Matty's Israel Adventures

Once Upon a Shabbat in Jerusalem

2012-02-12T17:07:00.000+02:00

This past Shabbat, I had the opportunity to take in and enjoy the beginning of the day of rest unlike anywhere else in the world.

I headed out from my apartment about 20 minutes before candle lighting time towards the Old City. In the middle of the Mamilla outdoor pavilion, I heard the Shabbat siren ring out. For some reason, despite this being the third Shabbat I'd spent in Jerusalem since arriving last month, it was the first that I was able to hear the siren wail announcing the entrance of Shabbat and the ushering in of a day of holiness, of rest, and of peace. Back in the States, one of my favorite times of the week was the walk from home to shul for Kabbalat Shabbat, when I could feel all the stress and worry of the past week fall off my shoulders and a calm come over me.

I walked through Jaffa Gate into the Old City and crossed into the Jewish Quarter to head to the Kotel. It was still light out when I got there, and the plaza was filling up. Shortly after I entered the men's section and contemplated which service to join, a group of 40-50 Israeli Defense Forces soldiers entered, singing and dancing in unison. Fully in uniform, they, too, were stopping their routine, as this particular group was approaching its final days before becoming officers.

They invited everyone to join them and to celebrate the moment, and so I joined the officers-to-be, their commanders, along with tourists from around the world and fellow Israeli Jews. I know it sounds a bit cliche, but it was truly amazing to look around this circle that had expanded throughout the entire men's area of the Kotel and see Jews of all different backgrounds and colors, levels of religious observance, and abilities to speak Hebrew. But singing "Am Yisrael Chai", we reaffirmed the very reason I decided to move here.

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On an entirely unrelated note, I finally bought a drip coffee maker last week and was walking around on Wednesday or Thursday to buy some coffee to take home with me when I came across the following storefront. Needless to say, I stopped in, but didn't wind up buying coffee from them...maybe next time!

Some #Obstinate Reactions to Close Out My First Month

2012-02-03T15:11:00.001+02:00

As my first month as an Israeli citizen draws to a close, I felt it was only appropriate to share what was quite an #obstinate reaction to a situation that was unnecessarily annoying.

Way back on the day after I landed, one of my relatives took me to Rami Levy get a cell phone plan for my iPhone. As they described over the phone and again in store, it's a pay-as-you-go plan with very good rates per minute and per SMS and unlimited internet access. The only hitch was that since I hadn't opened an Israeli bank account yet, they needed my cousin to use her credit card for the account and we would switch payment options when I got my bank set up (apparently international Visa and MasterCards weren't acceptable).

Flash forward to last week, I have my bank's debit card, which has the "IsraCard" logo, Israel's internal credit card company, and we go back to the store to get the payment switched over. They look at my card and tell me, "Well we can't use this for payment because it's not a credit card, it's a debit card". So I said, "Exactly. The money comes directly from my bank account without an intermediary" and they told me, the only method of payment they accept is an Israeli credit card. I asked about other options - a direct debit plan from my bank account, my international Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, whatever.

When they still said no I got a bit #obstinate. I noted that were I to get an Israeli credit card, I would have to pay a monthly fee for it (as there are always hidden charges to anything bank related in this country) and that in every single other situation, my CapitalOne Visa, which doesn't charge foreign transaction fees, would be golden, including, as I mentioned, at the Rami Levy supermarket that was attached to the store. Since Israeli law prohibits cell phone companies from signing you to a contract you can't get out of, I told them I would go to the other three major cell phone companies, pick whichever deal they had that was best, and switch the next day, and that's exactly what I did and am now happily an Orange subscriber! Oh and I also congratulated them for creating unnecessary obstacles for new immigrants...all in Hebrew so it's probably a good thing I don't really know too many curse words!

That moment of obstinance aside, things here are good, although it will be weird not being in Boston for the Super Bowl Sunday night/even later Sunday night here. This past week has brought some change into my apartment and I now have a new roommate. As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Sarah, who was my madricha on when I was here on OTZMA two years ago, has now moved in and we've been hard at work over the past three days cleaning, rearranging and reorganizing the apartment. I now have a new bed and a little shelving unti for all my DVDs which is great, and things feel more orderly and a bit less haphazard.

Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom wherever you are!

Three Weeks In

2012-01-24T14:19:00.004+02:00

So much to tell and yet I haven't found time until now to post a second update. Tomorrow marks the beginning of my 4th week in Israel, and yet there are still 3432324 things to do slash errands to run when my Hebrew classes end at 12:45pm every day!

I'm now in my second week of classes in Ulpan, and I've been really enjoying it so far. This particular program is designed for young adults approximately 23-33 so I'm pretty much smack dab in the middle. The directors have said there are about 150 students from 20 countries. In my class alone, we have other people from the States, but also Canada, the UK, France, Australia and Argentina, so it's a really nice mix. I can tell already that these five months will really do wonders for my vocabulary, not to mention my desire to be able to read and write at an academic level.

I've started to get to know some of the other students both in my class and the other classes, and one of them, a guy from LA named Jaymes was my bartender the other night at Mike's Place when I went to watch the AFC Championship game. Certainly in our class, we already have good rapport with each other, so the coming weeks and months should be enjoyable.

Starting next week, I'll be getting a new roommate, and while she might not respond to calls of "Issssberrrrrrttt!??!" the way Alex did, I'm very much looking forward to her moving in. It's a funny story (and for all of you who were on OTZMA with me, you'll find this particularly funny). because Sarah Cohen, while not related to me, was my former madricha or participant coordinator, when I was on OTZMA. She made aliyah several years ago, so she knows the country and the neighborhood better than I do, so once she moves in, we'll re-arrange some of the furniture, put some things up on the walls and the apartment will feel a little more settled.

What else? I'm in the process of finding a gym to join (one where I can rock out with my do rag and sweatbands) so I'm actually heading out for a test workout at a gym in town. And in case anyone is looking to call or wants to look me up on iMessage or What's App, my phone number is +972-50-70-20-552, or from inside Israel, 050-70-20-552.

Ani Oleh Chadash - I am a new immigrant

2012-01-09T17:05:00.000+02:00

A few days into my journey as an oleh chadash, a new Israeli immigrant, the only word that comes to mind is "overwhelming." But as hectic and chaotic as a move like this is, it's landscapes like the one above that make it worth it.

Having mixed up the hours the Ministry of the Interior was open yesterday in order to get my teudat zehut, or national ID card, I decided to take a walk into the Old City for the first time since I landed. After all, how could I be in Israel for longer than three days and not go to the Kotel. I walked in through Jaffa Gate and continued into the Jewish Quarter. Weaving through the different alley ways and streets, I turned a corner and all of the sudden in front of me was the Mount of Olives, the Al Aqsa Mosque, the Temple Mount, and the Kotel or the Western Wall. Tears immediately welled in my eyes and I understood all over again why I came here. I walked down to the Kotel Plaza and joined people from all over the world marveling at this wonder that somehow has withstood multiple destructions as if it were the first time I had been there.

Thankfully, I have family and friends on both sides of the ocean who are incredibly helpful and supportive as I make this transition. I haven't spoken to a single Israeli family member or friend who has not said "let me know how I can help you" or "Come over for a meal or Shabbat" or "our house is always open." This past Shabbat, my relatives in Efrat greeted me with pints of Ben & Jerry's (four of them!) and lots of love, and I've gotten similar open arms embraces, both literally and figuratively, from every other person I've reunited with here.

And today, I tackled the next round of the famed Israeli bureaucracy, obtaining my teudat zehut, setting up an appointment with the local Ministry of Absorption to go over my rights as a new citizen, and opening up a new bank account. I may not be fully settled yet, but I'm on my way.

Something my aunt June reminded me of the other day, and that I thought about as well when I was packing my suitcases in Boston, was how fortunate we are to be living at the present moment in time with so many ways for global communication. Just over a hundred years ago, all eight of my great grandparents packed maybe one suitcase and boarded a ship bound for the United States, knowing they would likely never see the family they were leaving behind or visit their places of birth, nor might they find the family who had already come to the US. Meanwhile, I can call, Skype, Gchat and iMessage anyone anywhere and anytime, and I had the luxury of bringing four suitcases packed to the brim with clothes and other personal items, along with two additional carry-ons.

I can also share some of my experiences in this space, which I hope will be at least sometimes interesting, possibly humorous, and at the very least, a way to keep tabs on how I'm doing even when I can't see you all when I'd like to. Yalla balagan!

My Boston-Haifa-Jerusalem Connection: An Open Letter to the Boston Jewish Community

2011-12-22T15:39:00.002+02:00

First of all - Thank You.

I have called Boston home for nearly all of my 27-plus years on this planet, and there are many individuals and organizations in this community to whom I will be forever indebted for contributions to my life too numerous to detail in this space. Of particular note are the three people closest to me - my parents, Ted and Meda, and sister Becca for their unconditional love and support.

In a couple of weeks, I will uproot my entire life and leave the only city I’ve ever truly known well in order to make Aliyah and move to Israel. I will leave family and friends behind in order to fulfill a dream, our dream, the dream of the Jewish people. Growing up, I was never that kid who knew what he wanted to be when he grew up – a doctor, a scientist, a lawyer.

The opportunity to become an Israeli, to live in and contribute to the Jewish culture and renaissance in the Land of Israel, something I know my ancestors prayed for and dreamt about, is my dream.

Those of you who know me well know that I love this country, and that there’s a reason the 4th of July is my favorite holiday (and not just because fireworks are one of my favorite things in the world). But ever since I got off a boat on the shores of Haifa for the first time when I was 15, I’ve felt a visceral, emotional attachment to Israel that has never been present with America in quite the same way (the trip with Camp Young Judaea in New Hampshire was designed to simulate the experience of those on the Exodus and other ma’apilim in the final years of the British Mandate). Like many aspects of the establishment of the State of Israel and the return of the Jewish people to our homeland, it defies a rational and logical explanation. The closest thing I’ve been able to come up with is the title of a book by the inspirational author, Daniel Gordis, "If A Place Can Make You Cry."

Two and a half years ago, I set out on another journey to Israel as a participant on a program called OTZMA, an experience that was at the same time similar yet also profoundly different to the one on which I am about to embark. OTZMA is a 10-month post-college community service and leadership training program run by The Jewish Federations of North America, and sponsored by MASA and locally by CJP and the Boston-Haifa Connection. I had the opportunity to live and volunteer in Ashkelon, Haifa and Jerusalem and to appreciate the many ways these three cities differ.

Since I was aware of the American bubble that surrounded the 38 of us throughout the year, I made a concerted effort to get outside of that bubble and to experience Israeli society as much as possible, spending chagim and many Shabbatot with my family, some of whom are sabras and others who are olim, some of whom are religious, and others chiloniim (secular).

A crucial piece of this effort was getting involved in the Boston-Haifa Connection, where I spent some of my time volunteering during the three months I lived in Haifa. Not only did I learn about all of the programs and activities the partnership funds and runs, but I also experienced the true power and value of the connection and the bonds formed between Bostonians and Haifaiim. The partnership’s Young Leadership Committee, which had just been started a few months earlier, greeted the four of us from OTZMA who would be living in Haifa with open arms and friendship. They took time out of their busy schedules to make sure we got to experience Haifa the way residents see it, whether that meant coming with them to the best bars and clubs on the weekend or for the best knafe in the German Colony.
As a direct result of the excellent education I received as an elementary and middle school student at Solomon Schechter in Newton, I speak Hebrew fluently with almost no trace of a foreign accent, which enabled me to get to know my peers in Haifa and elsewhere in Israel on a much deeper level than had I been forced to rely heavily on my English.

It was while I was in Haifa that I first realized Israel was not only the future of the entire Jewish people, but my future as well. This was a feeling that stayed with me, and by the end of my year on OTZMA, I was seriously considering Aliyah and went for an informational interview with Nefesh B’Nefesh, the organization tasked with Aliyah from the US, Canada, and the UK. But for the same reasons that I can’t quite explain my emotional connection to Israel, I am aware that it has an almost mystical hold over me and that this was a decision I needed to make from the US; if Aliyah was the right decision for me, it would be the right decision for me to make after four, six, eight or 10 months of being back the States.

And indeed it was and is the right decision for me, and I have had enough time to think about it and analyze all of it with a clear head. I’m under no pretenses that it will be easy. I’m notoriously bad at goodbyes, and the process I have already started of saying goodbye to family and friends has not been easy, nor will it get any easier in the coming days, or even once I’m settled in my new home.

There are many things I’ll miss about this town and about the incredibly vibrant Jewish community here. At CJP’s Young Adult Open House Party back in September, I stood at one corner behind the Boston-Haifa Connection Young Leaders table and marveled at how the gigantic banquet hall room was filled corner to corner with 50 different organizations that cater to young adults, and dozens upon dozens of young Jews trying to map them all out and find out what each is about. If you are young and Jewish in Boston, there is an organization or group for you. I will particularly miss the organizations I have worked the most closely with - The David Project, CJP, the Boston-Haifa Connection, AJC and AJC ACCESS and am looking forward to following their important work from Israel.

But for me, the road from Boston to Haifa continues on to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of our people. I have chosen it as my new home and am excited to explore the opportunities that await me and to make my contribution to the 21st century Zionism, for as we learn from Shammai in Pirkei Avot, “Say little and do much.”

L'hitraot B'Aretz,
Matt Cohen

This post was originally published by the Boston-Haifa Connection’s blog on JewishBoston.com.

I'm Baaaack

2011-12-18T16:00:00.001+02:00

I am excited to be re-starting this blog as I begin a new chapter in my life, moving to Israel as an oleh chadash in just a couple of weeks. In the year and a half this space has been dormant since the end of OTZMA, I've had the opportunity to contribute to The David Project's online blog, as well as writing and editing the Boston-Haifa Connection's blog. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and adventures, and yes, all those "only in Israel" moments that are bound to pop up along the way. Az Yalla!

A Year of Opportunities

2010-06-14T14:40:00.001+03:00

Amazing. Life-changing. Inspirational. I can think of a lot of words, almost all of them clichés, to describe my year in Israel, but naturally none can even begin to sum it all up. How can you describe the pure joy of dancing at the Kotel on Yom Yerushalayim? The satisfaction of standing on the banks of the Kinneret after completing the Yam L’Yam hike? The ability to spend time with and get closer to my Israeli relatives? The amount of information I’ve learned about Judaism, Israel, and myself?

I have spent the past 10 months living in Israel as a participant on OTZMA, a post-college community service-based program sponsored by The Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Agency for Israel and MASA. OTZMA’s structure afforded me the opportunity to live in three different cities – Ashkelon, Haifa, and Jerusalem – and to learn what daily life is like in Israel in these very distinct places. While there are certainly plenty of cultural things I’ve had to adjust to (the Sunday-Thursday work week, the complete chaos that is a line at the supermarket), I have enjoyed each and every day I’ve had here.

I love the energy and vibrancy of this country, as well as the amazing calm and tranquility that come every Friday, 18 minutes before sundown. I love that a couple of weeks ago, the driver of the Egged bus I was on stopped in the middle of the street to pick up a hand-delivery of freshly baked rugelach. I love how I’m constantly being challenged to think about what being Jewish means to me and to re-consider my level of observance. I love how despite going years since actively pursuing any kind of Torah or Tanach study, the things I’ve experienced and the Biblical connections to the places I’ve visited make it impossible for me not to re-engage in our wealth of religious sources.

One of my favorite parts of OTZMA has been the education component, which has allowed us to learn about the wide range of domestic and foreign issues facing Israel and to meet with both government policymakers and NGO representatives. We’ve traveled all around the country, from Har Ben Tal in the Golan to Sussiya and the southern Hevron Hills to Yerucham and the Negev. We even had our own mock “Camp David 2010” conference to study in-depth the major final status issues surrounding the peace process. Each of these sessions, seminars, and trips has left me wanting to learn more, adding books and other resources to my “to read” list.

While I’ve gotten into my fair share of debates and arguments about some of the major political issues, it’s only by being a part of a community that I’ve began to truly understand the real challenges facing Israelis in their day-to-day lives. In Haifa, for example, I helped teach a television production class to high school students with behavioral issues, and I was able to see how this kind of educational approach can spark these kids to turn their lives around. I also got to work with Ethiopian Israelis in both Ashkelon and Haifa and learned about the difficult balance between preserving Ethiopian culture and absorbing or assimilating into Israeli culture.

It’s been fascinating to talk to all kinds of Israelis about life here. Whether religious or secular, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, third-generation or oleh chadash, Israelis care deeply about the future of their country, and as anyone who’s spent time here knows, they hold nothing back when it comes to their opinions of how best to move forward. And the great thing is there are people truly working to change and improve life here. During my two months as an intern at The Jewish Federations of North America’s Israel office, I’ve had the opportunity to see how American and Israeli philanthropy supports social change all over Israel. Just as it is in the United States, the gap between rich and poor in Israel has become a huge problem, and it’s critical to the country’s future that there are significant resources going to aid young adults find affordable housing, provide better after-school enrichment programs for youth-at-risk, and boost economic development in the Negev.

As the campaign to de-legitimize Israel grows, it’s become increasingly important for Jews everywhere, and specifically young Jewish adults, to consider everything Israel has given to us and to the rest of the Jewish world in just over 62 years of existence. For the first time in literally thousands of years, the Jewish people have a country of our own, one where we can decide our own future and live freely as Jews. For generations upon generations, our ancestors prayed for the return to Jerusalem and to this land, and now that we have it, it’s our individual and collective responsibilities to ensure its success.

A century ago, the original Zionist chalutzim came here and settled and built the land. They drained the swamps, developed an infrastructure and gained international recognition for the re-establishment of a Jewish state. The generation that followed paid a heavy price to defend the nascent state over years and decades of wars and also played a crucial role in developing and transforming the country’s economy. The challenge set forth to me and my generation is to figure out how we will continue their Zionist ideals and what we will do to ensure that Jewish life continues to flourish, not only in Israel, but in the Diaspora as well.

Like many of my fellow OTZMAnikim, one of the reasons I came here was to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. After graduating from college and working for three years at what had been my dream job, I realized my real passion lies with the Jewish people and with Israel. This year has re-affirmed that feeling as well as my commitment to finding a career that helps me do my part to strengthen the Jewish community.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the people and organizations who have made this experience possible for me: The Jewish Federations of North America, MASA, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston for their support of the OTZMA program as a whole and their financial contributions towards my personal participation. The OTZMA staff has worked tirelessly to provide us the best possible experience, coordinating some amazing education seminars and what I’m sure will be a memorable final tiyul. I also want to thank my fellow OTZMAnikim, without whom this year would have been a lot more difficult. We should all be proud of the amazing work we’ve done as individuals and as a group, and of the way we’ve become a family, celebrating holidays together and supporting each other through the hard times along the way. You’ve all challenged me, kept me smiling, and yes, provided me with tons of ice cream, and for our experience together this year, I feel truly blessed.

Originally written for The Federation Connection Blog of The Jewish Federations of North America.

Yam L'Yam/Sea To Sea

2010-06-01T22:32:00.005+03:00

Somehow we did it. This past weekend, Jeremy, Sam, Brett, Ari and I completed the cross-country hike known as Yam L’Yam, or Sea To Sea. The hike took us from Israel’s western coastline of Yam HaTichon/the Mediterranean Sea, to its eastern border of Yam HaKinneret/Sea of Galilee, a 65+ kilometer hike (40 miles, not counting the inclines and declines, including Israel’s 2nd-highest mountain, Mount Meron of 1208 meters).

It was without a doubt the most physically challenging and mentally demanding thing I’ve ever done. There were many moments along the way where I was tempted to quit and others where I didn’t think we’d be able to finish the hike. But we did, and I’m very proud of this accomplishment.

We left Jerusalem Thursday evening with all of our gear – clothes, sleeping bags, tents, food, cooking supplies, and 6 liters of water a person. Picking up the bags was not an easy task. Boy would it be fun to strap them to our backs and start hiking with them. Well that’s what we did a few hours later. We got off the train in Nahariya, and hiked through the city and down the beach to our pre-hike camping spot for the night. The actual trail didn’t begin for another few kilometers but we wanted to make sure to get a solid night’s sleep.

After waking up around 5:30am, our first Manbreakfast of granola, Captain Crunch, and some nuts took place shortly thereafter. By 6:45am we filled a symbolic small bottle with water from the Mediterranean and we were off. After a few kilometers, you know, just for fun, we got to the beginning of the trail at Achziv, which is well identified because it takes you through a banana grove. The big adjustment for day one was dealing with the giant weight on our backs. But as you’ll be able to see from the pictures, the views and scenery were gorgeous, so at least we had that going for us.

We stopped for lunch near the base of Montfort, a Crusader fort somehow built atop a pretty steep mountain. Our Manlunch consisted of peanut butter and chocolate spread sandwiches, some salami, and apples. After lunch, we ventured through the first of several foresty trails cutting around and through little river streams and very green foliage. But as would be the theme with every day, the last leg was the hardest. We had a mountain and then some to climb to get to the end of our day’s hike. The initial incline was a quite a workout, but after about half an hour of steady climbing and several “I can feel it’s right around this corner” comments, we were all feeling pretty frustrated. But finally we got to the top of the nature reserve and exited to the road at the trail head.

Now this was where we expected to find our water source and campsite easily. Neither were to be found, but we checked the map and found the town of Abirim was right down the road, so we headed there at least to find some water. Just before reaching the gates, we met a man walking by us who had spent a few years studying in Santa Barbara, California. He invited us into the tiny town of 40 families to grill near the little park area just beyond the gates and to camp right there. The water tap was literally a stone’s throw away from our campsite so we couldn’t have been happier. We threw down our bags and started putting together some dinner, cutting up peppers, onions, potatoes and sweet potatoes, adding some beans, wrapping them together in a foil and tossing them on the grill. The dinner was cooked to perfection and tasted great after a very long day of hiking. And then at the unbelievably late hour of 8:45pm we headed to bed to prepare for Day 2.

We packed up early in the morning and left Abirim, and for the first portion of the day we were doing some highway hiking, going through the towns of Fesutah, Elkosh and Hurfesh. Despite having to walk along the side of the road for several kilometers, it was an interesting landscape passing through an Arab, a Jewish and then a Druze town. Just past Elkosh we picked up a hiking trail and all of the sudden we were back to the beautiful forest hiking we all love about the north.

Our goal for the day was to get to the base of Mount Meron by 2pm, to give us enough daylight to climb the mountain, enjoy the view and the experience, hike back down and set up camp. We set a great pace for the first part of the day, so we got Meron according to schedule, re-filled our waters and joined the Israel Trail, the hiking trail that goes from Tel Dan near the Lebanese border all the way down to Eilat (on our third day, as we were going south, we passed by a few different hikers who had in fact started in Eilat and who had almost made it across the length of the country…talk about an accomplishment). But back to us…When faced with a 300 meter ascent over the course of just one kilometer, there’s only one thing to do: power through it as quickly as you can. This was a perfect example of a time where I didn’t know how I was going to push through. After ten minutes of really booking it up the mountain, my legs were gassed, but since my friends were still moving, I was still moving. But as is usually the case with these situations, the view from the top was worth it. Even though there was a bit of a haze, we could see a good part of the north, including the city of Tzfat, which was really cool because when we were there for the 2-week Livnot program, we could see Meron from the balcony, and now we had switched spots.

It took a bit longer than we anticipated to descend and to get to our campsite, but we did have enough time to gather our wood and set up our tents for the evening while it was still light out. There was a bit of a scare when we were sitting around the table finishing up dinner and could see a fox in the not too distant bushes waiting for us to clear out so he could eat our food. So we made sure to bring every last bit of food scrap to the dumpster by the water tap across the way from our camp site and Mr. Fox was never to be seen again.

Day 3 began great – we hiked through Nahal Amud and wound up joining up with a portion of a hike we had done together back in December while we were on Livnot. There was a particular bridge crossing over the river where we had stopped for a chevruta, or learning session, on that hike, and so we took a break at that same bridge in honor of Livnot (and wrote a little note for the current Livnoters who will be doing the hike in the next couple of days).

But as Nachal Amud turned into Nahchal Amud Tachton, things took a dicey turn. Our pace, which had been really quick for the first couple of hours, quickly ground to nearly a halt as we dealt with some really tricky climbing up and down. The hardest part was not really knowing how many kilometers we’d gone since the last landmark on the trail, since most of our hiking was up and down the wadi instead of steady forward progress.

We took a break for our last manlunch and re-charged our batteries. Within 45 minutes, we had reached Highway 85 and knew we were entering the homestretch, the final 10 kilometers of Yam L’Yam. The trail took us underneath the highway and for me, through the toughest stretch of the hike. By this point, I had drank 4 of my 6 liters of water and knew I needed to keep drinking to avoid getting dehydrated on the hottest day of our hike. It sure didn’t help that the majority of this next stretch would be in the open sun with very little shade. Thankfully the rest of my friends had water to spare and made sure I had enough water.

After about 2.5 or 3 kilometers of hiking at a good pace, the terrain became our enemy again. We entered a section that was absolutely beautiful to look at, but that slowed our pace considerably. Assessing the situation, and accounting for the fact that we not only needed to get to the Kinneret while it was still light, but that we needed to get to Tiberias to catch the bus back to Jerusalem, we decided to change course and get to the upcoming highway and take the highway to the Kinneret, as opposed to staying on the Israel trail until the town of Ginosar on the water.

But once again, we had no way of telling how far away from that turnoff we were. Finally, we turned a corner and could see power lines, signaling the highway and civilization couldn’t be far. And sure enough, a few steps later, we could see the highway. We got up to the highway, took a break, and knew we were less than an hour away from our goal. We began the final journey, and as we cleared the first hill on the highway, the Kinneret came into sight for the first time, and it had never looked more beautiful. Talk about a morale boost, to be able to see our goal right in front of us, the city of Tiberias on the right, the Golan Heights on the other side of the water. I felt the excitement build as we got closer and closer to the water.

We stopped at a gas station to refill our water and then set off for the water, only because of our re-routing, we didn’t wind up at an area with a public beach. But from the map, there appeared to be several paths going from the main road down to the water. And to take the title of another Yam L’Yam blogger, we went from Bananas to Bananas, cutting through another banana grove to get to what we thought would be an open beach. It wasn’t, but after some weaseling, we found an open path and stood on the banks of the Kinneret.

After three long, tiring days, lots of trail mix and water, and perseverance, we made it. Ari emptied our little bottle of water from the Mediterranean into the Kinneret and it was an unbelievably satisfying moment for all of us, knowing we completed this very daunting and challenging journey across Israel.

Yom Yerushalayim: The Essence of Zionism

2010-05-15T13:19:00.002+03:00

"Im eshkachech Yerushalayim, tishkach yemini"/"If I forget you, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand wither."

From the moment I first knew I wanted to come to Israel on OTZMA, I was excited about living in Tel Aviv for Part 3 – the beach, the big city, the food. I didn’t yet know what kind of internship I was looking for, but I figured I would find it in Tel Aviv. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I needed to be in Jerusalem. It wasn’t just that the places that interested me most were here, although from a practical standpoint that certainly contributed to my decision. But the real reason lies in the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. It is here that the two Temples stood, and to here that generations of Jews prayed to return, to this day facing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount specifically during prayer.

So it is this connection to Jerusalem that made celebrating Yom Yerushalayim so special. It began Tuesday night with the Yom HaStudentim/White Night concert in Gan Sacher featuring an odd yet entertaining lineup of Israeli and American bands, from Hadag Nachash to 70s funk band Kool and the Gang. But the real highlight was the sunrise performance by Ehud Banai, a Jerusalemite and one of Israel’s most well-known and respected singer/songwriters. The entire Banai family still lives in the city, and Ehud has written several songs about living here, particularly “1 Haagas Street” about his home right by the Machane Yehuda shuk.

Flash forward several hours to Wednesday evening and the unbelievable scene at the Kotel. Jews of all kinds – young, old, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, haredi, hiloni/secular – joined together, proudly hoisting Israeli flags and dancing at the the Kotel plaza, celebrating 43 years of the reunification of Jerusalem, and the ability of Jews to return to the Old City, something denied during the 19-year Jordanian occupation of the city from 1948-1967. Celebrating Yom Ha’atzmaut on the streets of downtown Jerusalem was great, but it didn’t compare to the emotion, the pure joy, that I experienced and watched everyone around me experience at the Kotel.

This is the very essence of Zionism – the right of the Jewish people to be free in our homeland, the State of Israel, and Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and it’s no coincidence that the root of the word Zionism, Zion, is one of the Biblical names for Jerusalem. We no doubt hold different opinions when it comes to politics, religion and how Israel should proceed from here, but the importance of Jerusalem to our past, our present, and our future couldn’t be more clear.

Happy 62nd, Israel!

2010-04-21T20:52:00.001+03:00

The Fourth of July is perhaps my favorite American holiday. So it should be no surprise that Yom Ha’atzma’ut is one of my favorite Israeli holidays, and for many of the same reasons: summer weather, barbeques, celebrations, and of course, fireworks. But as proud of an American as I am, Yom Ha’atzma’ut is more meaningful to me as a Jew. It celebrates the return to our Biblical and historic homeland, to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and the fulfillment of God’s promise to us as His Chosen People to bring us back to the Land of Israel.

While I’ve been able to attend memorial ceremonies and Independence Day parties before thanks to the large and vibrant Jewish community in Boston, the experience obviously cannot compare to what it’s like here in Israel. But before I get to celebrating Israel’s 62^nd birthday, I will write a bit about Yom Hazikaron, and the importance of remembering the soldiers who died defending the State of Israel and her citizens, and all the men, women, and children murdered by Islamic terrorists simply because they were Jewish.

I marked Yom Hazikaron on Sunday night by attending a memorial ceremony designed for American olim and other English speakers. The ceremony began with the traditional siren, when all of Israel comes to a standstill to observe a minute of silence. Then, there was a tribute to Staff Sgt. Ari Weiss, an American oleh and sargeant in the Nahal Bridgade, who was killed three weeks shy of his 22^nd birthday in Shechem battling Hamas terrorists in 2002. A touching video showcased who Ari was and why he was so loved by his friends and family. Ari’s father, Rabbi Stewart Weiss, spoke beautifully after the video tribute, re-telling the audience what he said to the people who attended his son’s funeral: that everyone go home and sing “Am Yisrael Chai” in Ari’s memory. Thank God I haven’t personally suffered the loss of anyone serving in the IDF, so the ceremony really helped me internalize and personalize what it means to lose a loved one.

I have never lived a day in my life without the State of Israel being a fact, and it’s easy to take her existence for granted. But the juxtaposition of Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzma’ut reminds us that throughout Israel’s history, its citizens have had to defend the State each and every day, and often with their lives. This is why it’s so appropriate for the day of mourning to be followed by celebration, reminding us that these losses were not in vain, that helped create and protect the State of Israel.

So Monday night, as the sun set, mourning and sadness turned into jubilation and celebration. I went with a group of friends to the downtown Jerusalem area of Ben Yehuda Street and it was, as you can imagine, quite a scene: older people, younger people, families, teenagers, everyone really, enjoying the revelry. Over on Hillel Street, there were two stages set up with DJ’s playing different kinds of music and people hanging out and dancing. And of course, my favorite event, two sets of fireworks, one shot off around 11:15pm, the other at midnight (I must say that coming from Boston, I am extremely spoiled when it comes to fireworks, and I have yet to see a display that comes close to the yearly displays in Newton and Boston). After the fireworks, we headed to Machane Yehuda, where the entire shuk was transformed into yet another street party, this one aimed more at young adults. There were makeshift bars set up, a stage with a band, and streams and streams of young Zionists celebrating Independence Day. Then yesterday was part two of the celebration, joining the all-Israeli activity of barbequing in Efrat with my cousins Ephraim, Batya, Shlomo, Julie and their kids…plenty of hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, and steak to go around.

Italia

2010-04-17T20:11:00.002+03:00

UPDATE...link to the pics!

Now that I’m settled in the new apartment on Har Hatzofim in Jerusalem, I have a chance to post an update on my trip to Italy over vacation. Here’s a quick little rundown:

Best Gelato – Vivoli, Florence

Best Dinner – La Giostra, Florence

Best accommodations – Florence

Best views - Florence

Best City – Florence

Oldest history - Rome

Best Shabbat Experience – Venice

Co-MVPs – Lindsey and Annie for helping us plan everything so well (thanks, ladies!)

What can I say about Italy…other than Florence rocks. Well, for starters I probably ate my weight in gelato, so the trip had to be amazing. I traveled for a week to Rome, Florence and Venice with Tom and Adam, and while I would have loved more time to see more of the country, we did a great job maximizing our time and seeing everything we had set out to see.

Our first day was a Monday in Rome, the only less-than-perfect-weather of the trip– it alternated between sun and brief rain showers. We hit the Ancient Center area, heading first to the Colosseum which is just as massive as it looks in pictures. We took a tour of the inside as well, and it’s truly amazing to think how it was built so many hundreds of years ago with the technology they had back then. Next was Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum, where the major buildings and temples of the Roman empire were built. As a Jew, the most important structure there is the Arch of Titus, which commemorates the destruction of the Second Temple and of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE. On the inside of the arch, very clearly, there is a depiction of the Romans hauling the menorah away and enslaving many Jews (some of whom were used to build the Colosseum). In the afternoon, we walked around to some of the other main sites in the city, Piazza Navona, Tiber Island, and Piazza Campo di Fiori.

Tuesday we went to Vatican City and toured St. Peter’s Basillica. One thing I was struck by, first there and then at each of the other churches we visited is how intricate the artwork is, where there are literally hundreds of little paintings and sculptures adorning the insides of these places of worship. We then climbed up nearly 500 steps to the top of the basilica dome for an amazing panoramic view of Rome, the only annoyance being the crowds at the top making it very difficult to move from one end to the other. After walking back down, we headed to the Sistine Chapel and were amazed at the enormous lines we passed. Thankfully, we had pre-booked our Vatican Museum tickets, so we bypassed the entire 3-block long line and went right in. Obviously everybody goes primarily to see the Sistine Chapel, but the way you get there is an interesting way to see other parts of the museum. You follow the signs for the Sistine Chapel, and you wind up walking through all sorts of galleries and rooms full of Renaissance art and seeing a lot of cool things you weren’t planning on seeing. It was along the way that I saw some beautiful ceiling paintings, impressive probably most because of the vibrant colors and the location. But of course what I saw along the way paled in comparison to what we saw inside the Sistine Chapel, which definitely lives up to its reputation. The entire chapel features brilliant artwork, the most famous of which is Michelangelo’s ceiling, which depicts Bibilical stories across 33 different panels.

As you could probably guess from the top of the entry, Florence was far and away my favorite part of the trip. There’s something very friendly and inviting about the city, and it definitely helped as tourists that the main sights are so close to each other. Our first activity there was the Duomo church, the dominant centerpiece to the city’s skyline. It is a giant building, with a dome on one end, and a separate bell tower on the other end. The coolest part of the church was climbing its dome. On the way up, there is a balcony where you can stop to look at the paintings high up on the inside of the ceiling. The reward for climbing the 500 steps was well worth it. We had a clear day to see all of Florence and the surrounding Tuscan mountains, truly a spectacular sight, and much less crowded than St. Peter’s Basillica the day before.

It was after descending from the Duomo and having lunch that we visited Vivoli, almost without a doubt the best gelato place in the world. I have to give an additional shoutout to Lindsey for telling me if I did one thing in Florence, it had to be to go there. They had upwards of 25 flavors and a good mix between chocolate-based and fruit-based selections. I had very high expectations and the gelato definitely exceeded those expectations, each variety full of flavor and having a perfect balance between being rich and being creamy. We ate there three times in the two days we were in Florence and after sampling about 13 flavors, my favorite combination was chocolate mousse, banana, and merangue.

We saw quite a bit of artwork in the afternoon, first at the Plazza della Signora, which has a copy of Michelangelo’s David, as well as a dozen other famous sculptures. Then we went to the Uffizi gallery, which showcases some of the Renaissance’s best artwork. After the gallery, we walked over the Vecchio Bridge and the Arno River to southern Florence and hiked up to Piazza Michelangelo for sunset. This hill provided a different but equally beautiful viewpoint to take in the city skyline and its surroundings.

My favorite part of our second day in Florence was getting to see the synagogue there. It was built in the 1870s and is a gorgeous Byzantine-style building. It was particularly nice to visit a Jewish community institution after spending so many hours either in churches or looking at Christian artwork. The synagogue also has a museum of Jewish history and art, and it was while browsing the collection, I met a couple who currently live in Vancover, but who came to Florence 36 years ago as refugees from Ukraine. They had fled Ukraine and were granted asylum in Italy for a year, a few months of which they spent in Florence, before being granted permanent citizenship in Canada. This was the first time they had returned to Florence since then, and the wife was understandably emotional telling me about their journey and what it was like to return to that place.

We took a train to Venice at night, and it was cool to see the canals there lit up at night. Since the entire city is full of water and canals, the public transportation is comprised of a fleet of waterbuses that go around the different islands. We took a waterbus from the train station to right near our hostel, a fun way to see the city for the first time. Our top priority for Venice was seeing the Jewish area of the city, known as the Jewish ghetto (it was in Venice that the word ghetto originated to describe the area where Jews were forced to live.) We had quite an adventure getting there, but due to some very good fortunes, a random guy we asked told us, “go over the next 3 bridges, turn right after the 4^th and go straight from there.” Sure enough after turning right, there were signs all over (in Italian, English and Hebrew) pointing to the synagogue. We got to the Jewish museum two minutes before the tour started, which was pretty clutch. The tour took us to 4 of the 5 synagogues in Venice, and we learned that the 2 in use split the year in half: one is open from Sukkot to Pesach during the winter months and the other between Pesach and Sukkot for the summer months.

Another highlight of the trip was visiting the Fenice Opera House and happening to get there during the orchestra’s rehearsal on the main stage. We sat in on the rehearsal in the luxury boxes and watched and listened to the different arrangements, a pretty nice and unexpected treat. Since I was in Venice for Shabbat, I wanted to see what the Shabbat experience was like there, so I walked back to the Jewish ghetto and attended Kaballat Shabbat at the summer months shul, and then headed to dinner at Chabad. The dinner was held at the one kosher restaurant and the 200-plus people in attendance were split between the inside of the restaurant and tables outside. I sat outside with a whole group of Israelis, seated at a giant table along the banks of one of the canals, which was a pretty nice Shabbat atmosphere.

I spent my final day in Italy largely on the water. I got a waterbus day pass and went from the main part of Venice to two of the side islands: Murano and Burano. Murano is famous for its glass-making industry, so I went to a factory to see a glass-blowing exhibit and to check out all the cool glassware around the island. Then I went to Burano, which in addition for Venetian lace, is known for the houses and buildings painted bright pastel colors.

Chag Pesach Sameach

2010-03-28T00:16:00.000+03:00

A quick update before Pesach break…it definitely feels weird to be leaving Haifa. A great 3 months, and it sounds cliché, but I can’t believe it’s over already. I thoroughly enjoyed my time here, both the time I spent volunteering in the community and my free time exploring Israel’s third-largest city. I was fortunate enough to meet so many great people, and while I know I’m not always the best at keeping in touch, I hope to keep these connections going, especially everyone involved in the Boston/Haifa Connection with whom I’m looking forward to working when I get back in Boston.

I still have yet to post anything about our most recent Otzma education seminar, a 2-day tiyul about religious minorities in Israel. I hope to post an entry about my thoughts and reactions before I leave for Italy next week. Italy? Holla! I’ll be spending the second half of my Pesach vacation traveling around Rome, Florence and Venice with Tom and Adam, so best believe there will be plenty of pictures to be taken, including a special gelato photo diary. Then it’s off to Jerusalem for my last two months in Israel.

So Chag Sameach to all – and especially on Pesach, where we commemorate the exodus from Egypt, from slavery to freedom, I hope each of us keeps Gilad Schalit in our hearts and prayers. Gilad is spending his 4^th Pesach in captivity, held prisoner by Hamas against all conventions of international law.

An Inspirational Conference

2010-03-18T16:30:00.002+02:00

These past few days have truly been a highlight of my time in Haifa. I had the opportunity to participate in the Boston/Haifa Connection’s Joint Steering Committee conference, an experience that re-affirmed my desire to become more involved in the partnership’s activities and projects. Even though I knew generally what each of the 7 committees did, I learned a tremendous amount about the specific projects they work on and plan to start, as well as the pilot programs and special missions the Haifa/Boston Connection has recently initiated (such as the truly inspiring Hatikvah mission of Israeli soldiers who will be traveling to Boston to commemorate Yom HaShoah.)

I enjoyed meeting and talking with people from both sides of the partnership, from new friends involved in the Young Leadership on the Haifa side, to the dedicated and talented professionals and lay leaders with whom I look forward to working when I return to Boston in June.

The meeting of the Joint Steering Committee coincided with the Volunteer Week spearheaded by the Young Leadership of Haifa—over 1200 young adults volunteering their time in different areas across the city. I have had the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of community service projects during my year on OTZMAl, and it was particularly refreshing to go to the Fichman elementary school and the Beit HaKehilla community center along with the Young Leadership Committee to see many other Haifaim involved and energized to help their community. At the Fichman school, we were able to be in a few places at once, as we split up between helping out in a first grade classroom, assembling and planting a “wishing tree”, and painting a mural on the school’s outside walls (somehow I managed not to screw up the mural too much and came away with zero paint on myself…quite a success!)

But personally, our volunteer activity on Tuesday was particularly meaningful because it was a fitting way to say goodbye to the community center where I volunteered every Tuesday. We visited Beit HaKehilla in the Sha’ar Ha’Aliyah neighborhood, which is a community center for Ethiopian Israelis and is supported by both Shiluvim and the Leo Baeck Education Center. Given the upcoming start to Pesach vacation, it was my last day at Beit HaKehilla, so it was really nice to see our Boston/Haifa volunteers interacting and gardening with the kids I’ve been working with, and for me to have the chance to say a proper goodbye afterwards.

Through my work at the Haifa/Boston Connection office here in Haifa, I was able to see first-hand how much time and energy Lital, Vered, and Yehudit, along with dozens of other committee members, spent, preparing for the meeting of the Joint Steering Committee. And as I think was apparent to all of us who were able to attend, they did a fantastic job planning and organizing the meeting, allowing for a good balance between time for the individual committees to meet together, and time to mix and interact outside the committees, such as the dinner and karaoke at the Binyamina Winery.

Hit it here for my most recent pics

Also, if you made it this far, check out the amazing work my sister Becca has been doing leading U. Maryland's Alternative Spring Break trip to Rancho Feliz, Mexico - they're doing some really cool things....kudos Beccs

Tiyulim in K-Shmo

2010-03-09T13:15:00.000+02:00

I can't say I've gotten everywhere I wanted to during this Part 2 of Otzma (sorry southerners), but I did get up to Kiryat Shmona this past weekend. My roommate Tom and I traveled up north to visit our friends who live in K-Shmo, San Francisco’s partnership community, located just five kilometers south of the Israeli/Lebanese border. We had the good fortunes to visit during a weekend with great weather to be outdoors—sunny and about 70 degrees, and we took advantage of those conditions.

On Friday, our fellow Otzmanik Jeremy led a group of 9 of us from the program on a hike through Tel Hai National Park and up the Naftali Mountains. As we hiked, we took in the beautiful views—the city of Kiryat Shmona directly below us, the entire Hula Valley and the Golan Heights to the east, and the still snow-capped Hermon range to the north. All the grassy fields we walked by were green, thanks to the rainfall from the previous weekend (rain which brought the water level in the Kinneret back over the “red” emergency line). The one depressing thing was seeing the remains of cut-down trees that were hit by Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah. Over 1,000 of the 4,000-plus Katyushas fired by Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War fell in Kiryat Shmona.

We had a very nice Shabbat dinner, as we split up between Jeremy's host family and Yael's co-worker and her family...as always, there was no shortage of delicious food and good company. We were in for another fun but challenging adventure on Shabbat, as we walked all the way from K-Shmo to the Jordan River, about a 4-mile walk each direction. Along the way, we enjoyed more of the surrounding scenery, including a huge wheat field featuring Israeli irrigation technology and a gorgeous view of the western Golan. When we got to the Jordan, we passed by several groups of people sitting and relaxing along the banks of the river, enjoying the day the same way we were.

Israelis—religious and secular alike—feel such a strong connection to the land, evidenced by their love of hiking and exploring the country. It’s a great feeling to be able to join them in exploring and getting to know this amazing land, whose topography includes such a diverse range of mountains, hills, and valleys stretching from Metulla and the Hermon in the North to Eilat and the Arava Mountains in the South.

Here in Haifa, we're gearing up for the Joint Steering Committee meeting of the Haifa/Boston Connection starting on Sunday. I'm looking forward to this meeting to see how the two sides of the partnership come together and how each is planning to go forward with their respective programs.

Hit it here for the pics

Purim in Tel Aviv - Israel's Mardi Gras

2010-03-02T22:29:00.001+02:00

There’s no holiday quite like Purim. From the costumes, to sounding the graggers during megillah reading, to the Talmudic commandment to drink as a way of lifting our spirits closer to God, there’s no other celebration that’s as outwardly – and inwardly – festive on the Jewish calendar.

Having never been in Israel during Purim, many of us on Otzma were determined to celebrate it in style. We heard about the annual street party in Tel Aviv’s Florentine neighborhood that always draws a big crowd and decided to check it out. While the forecast predicted heavy downpours for Saturday night, the rain stayed away for the entire evening, and thousands descended on the street party extraordinaire that had the feel of a Jewish Mardi Gras. Yours truly went as a pirate, and my fellow Otzmaniks dressed up as everything from Aladdin to cowboys to Shnickers and the Situation from Jersey Shore (incidentally, the real life Snooki and Vinny attended a Purim party the other night in Manhattan).

Sunday afternoon was for the kids – Dizengoff Center was filled with families and children in all sorts of costumes (by my informal count, the most popular costume among young kids was the Na-Nachs, a sect of the Breslov Hasids who wear big white, knitted kippot). Inside the mall, there were games and mini-playgrounds set up for the kids, and the middle schoolers shopping and eating were also decked out and dressed up.

While the events of the Purim story took place thousands of years ago, there are still Hamans in the world today who are openly and vocally plotting the destruction of the Jewish people. Just this past weekend, the unholy triumvirate of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, and Bashar Assad had a get-together in Syria full of the usual rhetoric, once again reminding the world of their dangerous intentions, and the Jewish people of the continued existence of Amalek. But just like the Jewish people survived Haman’s original Purim plot, and the countless incarnations of Amalek ever since, we will continue to live eternal, the ultimate miracle of God’s Covenant with us as His Chosen People.

Hit it here for pics from the Purim weekend, including our Thursday night holiday festivities in Haifa.

Faithful readers of this space will remember that this was actually the second time I've "celebrated" Purim in just over 2 months. There was, of course, the absurd Purim party we had at Livnot in the middle of Chanukah. Weird as it was, it did bring us this fantastic picture...Captain Israel lives on!

Quite A Week

2010-02-22T21:52:00.000+02:00

I’ve finally had a chance to write some more about what I’ve been up to recently. Hard to believe it's been almost a week since my parents left because the week went by so quickly.

This past weekend, our entire program had a Shabbat Mifgash (encounter) with a group our age, described to us as “our Israeli counterparts”. These Israelis in their early 20s will all be returning to work at various Jewish summer camps in the States as counselors and activity specialists, and they receive training from the Avi Chai Foundation. I admit a lot of us were unsure of how the weekend would go and were even skeptical at first, but it really couldn’t have gone any better. In just two short days, we created new friendships and bonds, while learning a lot about ourselves and about each other at the same time.

We all stayed at a hotel at a gorgeous kibbutz called Ma’ale HaChamisha that overlooks Abu Ghosh, just west of Jerusalem. Upon our arrival on Thursday evening, we were split into four groups, mixed between Americans and Israelis, and played some icebreaker games to get to know each other. The focus of the weekend was talking about our individual and collective thoughts and feelings about Judaism, Israeli/Diaspora and Israeli/American relations, and the future of the Jewish people.

One of my favorite activities was a game called “Beseder or Lo Besder” / “Okay, or not Okay”, where our group leader gave us an issue and we had to respond one way or the other, without passing or providing an explanation for our opinion. Following controversial topics, we could ask people to explain their answer and then had a back-and-forth for a couple of minutes before moving on to the next issue. We then broke into smaller groups of 6 or 7 and continued playing, and we had a few minutes to discuss our individual points of view for each issue. All weekend long, I was amazed at how our entire group was able to get into some real and honest discussion without becoming uncivil by shouting or interrupting one another, as is the temptation when talking about such emotional issues.

Meal times were a highlight of the weekend, and not just for the obvious reason of the great buffets in the dining hall (there was an amazing apple salad as well as delicious sweet potatoes, and of course a nice dessert spread). But the real reason I enjoyed our meals was the chance to sit and chat with the Israelis who were not in my group. We also had some additional free time, and since it was warm and sunny all weekend, many of us sat outside and continued the discussions we were having in our sessions.

Before the Mifgash, some of us on Otzma (myself included) had thought having this Shabbaton weekend earlier in the year would have been more beneficial to us because it would have given us more time to spend with our new Israeli friends before the end of our year. But looking back at all we talked about during the weekend and the way we related to one other, I don’t think the groups would have bonded the way we did, had it happened earlier. All of us on Otzma have not only learned a lot about Israel through our various educational seminars and trips, but we’ve lived here now for close to six months and have experienced so many things just through our everyday lives that no doubt helped us connect with this great group of young Israelis.

Last Wednesday, I attended the Jerusalem Conference at a 5-star hotel on Mount Scopus. There were sessions on all of the major issues facing Israel: Iran, the Palestinian conflict, economic growth, and American/Israel relations, just to name a few. Among the speakers were several heavy-hitters, most notably Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, head of the opposition Tzipi Livni, and Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai.

One of my favorite speakers was Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY), seen here in a picture with our own Tom Holtz. Congressman Engel spoke at length about US/Israel relations, specifically in light of the Obama administration’s questionable approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He noted how despite his frequent criticism of the administration’s approach on policy issues, US/Israel relations remain very strong, and he spoke about the importance for American Jews to continue to lobby Congress to support Israel and US/Israel interests.

I learned the most from the session that dealt with activism on college campuses, approaching the issue differently than other seminars. While part of the time was spent discussing the hate-driven incitement on college campuses such as Concordia University and UC-Irvine, the bulk of the session dealt with problems on Israeli campuses and Israeli academia. This issue is perhaps more disturbing than the virulent anti-Semitism being displayed by leftist groups in the States, because it speaks to the continuity of the Jewish people. Unless and until we “clean up our own house” and recognize that Israeli college students are being subjected to the same brand of anti-Zionism as their American counterparts, we will be unable to effectively fight against the worldwide de-legitimization of Israel. I strongly believe the key to saving Israel is educating and engaging the young people, the future leaders of the Jewish people, and communicating the severity of what’s at stake.

Bibi’s speech was preceded by the tightest security I’ve ever seen – everyone entering the hall had to pass through three different security stations, including one that swabbed people’s hands for traces of gunpowder or explosives. The Prime Minister looked tired following his trip to Russia and his speech to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, but he was still very interesting to hear. He began by noting the location of the conference, at the Regency Hotel on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, the spot of the assassination of Israel’s tourism minister, Rechavam Ze'evi, in 2001. He said he would never free Ze’evi’s assassins, whom Hamas wants released in any prisoner exchange for Gilad Schalit. He also talked about the importance and significance of having the conference in Jerusalem, the undividable, eternal capital of Israel and of the Jewish people, and gave specific examples of the kinds of economic sanctions the international community needs to enact against Iran.

And as always, a reward for those who made it to the bottom...a link to the newest batch of pictures

The Gift Of Life

2010-02-20T20:46:00.000+02:00

It's been quite a while since my last post - it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, spending time with my parents while they were here visiting, attending a conference in Jerusalem and a Shabbat Mifgash weekend with Israelis our age who will be counselors at Jewish overnight camps this summer. I'll write more about the mifgash and the conference later in the week, but I wanted to share a very special event from last Sunday.

My grandparents, Rose and Sol Turetsky, are the two most generous people I’ve ever met, and I am blessed to have such a special relationship with them. About five years ago, in the midst of continual Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel, they decided to give the gift of life. Together, they decided the best way to help and support Israel was to donate an ambulance to Magen David Adom to help save as many Israeli lives as possible. Both of my grandparents have been life-long Zionists and have imparted their love of Israel not only to their children, but to their grandchildren as well.

I am extremely proud of all the philanthropic work they’ve been fortunate enough to have taken part in, both in the States and in Israel. This past Sunday, along with my parents, my aunt June and her kids Chaim and Rivka, I got to see my grandparents’ generosity in action here in Israel. The six of us visited one of the Magen David Adom stations in Tel Aviv to see their ambulance that arrived to serve the people of Israel nearly three years ago.

In addition to functioning as a regular ambulance, “Yarkon 144” as it’s called (its region and number) is a fully equipped Intensive Care Unit. It can accommodate two patients at the same time, one on the main stretcher, and a second on an additional bench that can be converted into a stretcher that can stabilize the patient. It’s stationed in Rosh Ha’ayin, but like all other MADA ambulances, responds to emergencies in other areas as needed.

We got to sit inside the ambulance and take an inventory of all the medical and life-saving equipment available for the MADA personnel to use. In addition to touring the ambulance, we also visited the command center, where MADA operators field incoming calls and dispatch teams to respond to emergencies. Not surprisingly, the technology is fascinating, and we were able to watch in real time how the status of an ambulance dispatched to an emergency changed and modified with the color-coded computer program and mapping system.

One thing I had known but had forgotten was just how much of the MADA staff and first responders are volunteers. These volunteers undergo a rigorous course before becoming a fully licensed MADA, and Sam Gavzy, one of my fellow Otzma participants, has already completed more than 200 hours of training and service with them during his time here.

That's it from here - I'll have more to say and a new batch of pics later in the week!

Lots of Sichsuch, Hardly any Tikvah - Lots of Conflict, Barely Any Hope

2010-02-03T08:59:00.000+02:00

So many thoughts – where to begin? We just returned from a 5-day Otzma seminar, called Sichsuch v’Tikvah, or Conflict & Hope, about the political situation and the Israeli/Arab conflict. It was engaging, intriguing and obviously mentally draining. I consider myself pretty well versed in many aspects of the conflict, but I knew I’d learn plenty from our speakers and excursions. We met with people from all across the political spectrum, from a woman who lives in Efrat, to leftist Jews who don’t believe Israel needs to be a Jewish state to the leading advocate for human rights among the Palestinian people. We traveled around Judaea and Samaria, as well as different parts of Jerusalem and also land within pre-1967 Israel.

So where to start? I’ll begin with the only part that inspired hope – the thought-provoking, often intense discussions we had amongst our group in between and following sessions and speakers. In a group of 38, we have many differing opinions and points of view, but what’s so important is that we had these tough discussions. It forces us to put our thoughts and opinions in context regarding how we feel as Jews, and hopefully among the next generation of Jewish leaders, making Jewish decisions. As one of my favorite authors, Daniel Gordis, notes in his most recent book, Saving Israel, it’s discussions precisely like the ones we had and will continue to have that give purpose and meaning for a Jewish state as a place where Jews have self-determination and the ability to decide their own future.

Regardless of our individual politics, it was important to see the places and things we’ve seen and speak with the people we’ve met because it helps us form our own opinions and beliefs knowing we’ve seen the facts on the ground. Some people in our group had never been to a Jewish settlement over the Green Line, or seen Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and it was great seeing my friends process these new sights. We did things and visited places people wouldn’t have even thought to do on their own, such as visiting the southern Hevron Hills and the village of Sussia, a hot spot for violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians. The incredible amount of information we’ve received over the past few days has given all of us new things to think about and even more important, topics and issues to learn about.

One of the highlights of the seminar was a role-play session, a mock “Camp David 2010”, with each of us having a role in the negotiations. We were divided into three sides: Israelis, Palestinians, and a contingent of American mediators, and each group had a specific issue to negotiate: settlements, Jerusalem, final borders, and refugees. We first sat with our own delegation to formulate our position on our issue to decide what we were willing and unwilling to compromise on. I was part of the Israeli delegation discussing settlements, so we received a background brief on the history of the settlements, along with facts and figures, and a list of questions to consider. We also had a map of Judea and Samaria, with all the settlements marked on it and had to decide which settlements, or blocs of settlements, were untouchable and which we were willing to give up in a peace deal. What seemed relatively easy on the surface became very difficult in actuality.

I joined one of my Israeli delegation representatives at the negotiating table to meet with our two Palestinian counterparts and two American mediators. And believe it or not, we agreed on a deal, where the central component was that Israel would retain the major settlement blocs of Gush Etzion, Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim and Giv’at Zeev and would trade some land within pre-1967 Israel a la Ehud Olmert’s proposal from September 2008. We agreed to dismantle all outposts and give the Jewish residents of the other settlements the option to remain in their houses and become citizens of a Palestinian state, or receive compensation to move to Israel proper. The Americans proposed a $5 billion fund to provide housing to Jews moving out of the new Palestinian state, and for the Palestinians to buy land, build housing, and for both to build infrastructure. Afterwards, Ari, aka our American mediator, asked me if those were the real terms of an agreement, is that something I’d be happy with. And I told him, if it meant a real and true peace, then yes, in a heartbeat. If it meant that Jews can live without fearing for their lives in a future Palestinian state the way Israeli Arabs can be Israeli citizens, it’s a deal I’d be willing to make 100% of the time.

Now comes the conflict. We are years upon years away from an actual deal and a real peace agreement. While I’ll be the first to admit Israel has done plenty wrong in this conflict, Israel can only do so much to push the peace process forward if there’s no real partner, someone on the Palestinian side who is willing and strong enough to make the tough concessions the Israelis have shown they’re willing to make time and time again. Any future peace agreement will be a land-for-peace deal, but look what happened when we gave up land the last time. We evacuated over 8,000 Jews from Gaza and what do we get in return? A state run by Hamas and hundreds of rockets reigning down on southern Israel.

And the sick part is that if the Palestinian Authority does hold elections any time in the future in the West Bank, it’s likely that Hamas would win there too because Fatah has almost no credibility on the street. And it’s the same reasons Hamas won in Gaza, that Fatah officials, including PA Preseident Mahmoud Abbas, continue to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money meant for the Palestinian people, for their education, economy and health care. For anyone who thinks the PA has reformed itself since the days of Yasser Arafat giving his wife a monthly allowance directly from PA funds, check out Friday’s front page story from the Jerusalem Post. (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=167194)

As if that picture wasn’t sad enough, we heard from Bassam Eid, the director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. He said many ordinary Palestinians are too scared to speak out against their government, and that’s why their officials can get away with what they do. He reiterated that Palestinian society needs to change from the bottom up, that’s how revolutions happen. The solution can’t be imposed from the top down.

The most infuriating session for me was visiting Neve Shalom, a “coexistence” village near Mod’in and Latrun, where Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians live together (Israeli Palestinians are also called Israeli Arabs. They are Arabs with full Israeli citizenship and live inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel). On the surface, it seems like a great idea and as someone who is volunteering with a real Arab/Jewish coexistence group in Haifa, I was excited to hear about their community. The problem is they bill themselves as an Israeli/Palestinian co-existence group, when they’re really not because they only work with Israeli citizens and also don’t deal with Jews or Palestinians living in the West Bank (and yes, there are at least two co-existence dialogue groups between those often-volatile communities).

Our speaker, an Israeli Jew, described people in nearby pubic schools, who she admitted were on the left of the political spectrum, as too “nationalistic, militaristic and too focused on the existence of Israel as a Jewish state”. She even took issue with the fact that the army visited high schools in the area a couple of years before students would be drafted, as if it’s unreasonable to prepare them for the fact that all Israeli citizens are obligated to serve in the army. It’s the quintessential “blame Israel for all of the world’s evils” – again, there is plenty of blame to go around here, but to pretend that the Palestinians are completely innocent and that every part of the conflict is Israel’s fault is unreasonable and completely illogical.

One thing that was totally crystallized for me over the course of the seminar is the inability for many on the left, and certainly vocal advocates for a Palestinian state, to acknowledge the right for Israel to exist as a Jewish state. If a Jew can say, “I believe the Palestinians deserve a state of their own,” why can’t Arabs say, “I believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state”? How is that not a double standard?

This all, of course, was before she said she didn’t think Israel should be a Jewish state, and instead there should be a bi-national state, which is code for an Arab majority erasing the Jewish quality of the state. But the clincher was when she admitted that there’s really not much difference between Hamas and the “supposedly moderate” Fatah. Not much difference between a terrorist organization whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, and the political government the world is convinced is a true partner for peace?

One of my favorite sessions featured back-to-back speakers discussing how Israel is viewed around the world, via both the media and the government’s own initiatives and work. We heard from Gwen Ackerman, who covers Israel for Bloomberg News, and David Segal, who is the Chief Policy Advisor to Danny Ayalon, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister. I obviously love hearing from journalists their thoughts and feelings about their work, especially covering a conflict as intense and closely followed as this one. But as much as I enjoyed Gwen’s stories, the speaker I learned the most from was David Segal. Talk about a wealth of information. Whether it was in his opening statement or answering questions, he added the most to my list of new things to research, in terms of Israel’s economic partnerships with countries and organizations around the world, and even with the UN.

Finally – here’s a link to my pictures from the seminar.

Happy Australia Day

2010-01-26T22:53:00.003+02:00

A very Happy Australia Day to all - it's hard to believe it's really been five years since that incredible semester in Sydney full of sun, Toohey's Old, pides, ice cream, and plenty of giggling in the Cohen/Goldstein room (thanks Mikey for the photo)

Today we celebrated Brett's 23rd birthday in style. Haifa Hotel manager Joseph cooked up a Tex-Mex dinner, and Gym Instructor Tom Holtz and I contributed the dessert to the celebrations.

One of the other highlights this week was meeting with a delegation that's here from Boston called The Learning Exchange. It's a group of NGO leaders visiting Israel for a week and Haifa for a 3-day seminar, in conjunction with the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Haifa/Boston Connection. They are meeting their NGO counterparts in Haifa to share experiences and learn new approaches towards strengthening the economic development and social justice work in their respective communities. For many, this is their first trip to Israel and to Haifa, and I got to meet with them at their opening event last night.

Thursday, we will be waking up bright and early to get on a 6am bus for the start of a 5-day seminar...and if it wasn't a seminar I was really looking forward to, I'd be royally pissed to get up that early. Our Otzma seminar is called Sichsuch veh Tikvah, or Conflict & Hope, and is about the Israeli/Arab conflict. We'll be hearing from people from all across the political spectrum - from the left, the right, and from the Arab perspective, and we'll be going on some tours around Judea and Samaria. I think it will be fascinating to be able to see with our own eyes things that we read about in the news. I think it will also be important for some people in the group to learn the real facts about certain issues, as opposed to the way the mainstream media and often anti-Israeli media, reports.

I try to read as much as I can about the current events, and I found this feature from Ha'Aretz particularly interesting, and it's definitely something I'd like to ask different people about during this upcoming seminar. The headline is, "Not all settlers and Palestinians want each other to disappear", and it's about a group called Yerushalom, made up of Jews living in Judea and Samaria, and Palestinians living in surrounding Arab villages, who meet on a regular basis and talk about the things going on in their communities and look for a way to find a common ground and live peacefully together. It's long but very well worth the read.

I'm sure I'll have plenty to write and share after the seminar, so I will post another update when I get back to Haifa next week.

Step Tours and Crazy Sunsets

2010-01-19T21:10:00.001+02:00

Many people know about the Bahi’I Gardens and the shops and restaurants in the Carmel Center, but another activity that is unique to Haifa is the Thousand Step Tours that take you from the top of the Carmel to the bottom. There are four paths you can choose, each taking you down a different route through one of the neighborhoods at the bottom. Given the weather has been so beautiful, I thought going on one of these self-guided tours would be a great way to see a new part of the city and to be outside and get some exercise at the same time.

Becca and I went on Thursday afternoon, and it was Take 2 for us. We had set out to do it the week before but neglected to bring our maps and before we even hit the 50 step mark, we lost the official step path and proceeded to make our own route down the mountain. It was definitely fun, but we wanted to do it the right way. This time, we set out to go down the Red path to Wadi Nisnas, an area neither of us had really seen yet. The photo on the left is from the beginning of the Thousand Step Tour, at the top of the first staircase before the four paths split from each other. Descending down the stairs, we walked through some residential streets that were reminiscent of suburbia with all the trees and gardens surrounding some of the houses. As we continued west and down the mountain, we approached the Bahi’I Gardens before cutting back east into Wadi Nisnas. After completing the Red path, not only do I now want to do the other three paths, but I’m planning to take a day to walk up the Thousand Steps from the bottom to the top…talk about some exercise!

Ariel came in for Shabbat and we made a delicious dairy dinner (oh Channel 7…) of a salad with feta cheese, salmon steak, and a noodle kugel, and two different kinds of ice cream for dessert. The three of us went on quite an adventure on Saturday. We took a sherut to Akko and walked along the water en route to the Old City. The stone walls are from the days of the Crusaders and there are paths along the Ramparts to walk on top of them, so we went up to see the views from a bit higher. While up on the walls, we stopped to watch some of the waves crash near a lookout point directly below us. There we saw a highlight of the day – a group of kids were watching the waves, when a big one approached. Most of them ran from the shore, but one kid stayed and got drenched by this huge wave! From there, we walked through the shuk, which on Saturday consisted of mainly Arab businesses, and found a restaurant for lunch. It was this really nice place with arches carved into the stone interior, and we gorged ourselves on pita, hummus and falafel.

Ariel’s friend from summer camp, Amir, met us at the restaurant and wanted to take us somewhere to go walking or hiking. So we started driving north planning on going for a short hike and then to a Crusader fortress. But since we were so far up north, we decided instead to go to Rosh Hanikra, the beautiful cliffs marking Israel’s border with Lebanon along the Mediterranean. We first saw the dramatic scenery from high up at the top of the cliff, and then went down to sea level to sit and watch the waves crash and the water splash on the rocks along the coast. We stayed for sunset, which as you’ll be able to see from my pictures, was all sorts of crazy colors – (so many colors even I could see!).

Amir then took us to his house in Mitzpeh Hila for some tea. As we turned onto his street, there was a poster reading “Gilad, we’re waiting for you at home” – referring to Gilad Schalit, the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped 3 and a half years ago and is being held in captivity by Hamas. I didn’t think much of it as we passed it because many places in Israel have posters in his honor. But as we slowed down to turn into Amir’s driveway, he pointed to the house across the street, he said, “That over there is Gilad Schalit’s house”. He said it rather non-chalantly, but it was very powerful. Gilad’s captivity, and the proposed prisoner exchange with Hamas to bring him home is a controversial, yet gut-wrenching political discussion. And regardless of how I feel about the exchange itself, there’s no way to deny the pain of knowing that one of Israel’s soldiers is being held by Hamas and is living in untold suffering, unable to be visited by the International Red Cross or any other human rights organizations.

But back to happier things – on Sunday, Becca and I went up to Katzrin for two simchas. Eli and Elisheva had a birthday party for Ma’or, who just turned three years old. In addition to the Elmo Cake and lots of very good food and goodie bags for the kids, Ma’or got his hair cut for the first time and got his first kippa and tzitzit to wear. It was also the first time we got to meet their beautiful newborn daughter, Hallel Shira.

All Sorts of Adventures

2010-01-12T22:56:00.000+02:00

I got here just over a week ago, and already, I feel at home. All four of us are getting closer to finalizing our volunteering schedules, and we have a pretty cool range of activities. Brett and Joseph will be working in Akko every Monday because Akko is the partnership city for Texas, so they'll be able to get involved there and get to know a second city. Tom and Brett are helping to coach basketball with Maccabi Haifa's youth league, and all three of them will be volunteering at the zoo as well (clearly the zoo is not the spot for me). And I have my first day of teaching TV production tomorrow, so hopefully that goes well.

In addition to meeting the people we'll be volunteering with, we've had fabulous weather with which to go out and explore the city (and yes, as you can see from some of my pictures, go on an adventure to the Yam in January). Becca and I did quite a bit of walking the other day. There are 4 different walking trails that take you from the top of Haifa and the Carmel Mountain to the bottom of the city by steps (there are about 1000 steps on each trail). We figured it would be a great way to see different neighborhoods in the city and get some exercise at the same time. I knew where the trail began so I didn't bring my map of where the trail went...each of the paths is color coded so I figured it would be marked which way to go. Well, naturally after about 50 steps we lost the steps and just wound up making our own trail, which ended us being a good thing because we found both the Arab markets and the regular shuk, so we stopped off to get some good fruits and veggies, and continued our walk all the way down back to our place.

One of the great things about being here has been meeting the volunteers of the Young Leadership Division of the Haifa/Boston Connection. They've been a great welcoming committee, taking us out to some fun bars around town and even bringing us gift baskets full of food. Liel, a member of the YLD, works as a broadcaster and producer at Radio Haifa 107.5 FM and invited us to the station last night to watch her show. We hung out in the studio with her while she was on air from 10pm-midnight and she talked a bit about us during the program and let us each give a quick shoutout on the air. And as we found out during the middle of the show thanks to Tom Holtz, the entire show is broadcast via webcam online, so next time we go visit, everyone can see us rocking out in the studio.

Today was my first day helping out at an after school community center for Ethiopian olim called Beit Kehilah (literally, the house of the community). It's funny, much like was the case with the gan I worked at in Ashkelon, before we went on a site visit last week, I wasn't planning on working there. But we met with two of the center's directors and advisors and they told us what the center offered, and especially after briefly chatting with some of the kids, I decided it was exactly where I wanted to help. Middle school-age kids come after school at 1:30pm and are served a hot lunch, which is important because many of them come from lower income families who sometimes don't provide proper nutrition. So they eat and then start on their homework and have a small support staff to help them with their work. They stay until 4:30ish and then the high schoolers come. My role is to help with English homework as needed, and if the kids have already done their homework, just talk about anything and get them to practice speaking in English. This is where I feel so fortunate that my Hebrew is as good as it is because I can switch from English to Hebrew to translate or explain something and then switch back to remind them to use their English. And it's so important for them to practice speaking because a lot of jobs, especially retail or food service jobs, require a certain level of English speaking ability.

Many of the kids I talked to first asked me where I was from and how long I was staying in Israel, and then asked me if I listened to the same American rap they did. And of course, pretty high up on that list is Tupac. I still don't understand how Ethiopian Israelis came to be obsessed with Tupac. I mean I know why I became obsessed with him, but it's really interesting that Israelis who were literally 2 or 3 when he died still know everything about him. So I actually spent a good 15 minutes talking to these 15 year old girls about Tupac...gotta love it! Another reason I'm excited about volunteering there is the community center receives assistance as part of a project called Shiluvim, which is run by the Haifa/Boston Connection to help the Ethiopian community. Generally volunteers have a chance to be involved on the committee level or on the grassroots level but not always both. By working with these students twice a week, I'll be able to see exactly how the aims and goals of the Shiluvim project are carried out in the community and how it helps build the future leaders of the community.

We've also had the chance to check out the nighlife in Haifa (yes, there are other places besides Scubar). Thursday night, a few of our other friends from Otzma came to visit and celebrate Jeremy's birthday – dinner in the German Colony followed by seeing HaDag Nahash live in concert. HaDag Nahash is one of my favorite Israeli bands – for those who haven't heard of them or their music, I can describe them as the Israeli version of the Roots, especially in concert, when they have 8 musicians on stage in addition to the two MCs. In addition to their classics and fan favorites such as "The Sticker Song" and "Hine Ani Ba", they played a few songs from their upcoming album, which should be out in the next couple of months.

For those that made it this far, the reward is this...here's the link to my album of pics from the first week in Haifa, enjoy!

Welcome to Haifa

2010-01-06T20:25:00.000+02:00

After about a month on the road, I'm finally settling into my new home in Haifa - and I couldn't be more excited.

As you can see from the picture, it's absolutely gorgeous here, and there's amazing scenery to see just about anywhere in the city For those who don't know, Haifa is Israel's third-largest city, located on the Mediterranean about an hour north of Tel Aviv. It's built on the Carmel Mountain, and I've heard its steep streets going up the mountain remind people of San Francisco.

I'll be here for 3 months, until the end of March, with 3 friends from my program: Brett, Joseph, and Tom. We're living in the lower part of the mountain, in between the Kiryat Eliezer and German Colony neighborhoods, and about a 15 minute walk from the beach. There's so much to do and so many things to see, I almost don't know where to begin with all my exploring.

Haifa is Boston's sister city, and so much of the work I'll be doing is in conjunction with the Boston-Haifa Connection, the organization that runs the partnership between the two cities. Along with two of the people who work on the Haifa side of the partnership, I'm going to be working on communications outreach and raising awareness about all the great programs and events going on across Haifa. Hopefully this will include not only revamping their website and translating it into English, but getting out and taking pictures and videos of different events around town and putting together a more updated promotional video to highlight what the partnership does. One of the reasons I'm so excited about this work is I'll get to meet all the different groups coming from Boston to Haifa during the time I'm here, including different birthright/Taglit trips (we met a group from UMass yesterday) and kids from the same Schechter school where I went from K-8.

I'm also going to have the opportunity to help teach television production to high school students. Here in Israel, students have the ability to choose a major in high school and take extra classes in subjects that interest them. So for students interested in communication, they can take classes in film and television, and I'll be helping out with the technical aspect, teaching them about studio and field production, and how to use different computer programs to edit their video projects. I enjoyed getting to teach TV production during the ITRP summer programs at BU, and I'm excited for the opportunity to be able to use my skills and knowledge in TV to not only teach Israeli teenagers, but also get to know them outside the traditional classroom setting.

I realize it's been quite a while since I posted anything, so here's a cliff's notes version of what I've been up to (you can also see the visual diary of my pics on facebook). After the Livnot U'Lehibanot program in Tzfat, I had the opportunity to take part in the first ever conference on Israel-based education. It was held over 3 days in Jerusalem, and I learned a tremendous amount about the challenges Israel educators face in teaching about Israel. It's so important to me that Jews all around the world, and particularly American Jews, have a connection with Israel. Of course there's the old saying: 2 Jews, 3 opinions, so we're not going to agree on everything, especially when it comes to politics, but there's so much more to Israel than politics, and it's crucial Jewish day schools and Hebrew schools work to do a better job of incorporating Israel education into the curriculum. Especially with the incredibly high rate of intermarriage among American Jews, it's important to foster a connection to Israel and to teach why Israel is so crucial to Jews all around the world.

After the conference, I spent a couple of days with Reut and her family in Netanya - we had a great time wandering around Yafo and Tel Aviv, and watching Home Alone on Christmas Eve! I spent the following Shabbat in Katzrin with Eli, Elisheva, Ma'Or and a whole gang of hooligans, and then Becca came! It’s been a few years since we’ve traveled together, but true to Cohen family tradition, we quickly had gigglefests, and I’m sure there will still be many more along the way.

Becca and I spent the first two days in Tel Aviv wandering around and doing lots of eating. We took advantage of the great weather and a trusty city map to walk all over on Monday, going to Dizengoff Center, the Jabotinsky Institute Museum and the Etzel Museum, the Shuk HaCarmelit, and of course, a café for lunch before making our way to the beach to relax for a bit and meeting up with Ariel for dinner. We spent the next day in Jerusalem, taking a tour of the Kotel Tunnels, the underground extension of the Western Wall located underneath the streets of the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, truly one of the most fascinating archaeological findings anywhere in Israel.

We spent Shabbat in Efrat with Ephraim and Batya, which was great. Somehow they hadn't known about my obsession with ice cream, and since Batya was preparing a milk meal for Shabbat lunch, she suggested we pick up some ice cream that we could have for dessert. Ephraim picked up 4 pints of Haagen Daas ice cream and the 4 of us nearly polished off all of them...what a great way to spend Shabbat!

So that's what's going on in a nutshell...click here for pictures from my vacation, and here for a few first pics from Haifa!

New pics from Vaca

2009-12-27T19:58:00.000+02:00

Just posted some new pics from the beginning of my vacation in Tel Aviv...check em out!

2009-12-25T09:47:00.002+02:00

I finally had the chance to post most of my pictures from Livnot, my two weeks in Tzfat and our hikes around the Galil and Golan...I'll hopefully add some more descriptions and tags after Shabbat...enjoy! (click on this link to get to the pics)

Touring Israel's borders along Lebanon and Syria

2009-12-17T17:12:00.000+02:00

I’ve been fortunate to have experienced a few thoroughly educational and captivating days in the three and a half months I’ve been here. I can honestly say that Tuesday’s trip along Israel’s northern borders ranks among the most informative and influential days. In addition to learning about the security concerns along those specific borders, we also spent time discussing the greater existential problems Israel faces vis a vis not only Hamas and Hezbollah, but also Iran, a truly frightening situation.

Our tour guide for the day was a man named Elliot Chodoff, who in addition to teaching at the University of Haifa, also holds several advisory positions with the IDF. He is a fascinating speaker and man does he know his stuff. He has several cardinal rules about military strategy, and the one that intrigued me the most says: “a successful preventive policy will always be condemned”. A perfect example was the Israeli government passing out gas masks during the Gulf War in 1991. After the war, the Israeli public was in an uproar about having to wear these masks. But the likelihood is that because Israel publicized having the gas masks for its entire population so that even Saddam Hussein knew that Israelis had them, it might have convinced him not to fire the chemical weapons into Tel Aviv, and instead send scud missiles, because the gas masks blunted the effects of the chemical attack. So in essence, this policy of using gas masks as a deterrent was condemned by the public as being too severe, despite the fact that it prevented a chemical attack.

Our first stop was a lookout point over Metulla, the Israeli town that has Lebanon as its border.

You can see how close the most southern Lebanese towns are to the border. The problem isn’t that the towns are close – that’s the definition of a border between two countries; the problem is that Hezbollah continues to import rockets that it can fire from these towns into Israel. In media reports about the region, you often read “Hezbollah is smuggling weapons from Syria into Iran” which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it, because since Hezbollah, and by extension Syria, controls the Lebanese government, these weapons are not being smuggled but blatantly and openly imported with the aid and help of the government itself.

So you can imagine how unnerving it was to learn that the Israeli government turned a blind eye to the Lebanese border during the Second Intifada and pretty much ignored the continued rocket-fire reigning down on Israeli towns there, while allowing Hezbollah to stockpile weapons in southern Lebanon.

Then we went up to the Golan Heights to a place called Tel Fahkr, which was one of the key positions Israel took during the Six Day War in 1967 that helped it gain the entire Golan. It’s truly a case of needing to see the actual terrain and the land and the topography to be able to understand the situation. We learned how Israel identified a road to get up to Tel Fahkr as being the only un-mined road because an oil pipeline goes underneath it. Yet despite the intelligence, the commander of the brigade made a terrible miscalculation about their position relative to the Syrian base and cost nearly his entire unit their lives before Israel took the position.

Our third and final stop was Mount Bental, which is in the northern part of the Golan and is right next to the border with Syria. I had actually been there twice before, but hadn’t realized it was this same spot until we got there. We had the fortune of being there on a pretty clear day, so we had a good view of the snow-capped Mount Hermon, the northern-most spot in Israel, as well as into Syria to our east (below is a pic of me and my buddy Brett with Syria behind us.)

When Israel captured the Golan from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967, the only objective the Israeli government gave the IDF was to defeat the enemy; it did not give a geographical or territorial objective. The line of mountains from the Hermon to Bental was the first defensible position the army came to, and so that’s where it stopped.

Since gaining the Golan, Israel has been able to set up defensive military positions all across the eastern border, including on the Hermon. Its position on the Hermon makes it such that with a good pair of military binoculars, soldiers stationed there can read license plates off cars in Damascus 35 miles away. This piece of information fascinated me because it explains why Syria has been Israel’s quietest border since 1974. Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, knows that Israel has this military position and can hit anything inside the capital city of Damascus, so it acts as a deterrent for anytime Assad wakes up and thinks “is this the day I should fire some rockets into Israel?”

We also learned about Iran, and about all the consequences of trying to deal with a regime that doesn’t act logically. It’s very scary to think that Iran is just months, if not weeks, away from attaining nuclear power, and would not hesitate to use a nuclear bomb to hit Tel Aviv. Not only that, but that one nuclear attack that lands near Tel Aviv would be the end of Israel as we know it. And equally scary is there’s a chance Israel might have to take out Iran’s nuclear arsenal on its own – I’d like to think that if Israel decided to strike Iran, the Obama Administration would not only back the decision, but would supply the aircraft and take care of the brunt of the work because America’s air force is so much larger. However, all indications are that Obama is not so much interested in helping out, and that Israel would have to go it alone.

Shabbat and Beyond in Tzfat

2009-12-14T19:35:00.000+02:00

The schedule here at Livnot in Tzfat has kept me plenty busy, so I figured I’d write an update while I had some free time. Shabbat was a very cool experience. As I mentioned last week, the first night of Chanukah coincided with Shabbat to make it an extra festive atmosphere.

There’s a giant Chanukiah on the first floor of the Livnot building, and it uses the traditional oil candles as light (it’s pretty big, as are the shot glass-size cups of oil as candles). We lit the Chanukiah and sang a few songs together to get in the Chanukah mood before switching over to Shabbat. The second floor of the Livnot building has a balcony with a fantastic view of Tzfat, especially during sunset, so we went out to the balcony after lighting Shabbat candles to take in the sunset view as the workweek turned into Shabbat and as light turned to darkness. After a short Kabbalat Shabbat service on the balcony, we had free time to check out different shuls in the area.

I was most interested in going to a congregation that uses melodies from Shlomo Carlebach, who was known as “The Singing Rabbi” because of all the different melodies he wrote to prayers during the 20^th century. These shuls are known for their energy and their dancing, and this one was no exception. During the Kabbalat Shabbat service alone, pretty much every song erupted into joyous singing and dancing in a manner I hadn’t ever really enjoyed, even at the Kotel in Jerusalem. There’s something very spiritual about putting every ounce of your voice and soul into singing the prayer and knowing that the person sitting (or standing) next to you is doing the same thing.

We had a festive dinner all together at the Livnot campus. As part of the Shabbat festivities, people are encouraged to share some “Words of Wisdom”, whether it be sharing something they learned during the week, something related to the week’s Torah portion, or anything else Judaism-related that’s on their mind. I spoke for a couple of minutes about something that maybe we take for granted but for me is truly meaningful this time of year: during Channukah, we remember the several miracles that took place: the small band of Maccabbes that defeated the Syrian Greek army, the small amount of oil that was found in the Temple, and the fact that this small amount of oil which should have only lasted for one day burned for 8. I re-read the story of Channukah and was struck by the fact that while we talk about these miracles, we might not consider all the miracles that are still taking place in today’s world: a perfect example being the existence of the State of Israel. How else are we to explain the creation of a state for the Jewish people after being in exile for 2,000 years. And after the establishment of the state, a small Jewish defense corps being vastly outnumbered, yet holding off 5 Arab armies. Or Israel’s astounding military victory in 1967 against those same Arab armies. Or 1973, when Israel should have had its territory reduced to pre-67 lines, only to have the war turn around and re-gain all the lost territory. And if we’re tempted to say, “that was 40 years ago”, there’s the miracles of “lost” Jews from all over the world – Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, China – making Aliyah and coming to Israel. These are all miracles we have all witnessed and continue to witness, if only we open our eyes to them.

On Sunday, we had the chance to walk in the footsteps of some of the Jewish fighters of days of yore. We hiked Tel Yodfat, which is in the lower Galil, and was one of the main battle areas during the Jewish revolt against Roman rule in the years 67-70, CE, and there are still pieces of pottery to be found in the area that date back to that period. Then we drove to an area called A-Roma, which is a Druze village about 25 minutes away. The Talmud tells of underground caves in the area where Jewish families lived for as many as three years during this revolt. About 25 years ago, our tour guide, Michael, went out looking for one of these caves near the village with a friend of his, and they came across this huge cave. After doing some exploring and calling in professional archaelogists, they confirmed this was indeed one of the caves used nearly 2,000 years ago. And now that the cave has been excavated, people can go inside and see what it was like to live inside them. Michael took us all in to one of the main living quarters and told us this story. He then invited us to crawl along the tunnels going from room to room to get the feeling of what it was like to navigate the tunnels, with the sharp curves. It was truly amazing to be in the same spot where these families were living, and fighting off the Romans. Every now and then, the Romans would find an entrance to a cave and would enter hoping to kill as many people as they could find. But because the Jews knew all the intricate twists and turns, the Romans were at a severe disadvantage and effectively walked into a trap. Eventually, however, after losing too many soldiers who were killed going in this way, the Romans sent smoke down the tunnels and the smoke suffocated the Jews to death.

Michael made a great comparison between these caves and the places Jews hid themselves during the Holocaust, in the tiniest of closets and floorboards and underground tunnels. It’s incredibly powerful to think about the length to which Jews went to preserve their peoplehood and religion throughout our history.

I'm excited for the next day plus here in Tzfat. In about an hour we're having a Purim party. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either, given we're about halfway through Chanukah, but Livnot wanted to show us the connection between the two holidays. We had an educational session on Purim this afternoon, and now a party tonight. It should be interesting to see what kinds of costumes people come up with such limited time and resources.

Then tomorrow, we're going back up north for a security tour along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, so I'm sure I'll have lots to write about that. And then tomorrow night, we're having a Chanukah party, with latkes and sufganiot and a movie - and yes, I've already nominated Home Alone as movie option, so we'll see where that goes!

Happy Chanukah!

2009-12-11T13:59:00.001+02:00

Happy Chanukah to all back home!

This year I am spending Chanukah in Tzfat, and I think it will be a memorable way to celebrate the holiday. In just a couple of hours, I will be lighting the candles with 14 other people from my Otzma Program, as well as the staff and participants of the Livnot U’Lehibanot program. More about Livnot in a second, but I’m very excited to be here for Chanukah.

While it’s always nice to light candles and sing Mah Oz Tzur, it feels special in a different way to be able to celebrate the holiday in the land in which the miracles took place – we always sing “A Great Miracle Happened There”, and now we get to sing “A Great Miracle Happened Here”. Dwelling on the miracle of Chanukah (or miracles, because there were multiple miracles), makes me think about the miracles that go on in today’s world, and how important it is to open our eyes to what’s around us (especially living in the State of Israel, whose existence is a miracle in it of itself)

But of course there’s a trade-off to being here at this time of the year. I won’t be able to take part in one of my favorite yearly traditions: multiple viewings of “Home Alone” prior to Christmas with Alex and Nicole – so I’ll have to watch the movie here next week and yell out all the lines and know they’re doing the same thing back home (From a treehouse!)

So back to Livnot. The past few days have been long but fun. Breakfast at Livnot starts at 7am, so that means getting up at 6:45. I regularly woke up at 7:15 or 7:20 to eat breakfast and read the news online before Ulpan class, but something about that “Waking up before 7” really makes it seem much earlier than just a half hour. But when the days are as short as they are this time of the year, it’s important to make the most of the daylight hours.

Anyway, we’ve had the good fortune to have weather largely cooperate with us this week. We spent the last 3 days doing three very different kinds of hikes. On Tuesday, we did a half-day hike from Tzfat to this park called the Wadi Amud, which is a pretty, foliage-covered nature reserve. Apparently in the warmer months, it’s a popular hiking spot because there are pools to go swimming and it’s generally an easy hike. But in the winter months, when it’s just rained and the terrain is very muddy and rocks are slippery…well you get the picture. There was definitely a lot of slip-sliding around and I definitely crashed my knee into at least one huge boulder.

Wednesday’s hike was my favorite of the week. It was a full-day hike but not as intense as the day before. We drove to the top of a mountain just south of Lake Kinneret and hiked all the way down. From certain vantage points along the way, we could see the Kinneret to our left, the Jordan Valley straight ahead, and further back, the mountains of Jordan. This was one of those hikes where pictures don’t do the place justice. Along the way, our tour-guide extraordinaire, Michael, taught us about the different kinds of farming the Jewish pioneers did during the first waves of Aliyah and we discussed the sacrifices these chalutzim did when the founded the first kibbutz in Israel. We ended our hike at sunset, and then had a cookout on the shores of the Kinneret, and it’s pretty cool to be able to do that in December anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

Thursday we took a ride up to the Golan Heights and got off near the eastern-most village in all of Israel. The town is called Alonei Habashan, which translates to mean the oak trees of the Golan, and it’s right near the border with Syria. As we gathered to begin our hike, we could see an IDF base manning the border. Then in the not-to-far-off-distance, we heard some gunfire and explosions, which we all assumed to be the IDF conducting some sort of war games and training. Turns out we were exactly right – as you can read here in this article from Ha’Aretz, the IDF was simulating missile attacks and war against Hizbollah. Because it had rained the day before, the grass in the area was green, which made the views along the hike very pretty.

I’d write more but the internet here is not working well and I need to get ready for the chag…so Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom, and I’ll try to upload some pictures next week!

Leaving Ashkelon

2009-12-03T11:33:00.000+02:00

Our time in Ashkelon is drawing to a close, but of course, there's plenty of fanfare to keep us busy these last few days. Here's a link to my most recent batch of pictures.

First was a trip to the most bizarre shuk in Israel. There are 3 shopping malls in Ashkelon - the Huzot Mall, which is the up-scale mall with a movie theater, the Giron Mall, which is the most practical of the three...and then there's the Lev Ashkelon mall, which I have dubbed the Dirt Mall (a name I may or may not have stole from Mallrats). It's less than a 5 minute walk away from our absorption center, and its two saving graces are a small grocery store that's adequate and has the staples; and a bakery. Aside from that, it's dirty and just plain weird. And on Tuesdays, the mall transforms into the weirdest shuk you've ever seen...people set up little stands all over the place, including the basement and sell all sorts of stuff that looks like the cheapest flea market you've ever seen. To my friends who had never been to it until recently, I would say it's exactly what you would expect a shuk at the dirt mall to look like. So naturally I went with some people to walk around and take some pictures.

And then there was Brunch at Nana's. A few of you commented on the picture of her in my Thanksgiving album (her full name is Chana, and Nana is a nickname that also means "mint"). She's our Ulpan teacher and she's simply the best - she made class fun and enjoyable and was always willing to teach us whatever we wanted to learn. Tuesday was our last official day of class, and she invited us all to her house for brunch yesterday morning (and like Israelis do, offered us a place to stay whenever we come back to Ashkelon). As you can see from the pictures, there was so much food, and yes...she made an ice cream cake because of my obsession!

So what's next? A very good question. While the Otzma program is divided into three main parts, we have a mini track of two weeks this month, and we could choose from 3 options: studying Jewish texts at Pardes, a non-denominational institute in Jerusalem; volunteering with the army; and a program called Livnot U'Lehibanot, which is the one I'm doing. Initially I had planned to be with the army, but after talking to some people and then learning more about Livnot, it seems much more my speed. The words in Hebrew mean "To Build and to be built" and the concept is to physically build the land through community service and to be built by learning about different aspects of Judaism in perhaps a different way than we'd learned in years past. The program is based in Tzfat, which has always been a spiritual and mystical place, and it's where kaballah was started. So our two-week program combines some community service with lots of hiking and also Jewish learning. A huge part of learning about Israel is learning about the land and exploring all the different topography, so I'm very excited for our hikes. We'll also be with the Livnot program for all of Chanukah, so it will be fun to celebrate in a big group and be able to say "Nes Gadol Haya Po - A Great Miracle Happened Here" - and if you haven't seen this video to get in the Chanukah spirit...it's definitely a fun time

Following Livnot, we have two weeks of vacation, and I'm so excited that Becca will be coming midway through my break! We'll be traveling through Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for a week and then she's going to stay with me in Haifa for more than two weeks...very excited for all of this. I'll have my computer with me during Livnot and vacation, but I don't know quite how frequently I'll be able to get online and send emails and update my blog...I'll do the best I can, though!

Thanksgiving and other tid-bits

2009-11-30T17:32:00.001+02:00

Hard to believe it's our final week in Ashkelon - come Sunday our Otzma group will be split up for the remainder of the program. I'll write more about what's coming up later in the week, but first I wanted to update everyone on the past week.

You might have already seen pictures from our Thanksgiving on Facebook, but if not, here's the link to my pics. It was truly a great way to celebrate a family-based holiday away from home, because even though it sounds a bit cliche, in many ways our group has become a family - we live together, eat together, and yes - make fun of each other plenty. And even though Thanksgiving is not a holiday that is celebrated here in Israel, there was a very festive atmosphere in Calanit all day long, as we all ran around cooking and preparing our dishes. Hallie and Alex, two girls from my program, organized the whole soiree and they couldn't have done a better job. It was a potluck style dinner with a twist. We all contributed money to buy two huge turkeys and some extra parts - and then the girls picked up the turkeys, seasoned them, and cooked them. One of the running jokes on Otzma is that I'm the Dad of the group because I'm older than most everyone else, so Hallie and Alex asked me to help them carve the turkeys...naturally one the perks to carving the turkey is that I was able to taste test the turkey while I carved it (just to make sure it was fit to serve, of course)

We had our feast in the multi-murpose room in our absorption center, complete with decorations, and of course, hand turkeys. In addition to our entire Otzma group, we had the 10 participants in the Israeli Teaching Corps program (a program run in conjunction with ours), our program leaders and their families, and of course, Nana, our beloved Ulpan teacher, who celebrated her first Thanksgiving with us (and who invited us to her house for breakfast on Wednesday morning!) Each person on our program cooked a dish to bring, and people doubled up on the staples, so we had several different kinds of stuffing and mashed potatoes, along with meatballs, rice, pasta salad, my Handsome Kugel, and of course, tons and tons of desserts. The food was not only amazing, but there was an absurd amount...and we had so much food leftover, that we woke up on Friday and had a potluck lunch of all the leftovers.

The other exciting thing from this past week was getting to visit Haifa, where I'll be living from January through March. The focus of Part 2 of Otzma is to live and volunteer in "partnership cities", cities/towns in Israel that have a connection and relationship with cities back in the States. Most of the other partnership placements are smaller towns like Netivot, Kiryat Malachi and Kiryat Shmona, but because Boston and Haifa have had a strong sister-city relationship since 1989 we get to go to the third largest city in Israel and live there for 3 months. I'll be living there with 3 other guys - Tom, who is also from Newton, and Brett and Joseph from Texas, and we're all really excited for what lies ahead. We'll be living in an absorption center in Haifa, and while some other partnership communities have better housing, the opportunity to live and volunteer in Haifa was one of the main reasons I chose Otzma in the first place, so in my eyes, I'm not making any kind of sacrifice to be there.

We met with the Jewish Federation representatives in Haifa, as well as the people who work in the Boston-Haifa connection office, and they told us how excited they were to have us and about all the opportunities we'll have. One of the coolest things is we're going to be involved in the Young Leadership Division, which aims to get 22-30 year olds involved in the Jewish community. They have social events a couple of times a week, as well as weekend day trips around the region, so it's a great way to get to know Haifa and also meet people our age in the city. I took some pics from around town but I kind of erased them by accident...so if you're dying to get a look at what the city of Haifa looks like, click here to see my pics from '06 when I was there with my fam.

Happy (early) Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T21:01:00.002+02:00

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is really just 2 days away - in many ways it does seem that it's been 3 months that I've been in Israel, and in others it's gone very quickly. But obviously unlike back in the States, Thanksgiving is not a holiday people here celebrate, let alone have ever even heard of. We're having a pot-luck dinner at our absorption center in Ashkelon which I'm naturally excited for - we should have plenty of turkey, potato-related dishes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, the works.

One tradition that we started in my family around this time of year is vocalizing all that we have to be thankful for, and since I am very blessed to have so many things to be thankful for, I wanted to post them here. So even though I'm not able to eat with my family this year, I am thankful for their love and support (not to mention, excited for them to visit!) I'm thankful for my amazing friends who always know how to pick me up when I'm down, and who constantly encourage my ice cream-needing habits. I'm thankful for the State of Israel, and for the opportunity to live here for a year and experience life here in a way I wouldn't otherwise be able to. I'm thankful for the United States of America and for the educational opportunities it has offered me. And to all the past and current members of the Channel 7 Sports department...thankful I don't have to harass any high school football coaches and tell them how sorry I am their team lost the big Turkey Day game. So Happy Thanksgiving to all back home!

That being said - here's an update on two very interesting and thought-provoking education days in the past week. The first one was to learn about different elements of the Israeli Defense Forces, and the second was an intense examination of the political situation and scene.

The focus of the IDF day was on ethics and combat. There was a panel discussion with a journalist from Channel 10 as well as a current member of Knesset from the Kadima Party and the Vice Commander of an Armoured Division, in which we learned a lot about the realities of war and the amount of time soldiers have to make a decision on how to act. I knew the IDF aims to prevent civilian death as much as possible, but it's always amazing to hear the lengths to which they actually go. Before bombing apartment buildings in Gaza where terrorists were hiding, they would first drop leaflets advising residents to leave because the IDF is planning to bomb. If the leaflets weren't enough, the course of the Gaza War, the IDF made over 160,000 phone calls to Gaza residents who might have been too scared to go outside to get the leaflets. We also learned about the blatant lies in the death toll counts from the Gaza War - I won't get into all the facts and figures, but suffice it to say that the number Hamas gave to the world (including such "respected" organizations such as Amnesty International) was inflated due to the fact that anyone who died in all of Gaza during the war was counted in the death toll. That includes people killed in fighting, but also all those who died natural deaths (approx. 450 a month in Gaza) as well as the members of Fatah that Hamas killed and then added to the count. Clearly it was a mistake that Israel decided to bar Israeli-based journalists from entering Gaza during the war, and instead of allowing reporters to embed with units going in on missions, the world gets to read, and ultimately believe all of Hamas' propaganda.

Some people on my program were skeptical about the speakers and the agenda they had calling Israel the most moral army in the world. But what other army in the world goes to these lengths to make sure civilians are out of harm's way? What other army gives such advance notice to the enemy? War is a horrible thing, and yes, there are going to be innocent people killed and wounded and suffering tremendous amounts of pain. But you cannot do a better job of protecting human life, especially when the enemy not only has no regard for life, but does the best it can to not only kill you and your civilians, but puts its own civilians in the line of fire (for example, we saw video of Hamas terrorists grabbing children and dragging them across streets in Gaza to use as cover, because they know with a child as cover, the IDF won't fire on them)

By far the coolest part was getting to visit the Sde Dov Air Force Base in northern Tel Aviv. We weren't allowed to take pictures of our own, but there was an IDF photographers taking pictures and we should get a link via email in the coming days so I'll post some pics when I get them. We learned a bit about the Air Force base, the kids of planes they have, and the intense training to become a pilot. Then we got to go and walk around near the runway - we saw a grounded B200 beachcraft plane that was wired for a communications relay flight, and saw some planes taking off and landing. Then we got to go up to the Air Traffic Control tower, which has an amazing beach-front view of the entire city of Tel Aviv.

Then Sunday was the final day of the Politics and Society seminars. First we learned about how the Knesset works (or doesn't) and how the government is formed. Israel has a parliamentary system, so when people go to the polls, they vote for a party instead of a candidate. And as you can imagine in a country full of Jews, there's enough political parties to run a continent. There are 120 seats in the Israeli Knesset, and a party has to garner at least 2% of the popular vote to get a seat. In the elections that were held in February, 33 parties were on the ballot, and ultimately there are 12 parties represented in the government. Usually, the party that wins the most seats gets the right to build a coalition to gain a majority of 61 seats. This year's election was particularly strange. The centrist Kadima party won the most seats, but its leader, Tzipi Livni was unable to show she could build a strong enough coalition. So the president, Shimon Peres, went to the right wing party, the Likud, and gave its leader, Bibi Netanyahu, the right to build the coalition. As it turns out, this is the first time in Israeli history that the party that won the most seats in the election isn't even part of the coalition (Livni is the leader of the opposition)

So from there, we learned about the smaller but very influential political parties, such as the religious parties who hold an extreme amount of power. The 3 main parties (Labor, Likud, Kadima) are overall secular parties, but because they rely on the religious parties like Shas to make up a coalition, they trade Knesset seats for decisions that affect how Judaism is practiced. Unfortunately, Israeli politicians have a history of giving almost total control to the Haredi parties, who in turn use their power to discriminate against everyone and anyone who dares practice a form of Judaism that isn't to their standards.

We heard from Michael Melchior, a former member of Knesset who is the leader of a centrist religious party that did not get the 2% vote in these elections to be represented. I thought the most interesting thing he had to say was about all the issues Israel faces that is unrelated to the political situation and peace process. Politicians and the parties are always re-adjusting their platforms vis a vis the latest developments regarding the Palestinians or Hezbollah or Iran, and while this is obviously the most important issue to consider, almost every other major issue falls by the wayside as a result. Education is not what it once was and performance is falling in almost every single category.

My favorite part of the day was meeting with David Horovitz, the editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post. Journalism has always been an interest of mine, and so naturally it was fascinating to hear his thoughts especially on the political situation and the existential threats Israel faces. He identified peace with the Palestinians, Iran, and de-legitimization of Israel around the world as the 3 biggest threats, with Iran being the scariest and most severe of the 3. He called the world's view on Iran as hypocritical, because many countries are giving it lip service, and the US and Israel aside, nobody's really interested in doing anything about it. And so as is the case at the end of these days, I now have a whole new list of articles and topics to research.

Volunteering with the kiddies

2009-11-19T20:42:00.000+02:00

Pretty cute, ay? These are some of the kids I get to play with at the other absorption center in Ashkelon. I realized you all might be wondering what it is I do all day long here, especially now that it's too cold to go to the beach (poor me, I know). So now that our time in Ashkelon is coming to a close, I figured it would be a good idea to post a bit about my daily life.

We have Ulpan (Hebrew classes) four days a week from 8:15am-12:30pm, with a half-hour break at 10. It's pretty convenient that we have our class on the ground floor of our absorption center, so we can head down in our PJs and then come back up to our rooms during the break. During Ulpan, we do different things - we talk about the news and current events here in Israel, so as you can imagine, there's always plenty to talk about. We also read little stories and articles and learn plenty of new vocab along the way. And then about twice a month, we watch an Israeli movie - some of them I've seen, some are new. But even the ones I've already seen, I try to watch without looking at the English subtitles.

We also volunteer a couple of times a week - there are all sorts of different things people are doing. Some are helping with sailing lessons at the marina, some are teaching English, some working at Netzach Yisrael, the conservative synagogue. I've been volunteering twice a week at the bigger of the two absorption centers in Ashkelon, called Beit Canada/Canada House, and it predominantly houses olim chadashim (new immigrants) from Ethiopia. It really wasn't my intention to have this to be my volunteer placement, but Otzma sent me and a couple of other people there our first week and I took one look at the kids and couldn't say no. They're all so adorable and they all speak Hebrew too which is the coolest thing ever! So I've been working in the "gan", which is for 4-5 year olds.

The kids all go to regular school with other Israelis during the day, and then around 3:30pm, they come to the gan for an after-school program while their parents are still at work. They play outside, draw, practice writing letters and numbers, and if they behave, they watch some childrens' TV shows. One of their favorite things to do when I'm around is have me pick them up and run with them in my arms or on my shoulders.

These families come from different areas of Ethiopia - their ancestors were all Jewish, and somewhere along the way, they were forced to convert to Christianity. But they go through a conversion process when they arrive and are now Jewish according to halacha . On average, the families live in the absorption center for 2-3 years while they get settled to their new lives. Their native language is Amheric, so the parents take Ulpan classes to learn Hebrew and they also have jobs. As part of the process to integrate olim chadashim into Israel, the government then gives these families some money towards an apartment of their own in smaller cities.

Extended Weekend in the Golan

2009-11-16T21:06:00.001+02:00

Just got back from a great and relaxing weekend in Katzrin, located in the Golan Heights. I was able to use two of my "days off" to extend my normal weekend and stayed with Eli, Elisheva and Ma'Or for 4 nights, so you better believe there was lots of relaxing...and lots and lots of eating! It's so beautiful up there, I'm definitely looking forward already to my next trip there.

Eli had suggested if it was nice out on Friday morning, we'd go out for a hike. It was raining off and on, but we went out for a short time anyway. There's a famous hike called Yehudia, known for its waterfalls and water streams, and so we set out to hike a branch of it called Zavitan. There were lots and lots of rocks on this branch of the hike, so needless to say it was very slippery, especially in my sneakers...I probably would have been fine in my hiking boots. Somehow I managed not to hurt myself or fall at all! We hiked a short ways in, about 20 mins until we got to the first water stream and then headed back...but hopefully I'll have a chance to go back with better sneakers and with dry rocks.

We got back to the house, and their friends Ben and Sarah had arrived, along with their almost-two-year-old son Judah. We all went out to eat at the Golan Brewery and restaurant, definitely someplace I'd go back to. They have a pretty wide-range of food and great burgers. They make four different styles of beer: a wheat-based beer, a Pilsner lager, a standard lager, and a dubbelbach (dark beer). They had a cool promotion - a tasting is 13 NIS, but if you wind up then ordering another beer, you get the tasting for free. We were in a bit of a rush to get back and get ready for Shabbat so I only had time for the tasting...but there's always next time!

Shabbat was very nice and very relaxing, and then Sunday I went to the Katsrin Archaelogical Park, where they have ruins from Talmudic villages dating back to the 3rd Century, CE, and then to a museum that has a topographical model of the Golan Heights, really showing why it's such a strategic advantage to have it because of how high above the Galil and the Kinneret it is.

In the afternoon, Elisheva took me to this town called Yonatan, where she and Eli are starting the process of building their house. It's a really cool, environmentally-friendly concept, and I'm sure I'm not going to get all the details right but I'll do my best. Each family has a certain space allotment and can create its own floorplan for the house, as long it works within the given allotment. The exteriors of the houses are assembled in a factory, including the plumbing and electrical wiring, and are shipped to the site where the house will be, and workers assemble the pieces on site. There are solar panels that go on part of the roof, and - this is the coolest part - the house is self-sufficient in terms of electricity. When the sun shines, the panels store the solar energy for use, and if there's leftover energy, they sell it to the electrical company. Currently, there's one house that's already assembled and being worked on-site (Eli's actually working on it, although it's not their house)

This coming week should be fun - we have two educational days that I think will be very interesting. On Thursday, we're going to Tel Aviv and are learning about various aspects of the Israeli Defense Forces. We'll be hearing from a professor who drafted the IDF's Rules of Conduct, a member of Knesset who has previously worked as an IDF spokesman, a journalist who covers the IDF, and a Vice Commander of the Armored Division. Then we'll get to tour an army base (not sure which one yet). Then on Sunday, we'll be in Jerusalem to learn about how the Knesset works (or doesn't), we're going to meet with the editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, and a few other things too.

That's about it - I'm attaching a link to pics from the weekend...enjoy!

Education Seminar in Tel Aviv

2009-11-10T22:55:00.000+02:00

This past Sunday we had the second of our educational seminars on Israeli Politics and Society, this one in Tel Aviv. We spent the majority of the day in southern Tel Aviv, which has a much lower socio-economic status and situation than the rest of the city.

Our first stop was the Rigozin School, which is a public school for children of foreign workers. Like just about everything else in Israel, the status of these children is very controversial. In some ways the debate is similar to illegal immigration and migrant workers in the States, because some of their parents are here legally, others illegally. The government wants to deport nearly 1200 families at the end of the school year. Some of these children were born in Israel and some were born elsewhere, but even those born here are not citizens and would have to return to the countries where their parents came from - the Philippines, Thailand, Nigeria, and many other countries. The parents often work in agriculture, and like migrant and illegal workers in the States, are willing to work for a fraction of what Israelis would be willing to work for. These are jobs that Palestinians used to have, and once the second intifada broke out, businesses began lobbying the government to allow them to bring in migrant workers to fill those jobs. And now, the same government (and specifically the same MK) that allowed these migrant workers into the country wants to deport their children who were born here. The biggest issue is there are no adequate immigration laws and the government changes its policies on a regular basis.

We then met with someone who works with refugees from war-torn countries who have come to Israel to seek asylum. The underlying issue here is to what extent Israel has a responsibility to take in and help these refugees, who come mainly from Darfur and Eritrea, but other places too. In addition to wanting to be "a beacon of light unto the nations" and to help those in desperate situations, I believe Israel should take in refugees fleeing genocide, like those from Sudan. Of all the nations in the world, we as Jews know the horrors of a true genocide and of a world that watched and sat idly by while millions were murdered and slaughtered and tortured, and we have a certain responsibility to open our doors in the same way other nations should have during the Shoah.

But, like everything else, things are not as simple as that. Taking in refugees also means finding a place for them to live, and resources to help them put their lives back together. There are organizations, specifically in south Tel Aviv, that have built shelters and provide education and other forms of humanitarian aid. On the one hand, we have enough problems "taking care of our own" —Jews and other Israeli citizens who live below the poverty line and are in need of help. But on the other hand, we have a responsibility to make sure that if we take in these refugees, we're putting them on a path to success and not towards a life of despair and crime. A lot of work has been done in recent years to transform south Tel Aviv into a crime-ridden, dangerous area into an area with a future.

The final stop of the day was a type of walking tour around part of the downtown area. The purpose was to examine various sites of cultural significance and to assess their role in Tel Aviv's history. As we visited different buildings and read about them, were forced to think about the role Tel Aviv, the country's cultural and secular center, plays in the Jewish state - is it a Jewish city or just an Israeli city? Is there anything wrong with wanting to escape the political and security problems and spend free time at the beach or at a cafe?

The more I learn about life here, the more I see just how much there is I still have to learn - it's amazing how many different fragments and segments of society there are, how there can be so many different kinds of Jews and Israelis who have such different views of what it is to be Jewish, what it is to be Israeli, and what this country is and what it should be. I feel truly blessed that I have the opportunity to learn all these things first-hand and take in pieces every single day.

Turning The Calendar

2009-11-04T19:59:00.000+02:00

Hard to believe it's November already (and that it's been a while since my last post), and that we have just 4 more weeks left in Ashkelon. But we have gotten our first taste of "winter" here...we had a stretch of five "60 degrees and rainy" days, but the rain is very important for Israel, so there's no complaining here. And it's supposed to be warmer and sunnier through the weekend.

It's been a pretty laid-back week or so. I spent the last two Shabbatot in Efrat with Ephraim and Batya. I love spending Shabbat with them because even though I only met them two months ago, it feels like I've known them forever. It's such a welcoming and familiar atmosphere, and Shabbat there is so peaceful and serene. The first weekend I brought my two roommates, Aaron and Derek over, and one of Ephraim's cousins from his mother's side of the family was there with a friend. And then last weekend, Eli, Elisheva and Ma'Or were there. Batya was heading to the States after Shabbat, and she said it would be a pretty simple Shabbat food-wise but as usual, there was so much to eat and it was so so good!

I took advantage in a break in the rain the other day to walk around the Ashkelon Archaeological Park. We walk through part of it every time we go to the beach, but it wasn't until Thursday that I went around to see what everything was. Ashkelon has thousands of years of history - the Phillistines, Canaanites, Muslims, and Crusaders have all left their mark - and archaeologists have been uncovering various structures and artifacts from the 3,000+ years (it's actually a group from Harvard that spear-heads the excavation). I posted some pictures from the journey around the park and the link is in the post below. There are still some sights I didn't get to, but seeing a gate from the Cannanite period from 1850 BCE was pretty cool, and I'm sure I'll have a chance to go back and see the things I didn't get to see.

We have a series of educational seminars throughout the year to learn in detail about the different aspects of Israeli life and culture, including tours of different areas we might not get to on our own. There's a 3-week section called "Politics and Society" and Sunday was the first of the seminars. We went to Be'er Sheva and visited the Dekel Prison, which was quite an experience. First, we met with one of the social workers there, and she introduced us to the prison system and explained the roles of the different people who work there. Unfortunately, Israel has seen a dramatic increase in crime, especially domestic crime in the past 13 years, so prisons have become more crowded.

We got a guided tour of the facility and saw the variation in the way different groups of prisoners live. First was the maximum security ward, where the prisoners are locked in their cells for 22 hours a day. They have 2 hours during the day to shower, make phone calls, and sit in the common area, all of which takes place inside the ward - they are not allowed outside at all. A tray of food is brought to their room, and there are 12 prisoners in one cell (6 bunk beds). Basically these are prisoners who refuse to behave or change their ways, and their free time is staggered to prevent fights.

For prisoners who show good behavior and indicate they want to get their lives back on track, there are other set-ups. There are fewer people in one cell (btwn 4-8) and they're allowed to spend free time outside and have meals in a dining hall. There are also facilities such as a library, computer room (without internet access of course), and there are even Torah classes for people who have found God and are becoming religious and want to study. We also saw the factory where some are allowed to work.

There's also a rehab clinic for prisoners trying to overcome substance abuse and alcoholism. One of the prisoners going through rehab spoke to us. His name is Dmitry and he's originally from Russia. He started doing drugs and drinking when he was a teenager and has been in and out of jail his whole life and finally decided he wanted to clean up his life. He told us his story and also that in 18 months when he finishes serving his time, he's going to go and life in a half-way house that helps former prisoners with histories of substance abuse stay clean after leaving jail.

I'm very excited for this upcoming weekend - I'm going to Tel Aviv tomorrow to see Mosh Ben-Ari in concert. He's one of my favorite Israeli musicians, and he just released a new album less than 2 months ago. This is his official album release party, and some of his musician friends will be performing on stage with him, including Ehud Banai and Avraham Tal. A few different people on my program are celebrating birthdays this week/weekend in Tel Aviv as well so there should be some fun celebrations.

New Pics

2009-11-03T21:12:00.000+02:00

I posted a few pictures from the last couple of weeks - blog entry coming but it's a work in progress so I figured I'd put up the link to the pics first

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2466073&id=903029&l=12bd94859f

HaDegel Sheli (My Flag)

2009-10-23T10:45:00.000+02:00

The Jewish Eye Film Festival is currently going on here in Ashkelon, and last night I saw a very thought-provoking documentary called "HaDegel Sheli" or "My Flag". It was written, produced and directed by a Canadian Israeli, and the premise was to go different places in Israel with an Israeli flag and ask people what the flag means to them.

Two scenes in particular hit a strong chord - the first took place in the Meah Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, which is populated exclusively by different groups of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews, most of whom believe the State of Israel should not exist because the messiah hasn't come yet. There's even a sign that hangs in their neighborhood that says "Zionism = Holocaust", which is troubling enough on its own but is nothing short of revolting coming from anyone Jewish. These are the same people that throw stones at people who walk by who aren't dressed modest enough, riot on Shabbat because a parking lot is open and people are driving, and desecrate Torah scrolls at the Kotel because women read from them. Oh, yeah, and some of these groups openly support Ahmadinijad and Hamas. Yet somehow God sees them as better people...give me a break. It's one thing to disagree with the government on this issue or that issue, but to live in Jerusalem (and in many cases take charity money from the Israeli government) and say, "I wish the Arabs were ruling us" is vile, and is more disgusting than seeing a 4-year old Palestinian child with a suicide bomb strapped around his body yelling that he wants to blow Jews up.

But the most shocking part for me was when the film cut to Ashkelon and showed raw footage of the aftermath of the Palestinian katyusha rocket attack on the Hutzot Mall in May 2008 - 90 people were injured. I knew the mall had been hit, but it's something completely different to see the video of the damage to the building, and emergency crews carrying out people in stretchers...and then going to the mall and seeing it re-built. Thankfully none of the rockets that have been fired from Gaza while I've been here have come too close to Ashkelon. And yes - this attack was one of hundreds on the towns in southern Israel before Israel's military operation in Gaza last winter...none of which are mentioned in Goldstone's "report". Brandeis is hosting both Goldstone in two weeks in a forum for him to defend his report, and his views will be opposed by Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and who knows just about everything there is to know about the military legality of war.

So what does the flag mean to me? It's the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, to the land where our Temples stood over 2,000 years ago, to Jerusalem, to where we've prayed to return for centuries upon centuries. It's the establishment of the only Jewish government in the entire world, a place where Jews can live in freedom without fear of being persecuted for practicing their religion (or not practicing it as they choose).

In the Negev

2009-10-19T19:50:00.000+02:00

What a day in the Negev – we took a tour through the Negev Desert to meet with and learn about some of the small communities that live there.

The highlight was clearly this encounter...me and my twin brother Dan, who naturally had done Otzma back in 1994.

We first visited a town called Segev Shalom, one of 7 Bedouin Arab towns that have officially been incorporated into Israel. In the 70s, the Israeli government encouraged the Bedouins to settle in 7 specific towns in the Negev, rather than continue with their nomadic lifestyle. Some Bedouins agreed and are currently living in those towns, but some did not, and they currently live in towns and settlements the government considers illegal. Additionally, many of these communities have created problems for the Jewish towns in the Negev because of drugs and crime. There’s also a big problem with Bedouin men attracting Israeli teenage girls and showering them with money and gifts and encouraging them to leave home to live in the Bedouin community. Then, when these girls leave, they marry the Bedouin men and become trapped: they’re not allowed to leave their house, they don’t have a cell phone, they don’t have any money and it’s very hard for them to escape.

From there, we visited Yerucham, a small developing community that’s trying its hardest to expand and become an attractive place for people to live. David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, had a vision to “make the Negev bloom” and to populate it with people. There are some sizeable cities and communities there, but while the Negev makes up 60% of the State of Israel’s land, it contains just 8% of its population. Some of the small towns there, like Yerucham, are making a push to attract people and jobs by portraying themselves as tranquil oases where you can escape the hustle and bustle of the city. It’s a very interesting situation, because at one point in Israeli history, the Negev was considered their “Wild West”, a frontier full of exciting new adventures. But as beautiful as the landscape is, the reality is that currently, many Israelis see nothing attractive about living in an oppressively hot town in the middle of nowhere. The land and the housing there is much cheaper and the government provides some economic incentives to live there, but with public transportation becoming increasingly efficient, people can still live in a suburb of Tel Aviv and commute an hour and half to work in a desert city like Be’er Sheva. We saw a very nice, state of the art community center there, but it seemed that while the Yeruchamites were telling us about their town, they were trying to convince themselves just as much as us that it’s a great place to live. I’m sure it is great for some people, but they still have a lot of work to do to convince most Israelis to move from the cities.

But the most interesting and best stop of the day was meeting the Black Hebrews at Kibbutz Shomrei HaShalom, or the Peace Village. They’re a community who see themselves as one of the Lost Tribes of Israel who fled the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE and moved to various parts of Africa. They lived all over Africa until many were then sold in slavery and came to the United States. Their spiritual leader had a vision when he was living in Chicago in 1966 that it was time for them to return to their homeland in Israel. So they traveled to Israel by way of Liberia and have a community in the town of Dimona.

The Black Hebrews have a holistic and independent attitude towards life. They don’t consider themselves to be Jewish but take all of their teachings and rules directly from the Torah. As part of their belief system, they are vegan, and they served us an amazing meal of salad, rice, pita and hummus, soy burgers and soy shnitzel, and a very tasty chocolate pudding dessert (apparently it’s very easy to make!) We spend just over an hour there, but pretty much everyone on our program wished we had more time to learn about the beliefs, history and lifestyle of the Black Hebrews because it’s something none of us know about. They invited us over to spend some more time in the future, so a few of us are hoping to spend a weekend there in the coming weeks to learn more about their culture.

I had a nice and relaxing Shabbat – it’s weird to think that I’ve been here a month and a half and this was only my 2^nd Shabbat in Ashkelon because of all the holidays. Friday evening, a few of us went to Kabbalat Shabbat services at Netzach Yisrael, the conservative synagogue in Ashkelon. We had been there before to help them build their sukkah and they have a very nice congregation. The service was exactly like the kind of Kabbalat Shabbat service I’m used to at home, where almost every prayer is sung. I always find it a peaceful and reflective service so I always enjoy going and seeing how different congregations choose their different tunes. We came back to our absorption center and had a potluck Shabbat dinner (or to use Becca’s term, a Shabbatluck dinner). We’ve had a few of these already and this one was by far the best – everyone’s really stepping their game up. I started things off strong with my Handsome Salad, and then there was grilled chicken, a gulash stew, pad thai, mango rice, mashed potatoes, and about the best banana bread I’ve ever had (certainly the best parev banana bread I’ve ever had).

Hopefully I can get my camera situation all figured out before the weekend. On Sunday, we’re getting a tour of some of the holy sites in Jerusalem. We’ll walk down the Via Dolorosa, the path which Jesus took to his crucifixion and then go the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where he died. And then we’re going to Har HaBayit, or the Temple Mount and see where the Two Temples once stood and where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosques are today. Then at night, we’re all going to see Idan Raichel live in concert – he’s so talented and he and his band put on such a great show.

Petra Pics

2009-10-13T13:26:00.001+02:00

Finally got the Petra pics up click here to view!
For Part I (Tel Aviv and Eilat pics) click here

Sukkot Vacation - Tel Aviv, Eilat, Petra, and Jerusalem

2009-10-12T20:24:00.000+02:00

Back in Ashkelon after a busy week of traveling and a great Sukkot vacation. I traveled mainly with 3 friends – Brett, Derek and Ari, and then we met up with some other people from our program this past weekend in Jerusalem for Simchat Torah.

We left for Tel Aviv Friday afternoon and stayed with two of Brett’s friends, which was clutch. Friday and Saturday nights we stayed with his friend Jonathan, who is about to start studying at Technion University in Haifa. He gave us quite a tour of Northern Tel Aviv, where he grew up and his parents live and made sure we got to do the things we wanted to and volunteered to do some chauffeuring around. We also did a lot of walking around Tel Aviv, which was great because I’ll be more familiar with the city when I live there starting in April. We got some great falafel, checked out the Carmel shuk, and went to the Diaspora Museum which has so much Jewish history that I feel like I might need to go back because there was too much to absorb in a single visit.

Our Petra adventure was by far the highlight of the trip. It’s the remnants of an ancient city built by the Nabateans about 2,000 years ago, and it’s located in the middle of the Edom Mountain range in Jordan. We took a cab from our motel in Eilat to the border crossing and thankfully beat a big tour group to the passport control on the Israeli side and didn’t have to wait at all. We paid our exit tax, changed some money over to the Jordanian Dinar and then literally walked across the “no man’s land” and the international border into Jordan. Nobody hassled us with our bags or passports, and naturally one of the Jordanian security asked if I was an Arab. We then took a cab from the border in Aqabba to the town of Wadi Musa where we stayed (it’s called Wadi Musa because it was the riverbed created when Moses struck the rock and water started flowing from it).

The staff at our hostel was very helpful and friendly, and they insisted we have some coffee before heading out to begin our tour. They also invited us for an all you can eat buffet dinner for 5 dinar (about $8) so we signed up on the spot, and then walked down from Wadi Musa to the entrance of Petra. We definitely made the right decision to tour on our own instead of with a tour guide because not only was it cheaper, but we went at our own pace and stopped where we wanted to and when we wanted to. We had two different tour guides and an additional map to point out the major sites to see. To get to the main sites of Petra, you walk down a gravel path and pass by several tombs carved into the sides of mountains. Petra was the capital of their empire, but also a necropolis because they believed that if they showed respect for the dead, the spirits would look after them.

After about 15 minutes of walking down a gravel path through the mountains, Petra’s most well-known façade comes into view, the Treasury, which was featured in the Indiana Jones movie. Its size and detail was absolutely astounding. Somehow, the Nabateans carved this façade into the side of the mountain. I can’t even fathom how much time and cooperation it took, and how they were able to build that far up with the technology available at the time.

My favorite part of Petra was the Great Temple. Historians aren’t sure exactly who prayed there, but the most fascinating part to me is that it’s a gigantic structure with 3 different levels, and it was discovered by Brown University archaeologists in 1994 – a full century and a half after much of the rest of Petra was discovered by a Swiss explorer. We hiked up two different mountains (one the first day and one the second) and took plenty of time to enjoy the spectacular views down from the top.

One weird – and sad – part about touring Petra is that everywhere you look there are Bedouins selling cheap souvenirs, jewelry and even rocks for a one or two dinar. Many of them live in the caves in the Petra mountains and there are children as young as 5 and 6 trying to sell souvenirs to tourists. It was actually the way we knew we were on the right path on our hikes, is if we took a turn or climbed up some stairs and we passed by a table. I tried to take a lot of pictures to illustrate the scale of the buildings and how high we climbed, but I’m not sure how well it will translate when I upload them to Facebook.

We came back to Eilat Wednesday night and hit up Big Apple Pizza, which was really good. Apparently it’s a chain and there’s one near Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem too. My 3 friends stayed in Eilat for Thursday, but I took the bus up to Jerusalem to spend the day with family. I had a late lunch/early dinner in Efrat with Ephraim, Batya, Eli, and Ma’Or and then at night met my cousins Chaim and Rivka at the “Rock Ami” concert at Kraft Stadium and we saw a few bands play, such as Soulfarm and Moshav Band. Kraft Stadium was built by Bob Kraft and it’s where the Israeli American Football league plays. Inside the stadium there’s a wall with pictures of Kraft with the Patriots, and there’s a Benjamin Watson jersey hanging on the wall. Kraft brought Watson and his wife here two summers ago and he loved it. There were a couple of food vendors, and to my surprise, there were taps from Dancing Camel, a micro-brewery located in Tel Aviv. I had the stout beer and it was easily the best beer I’ve had since I’ve been here. The company rep handed me a sheet listing all the locations around Israel where they either have their different beers on tap and there are a few in Haifa (none in Ashkelon though)

I also wanted to be in Jerusalem for Simchat Torah and it did not disappoint. I went to a shul just outside Jerusalem for hakafot on Friday night and then had dinner with Datia, Guy and Michal. Then I went to the Kotel Saturday morning and joined different minyanim dancing and reading Torah. I got to dance with one Torah and had an aliyah at another minyan.

I’m sure I left some details out but if anyone has questions about the trip, let me know and I’ll holler back! I’ve uploaded a small batch of pictures from the first few days, and I’ll try to get the rest up on Facebook tomorrow and I’ll post a link to the pics.

Yom Kippur in Yerushalayim

2009-09-28T22:59:00.004+02:00

Officially had my first “Wow” moment spending Yom Kippur in Yerushalayim. I don’t consider myself to be very religious but this was the most spiritual Yom Kippur I’ve experienced and the location had everything to do with it. When the fast started at 4:49pm, a siren wailed throughout the city and everything came to a stop – people finished lighting their candles and walked to shul. There were no cars on the road, no stores, bakeries or offices open, and it was really a meaningful and inspiring holiday.

This year was also the longest fast I’ve ever had, which is strange because the holiday ended earlier than any year in Boston. In Israel, we changed to Standard Time on Saturday night and turned the clocks back and hour to make the fast easier and have it end an hour earlier than it would have. My entire program stayed at the Lev Yerushalayim hotel right near Ben Yehuda Street (a great location and it’s where people who will be in Jerusalem for our third part will be living) and we had both our pre-fast and break-fast meals at the hotel. The catch was that we had to eat our final meal at 3pm because their kitchen closed at 3:30. So we were done eating by 3:30 and the fast didn’t officially start until 4:49, and then today it ended at 6:05pm, so it was close to a 27 hour fast instead of a 25 hour fast.

We got a list of all the shuls in the area and a description of each one so we could decide which one we wanted to go to. For Kol Nidre, I went to the Great Synagogue, a modern-Orthodox congregation, and it definitely lived up to its name. The sanctuary was so beautiful with chandeliers and stained glass all over. At some point I would like to go back there to get a better look at the building and at all the Judaica they have all around. The choir sung beautifully and even though they mainly sung tunes I didn’t know, it was so cool to see such a packed place (my friend Scott and I estimated there were close to a thousand men and 500 women in just this one congregation), and to know that places all over Jerusalem and all over Israel were packed just the same.

For the morning service today, I went with a bunch of people to the Conservative Center, and it was exactly the kind of service I was looking for. It was founded by American olim so the prayer books had English translations (it was actually the same Machzor I use at home) and the rabbi’s sermon was in English. There was plenty of singing, which made me feel very at-home.

We got back to the hotel around 2 and I did get an hour and a half nap in before it was time to leave for Ne’ilah. The great thing about the hotel we stayed at was there were all sorts of different shuls within a 10 or 15 minute walk, and then the Kotel was about half an hour away. I knew that the Kotel was where I wanted to be for the end, so I went with a few friends and we got there around 4:30pm, just before the Ne’ilah service. I spent the first half hour or so just taking in the atmosphere, walking from one corner to the next, listening to everyone singing and praying. There were probably 25 or 30 different services going on at the same time, each one sounding just a bit different than the one next to it. I joined one that was loud enough that I could follow along. I did some praying but I was mesmerized by my surroundings – how we went from light to darkness, how we were standing at a spot where Jews for centuries upon centuries prayed to return to. At the very end of Yom Kippur, the shofar is sounded to conclude the fast, and since each service ends at a different moment, around 6pm, shofarot rang out throughout the Kotel area and people started dancing and singing.

There was one unfortunate incident. As I was turning to leave the Kotel and walk back towards the plaza, this guy stopped me, he couldn’t have been more than 20 or 21, was not wearing a black hat or a beard, just a tallit, and he pointed to my earring and smiled. I thought he liked it. But then he explained to me I needed to do Teshuvah (a prayer for repentance) because of the earring and he opened up his prayer book and pointed to the prayer he wanted me to do. So I told him I wasn’t about to say any prayer because he wanted me to. And he goes, “Only Go’im have earrings, Jews don’t” and I told him it was none of his business and it wasn’t his place on Yom Kippur of all days to tell me what to do and how to pray to God. I have plenty of religious relatives, and even though we don’t observe the same way, none of them would ever tell me how to live my life or how to pray. It definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.

But that taste was quickly changed to a sweet taste, because there were juices and challah and little muffins being handed out at the Kotel plaza to break the fast. It definitely made all the difference in the world, to have a little bit of something before our half hour walk back to the hotel for our big break-fast meal.

So now we have a short week – just 3 days of ulpan before our Sukkot vacation. It’s crazy that we have a full vacation so early into our program. I’ll be going to Tel Aviv, Eilat, Petra and Jerusalem over the break, and I’ll definitely have heaps and heaps of pictures of the adventures to post when I get back.

Pics are up

2009-09-28T22:55:00.001+02:00

I posted pictures from our first 3 weeks to my Facebook page (click on the title of this post to go there)There are also plenty of pics from my last time here in Israel with my family back in the winter of 2005-06. I took a lot of good scenery shots that I probably won't duplicate this time around, so feel free to check out those ones on my Shutterfly page (http://mattyc.shutterfly.com)

Skype Alert

2009-09-23T19:21:00.000+03:00

Now that we have our wireless set up, I'll try to be on Skype when I'm in my room. My screenname is mattyc18 - and thanks to my newish computer I have a built-in camera for videochat...holla!

Final Ashkelon 82, Final HaPoal Jerusalem 82

2009-09-23T00:19:00.000+03:00

Just got back from the most exciting tie basketball game ever. We all got free tickets to watch an exhibition game between Ashkelon and Jerusalem. Quite an experience. I guess since it was just an exhibition they didn’t bother with overtime, which was kind of strange to see. Ashkelon blew a 3 point lead with 5 seconds to go because they couldn’t figure out that they were supposed to foul Jerusalem immediately after the in-bounds pass. Naturally the Jerusalem player hit a wide open 3 to tie the game. There were probably 200 people in attendance, including 38 from our group and a whole bunch of rowdy 10 year olds, where they’re parents were, we have no idea. There was also a guy who beat a huge drum throughout the game and changed his beat depending on who has the ball.

I spent Rosh Hashana at my cousin Datia Shaked’s house just outside of Jerusalem (we’re still trying to figure out how we’re exactly related but it does go back a couple of generations). I hadn’t seen her or Michal or Guy (her two children who are now 30 and 29) in close to 4 years so it was great to re-connect. I feel very fortunate to have so much family in Israel that is so friendly and welcoming. Some of these cousins I’ve met before and some I’m just now meeting for the first time. But everyone I’ve met has told me the same thing: let me know when you want to come over for Shabbat and you can come and spend the weekend. I’m hoping that after we get back from Sukkot vacation I can get to Jerusalem a couple of weekends a month so I can spend time and get to know all these cousins and visit the ones I know well.

In addition to these other relatives, I have two first cousins who are in Israel. Chaim is studying at a yeshiva and his sister Rivka just made Aliyah. So a fun little aside. I was about to leave Datia’s to head back to Ashkelon, when Chaim called me and told me he was going to be in downtown J’lem watching the Patriots/Jets game if I was around. So I switched up my plans and met up with him for a bit and watched about 3 quarters before I had to get to the bus station to head back (he called me while I was on the bus back to tell me the game had gone final and the Jets had won)

The day before Rosh Hashana I got to do something very special. I was one of 15 people from Otzma to help deliver packages of food to Holocaust survivors living in Ashkelon. We were split into groups of 3, and each group was paired with 3 Israeli soldiers to deliver the food. I went to 5 houses of Holocaust survivors and it was incredible to see how much joy and happiness it brought to them. One woman happened to be celebrating her 90th birthday that day, and another was so overcome with emotions she started to tear up. It’s unbelievable how doing something that seems so small can mean so much to someone.

That's it for now - we finally have internet in our rooms so hopefully I'll post more frequently and I'll get pics up in the next day or two.

Ashkelon, Week 2

2009-09-15T20:47:00.001+03:00

Hopefully I’ll be able to write shorter posts more often once we get our internet set up, which should be when we get back from Rosh Hashana on Monday. Here’s what I’ve been up to over the past few days. I spent Shabbat in the town of Efrat with my newly-discovered cousins on my dad’s side of the family, Ephraim and his son Eli, and I had such a great time. I had met Eli back in June when he came to Boston and we walked around town and took a mini tour of the Freedom Trail. I hadn’t realized Efrat had such a big population of olim from North America so the only Hebrew I spoke during the weekend was during services at shul.

We started Ulpan, or Hebrew classes, on Sunday, and so far so good for me. Our teacher is really nice and I already have a whole stack of vocab to learn…now I just have to remember what it’s like to study and learn new words! But in addition to learning new words, the whole class is conducted in Hebrew and we’ll be talking about current events all in Hebrew so I would hope that after a few weeks of being fully immersed, my Hebrew will be much better. But as it is, it’s been a huge advantage to have such a great base and hold conversations with people around town. I was surprised at how many people on my program know almost no Hebrew and it’s been hard for them in certain situations to get around because some people in Ashkelon speak English, but not everyone.

Yesterday I got to the shuk, or market, for the first time. For those who have never been to one, it’s the best (and most fun) way to buy food around here. There are open-air tents where dozens of vendors sell fresh fruits and vegetables very cheaply, and you’re supposed to bargain with them so they lower the price. I bought 3 peppers, 4 plum tomatoes, 2 nectarines and two apples for 10 shekels, which is about $2.50 in US dollars. In other cities, there are shuks that sell meat, but I got some chicken down the road.

In addition to ulpan classes, we’ll also be doing some volunteer work in Ashkelon. So yesterday while most of the group had a training session for one of their placements, 3 of us went to the other absorption center in the city, called Beit Canada (literally, Canada House – go figure, our one Canadian on the program did not come with us, but he did go there today). Their Mercaz Klita as it’s called in Hebrew is much larger than ours, and in addition to students, there are many families who live in apartments there with their kids. The absorption center has after school classes and activities for the kids, and we’ll be helping out with that. I was caught off-guard actually, because it wasn’t one of the volunteer options I had signed up to do or was even interested in, but as soon as we got there and toured the buildings and saw the kids, I decided I definitely wanted to spend some time there. Almost all of the families are Ethiopian immigrants and I guess a lot of them are undergoing an official conversion to Judaism (I’m so interested in learning more about the Ethiopian Jews so I’m really excited to start working with them). But the kids were so cute and they were so excited to see us come through their classrooms. And it was super easy to get there – there’s a bus that stops right down the street from where we live and takes us within a block of the absorption center. Transportation in this city is so cheap. All bus fares are 3.8 shekels (less than $1), and cabs almost anywhere cost 20 shekels, so if you split a cab ride with 3 other people, it amounts to about $1.25 a person.

I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to write another post before Rosh Hashana, so if I don’t, Shana Tova U’Metukah to everyone!

Boker Tov M'Ashkelon

2009-09-10T08:37:00.000+03:00

Greetings from Ashkelon, where I’ll be living for the next 3 months. I can’t believe I landed in Israel just over a week ago – we’ve done so much and spent so much time together as a group that it feels like so much longer. In addition to orientation sessions, we went to the Kotel in the Old City of Jerusalem for Shabbat, hiking in the Negev, swimming (or floating) in the Dead Sea, and we’ve now settling into our new home in an immigrant absorption center. These are places where new Olim can live for free for up to three weeks while they look for an apartment. They can stay longer and their rent is highly subsidized by the Israeli government. I’m living with 2 other guys, Derek from Montreal and Aaron from Chicago. Our apartment is very basic – a bedroom with 2 of the beds, a common area where my bed is, a kitchenette and a bathroom. Besides our program, there are a handful of students attending the university in Ashkelon and there are Ethiopians and South Americans living in our absorption center.

In the little time we’ve had to explore our new home, Ashkelon seems like a great city to start out. It’s right on the Mediterranean, there are about 110,000 people who live here, and there’s also a university, so there are plenty of students in their mid-20s in the area. There’s a marina filled with cool sailboats and surrounded by bars and restaurants with outdoor patio seating. I haven’t yet seen the beach during the day, but friends who have gone say it’s beautiful and the waves are huge. We did go to a bar on the beach the other night that was really chill. The seating was couch-style with big cushions and pillows and there were even seating on the sand and you could walk directly to the shorelines (which we obviously did).

Needless to say, I’ve advertised my love of ice cream from the first time we went around the circle to introduce ourselves. We had a pot-luck dinner last night and I was summoned at the end of the meal to take care of the melting ice cream before it all turned to soup. I also made sure to hit up a good gelato place on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem when we were there last weekend.

As for what we’ll be doing here in Ashkelon – our Hebrew classes start on Monday and then we’ll be volunteering a few hours a week in places around the community (we’re supposed to hear more about that later today). Weekends are Friday/Saturday, and we’re free most weekends to travel or do what we want. So tomorrow I’m heading to visit my newly-discovered cousin Eli and his family in Efrat, and then I’ll be with cousins on the other side of the family the following weekend for Rosh Hashana.

Our internet situation is still being worked out – hopefully we’ll have it set up by Sunday or Monday. For the time being, there is a free kiosk in the lobby of where we’re staying, and we’re poaching wireless access in the front yard from someone named Sergei. We don’t know who he is but we thank him for not password protecting his router. That’s it for now – sorry it took so long to get another update up here. I’ll post some pictures when we have reliable internet because it’s too slow to do it with this connection. Miss you all back home!

Greetings from Yerushalayim

2009-09-03T21:34:00.001+03:00

Hello from Jerusalem

We're staying at the Rabin Hostel in Jerusalem for the next several days. So far so good - we have a group of 37 Americans and 1 Canadian and so far everyone seems pretty cool. We've done plenty of ice breakers and get to know you activities and I have almost everyone's name down pat (which is a pretty big feat for me). We have orienation for the next week or so - Shabbat tomorrow night at the Kotel and then a 2 day hike starting on Sunday which should be great before moving into our apartments in Ashkelon. I'll write a bit more when I have time but for now just thought I'd let everyone know that I've arrived safely...more soon!

Bruchim Ha'Ba'im

2009-07-24T21:32:00.000+03:00

That's "welcome" in Hebrew.

Me blogging? I guess it had to happen...I'll be posting my random thoughts, observations, and misadventures throughout my year in Israel. Until then, I'm gonna sit back and unwind and enjoy the summertime.