for a 4k run, showered, had dinner, and went into Tel Aviv again to work with Talal, Musa, and Shaima.  Afterwards, I took a larger group of people to go work with the adult Darfuris at their community center.  Everyone paired off into groups and facilitated discussions, and it helped the Darfuris get some cathartic discussion in as well as improve their spoken English.  Everyone seemed to have an excellent time.

And now I'm home!

Something interesting that's been happening lately, is that, whenever Tomer and I are in the apartment after 12 or 1 or so, we walk around and talk like robots--it's so obnoxious, but so hilarious when it's that late.  Sometimes I lean out the window and yell "Pizza Bueno cooks with poison" and other such things (Pizza Bueno is the pizza establishment directly underneath our apartment).  One time, he and I opened the shutters, and I simply said "Pizza Bueno" in the robot voice, and a guy leaving the restaurant on a motorcycle (who probably works there) looked up at us with the death glare.  The robot thing is always hysterical.  Sometimes, when it's really late, Tomer just gets absolutely ridiculous, saying things like "I would rather drink the blood of Iraqi children than have Obama be in the White House.  McCain was the right choice--go go go go go go go go bomb Iraq.  YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH.  I just want to feel emotion and human love."

It's pretty preposterous.

Sometime two weekends ago, I was walking home alone at about 3 AM with a massive deluge of rain and a Moses (burger restaurant) knife in my backpack.  Adam stole it from the restaurant, so that I could have it in my apartment to legitimately cut things--it's interesting, I won't personally steal something, but I have no problem accepting something that someone else has stolen.  It was strange, however, because as I was walking home down a somewhat dark and deserted pathway, I kept considering getting the knife out just in case something happened.  This is a pathway that I often walk alone, often looking over my shoulder.  Yet it was very late, I was very tired, and it was very rainy, so I kept thinking about getting the knife out--but then I realized that I had to walk by the police station on the way back to my apartment, and I don't know how well a man wielding a knife at 3 AM in the morning walking by the police station would have gone over.  I ended up not getting it out of the backpack.  It's funny the way the mind works sometimes.

Anywho, I should get to bed--take it easy, my friends, I hope all is well with you!