Chovek and the week after

Every year, the mechina does a 2-week trip at the beginning of the last month of the program as a kind of everything-we've-missed-this-year trip. It's called the Chovek. This is the longest trip we've done, and we actually went all over Israel! We started with a 2-day backpacking trip in the Galil area (north), in which we jumped into many springs and had our last night together sleeping outside. Afterwards, we spent a day in Tzfat, which is the center of Kabbalah-very interesting to learn about. Everyone said that they felt like they weren't in Israel due to the amount of English we heard on the streets! There were so many Birthright trips-even the store owners would speak to us in English. I visited the candle store that we all fell in love with on EIE-they make candle models of everything!!! It is beautiful.

Me and Yoella in the ma'ayan (spring) in the Galil!

After Tzfat, we spent a few hours in the Tel-Aviv area, where we visited a lobster ranch-this guy cross-breeds lobsters and sends them overseas for lots of money. We were in the place where they breed-it is so hot in there! It's a little controversial because 1. lobsters aren't kosher so there was a little debate about if what he is doing is even legal, and 2. the guy hires immigrants from Thailand to work in the ranch because no Israeli is willing to do the physically challenging work in such heat. It was interesting, though.

We moved on to Jerusalem, where we went up to the Temple Mount (!!!), visited The Holy Sepluchre,vvisited an Armenian church, and met with a Muslim man at the police station. This was probably one of the best days on the chovek-it was so interesting. The next morning, I left the group to stay at my grandparents for the day because I was invited by Masa to a dinner with a Chicago delegation coming to Israel with Senator Mark Kirk. I was one of the 6 representatives of Masa, and we each sat at our own table with 5 businessmen. It was a delicious dinner, and cool to meet these people, who would later be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and flying by helicopter all around the country, as well as to Jordan to meet with the king and queen there. Craaaazy!

We spent a day at Ba'ad 1, the army base where officers are trained, and participated in a run there with 12,000 Israeli soldiers. Afterwards, we drove to Tel-Aviv and went to the Bamba factory (a popular Israeli snack food), and stood on the roof of the Azraeli Towers, skyscrapers in Tel-Aviv (49 stories haha). We finished at one of the kids in my programs' house with a barbeque and comedy night. It was a great trip, even though it flew by too fast!

At the top of the towers!

The week after we got back was our week of all-nighters. On Sunday we met in Jerusalem and had a tour until 2 am in which we walked the same path that the paratroopers walked in the Six Day War (1967) when Jerusalem was reunited. Two days afterwards was Shavuot, the Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah, in which it is a custom to stay up all night learning Torah. Therefore, we stayed up until 5 am. (Sidenote: we were the first group ever in Nachshon to stay for a holiday! Pretty awesome.) 2 days after that, the head of our mechina told us the story of a battle he fought in during the 6 Day War from 6:30 pm until 3:30 am. Word is that this is the only war story that takes longer than the battle itself!

It is customary to wear white on Shavout!

I am back at the mechina now for our final 2 weeks...so sad! We are preparing for 2 things mostly right now-our end of the year ceremony with a huuuuuge play and the logistics of cleaning up the mechina for next year. I am also giving a lesson on Friday which switched topics about a million times in the past 2 days. From friendship, to Hinduism, to spirituality, to economics of religion, to finally...cosmetic surgery. Hope it goes well!

Kiytana, Passover, and Yosh (the West Bank) !

I am going to write now about three very different and exciting weeks! I'm going to start with שבוע קייטנה, which is a week that the mechina does every year where we plan a day camp in an area around our mechina. This year we did it in Kiryat Gat in a community center. There were about 240 kids there who were split into groups of about 22, with 2 or 3 counselors each! It was hard, to say the least. The kids were super cute, but also super crazy. There were two girls from the program who had spent hours and hours and hours writing activites and coming up with the schedule for those five days, but it was nearly impossible to do the activites because the kids would not listen at all! I learned a lot about education in this week, though. We talk a lot in the mechina about the problems with the education system in Israel, many of which are similar to the problems in America, and it always seemed so simple to solve those problems. But experiencing what it's like to have such a big group of children who don't care about listening to a single thing you say made me rethink a lot of the assumptions I had made before. The truth is that the counselor:camper ratio during the camp was much smaller than a lot of the teacher:student ratios in schools, and we weren't even trying to make them sit and learn something-we were trying to have fun!

Other than the problems we had with listening, though, we had a lot of fun with the kids, and we had a lot of free time after the camp was over in the afternoon. It was nice to have time to be together without programming-it's something that doesn't happen very much.




Me with one of the cuter campers

The whole group with our awesome staff shirts!

The community center that we had the camp at wanted to thank us for volunteering to organize the camp, so they had a zumba teacher come at give us a lesson! The boys left halfway through, but it's really too bad we didn't get a picture with them :)


After the camp, we left for a break for Passover. On that Sunday, my family landed in Tel-Aviv, and I met them at the airport! We stayed at a hotel in Jerusalem the whole week, had seder with my Israeli family, and spent the week with family and getting ready for my sister Aviva's bat-mitzvah! The bat-mitzvah was great; the room was beautiful (with a view of Jerusalem in the background) and Aviva was amazing. Everybody was very proud of her.

My siblings and cousins after the bat-mitzvah!

Just a few days ago, we got back from the West Bank (Yehuda V'Shomron, or Yosh יהודה ושומרון, יו"ש). We spent a week there learning about the political situation and touring around the area. I will start by saying that this was one of the coolest experiences ever, because I never thought that I would be able to do something like this. The West Bank sounds like such a dangerous place, but I was able to spend a week there in this framework and feel completely safe the whole time! I will highlight a few of my favorite things that we did. First, we spent Shabbat in Kdumim with host families-I was with Esti and the Schwartz family-they have 11 children! Only four of them were home, and they were all such sweethearts! We sat with them for hours at the table, both for Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch, and they openly shared with us how is it to live in the West Bank. Obviously, they are very right-winged (they think that all of the West Bank should belong to the Jews), but they knew that we were coming from a different background than them, and they did everything they could so that we would feel comfortable in their home. Of course, being with Esti is always an hilarious experience, so just a couple stories that happened at the dinner table....1. The father said that he went to school in Be'er Sheva so Esti asked him if he had ever been to the Forum (a club there). 2. Esti invited the 24-year-old son who is very very religious and I hadn't heard a word from the whole day to come to our "slumber party" at night. Hahaha

We spent a day and night in Hevron, a 97% Arab city. We visited Ma'arat HaMachpala, which is the cave in which Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah are supposedly buried in. This place is holy both to Jews and Muslims, but they are separated because of an incident that occurred a few years ago in which a Jew shot at Arabs there. Hevron's reputation is that it is a very violent and dangerous city, and many Israelis feel negatively about the people who live there because of how right-winged they are. It was very interesting to hear about Hevron from the Jews who live there and not from the media. Again, I never thought I would be able to spend a day in Chevron, let alone a night.

Some fun things we did-we met somebody who told us a story about a princess who is locked away in a castle through juggling and unicycling. It was so awesome! We also did the second longest zip line in the world-400 meters-in Gush Etzion!

Some of the group at a viewpoint

The organization that organized the trip for us is making a movie to show on Jerusalem Day about their programs, and they interviewed me to be in the movie! They basically told me they were going to cut me out at the end of my interview, but if not, over 2,000 people will see it. ah!

We stopped at a ma'ayan (spring) for lunch...the best part of all trips.

Some of the most beautiful views I've seen in my life are in the West Bank.

Survival Week! שבוע הישרדות!!

I came back on Friday from Survival Week, which is a very exciting secret week that Nachshon does every year-the alum are not allowed to tell us ANYTHING about it, and we aren't allowed to tell about it! We didn't even know where we would be or how long the trip would be! Therefore, I won't write many details in this blog, but if you send me an email or facebook message, I'll give you the deets!

We dressed up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for Purim!!! (the short girls and one tall dwarf)

After the Survival Week! Yay!

A few pictures!

Living in Israel

As some of you may have heard, this afternoon there was a terrorist attack in Jerusalem next to the Central Bus Station, a place I have stood many more times than I can count. 20 people were injured, and one was killed. Last night at about midnight, we heard a siren in the mechina and we all hurried to the bomb shelter that we have inside of the boys' bathroom. There were a few katushot (small bombs) in cities close to the mechina, including Ashkelon, Ashdod, and others. It's scary to be in a place where it is possible for things like this to even happen-at home, I would never imagine something like this happening. Although it is terrible, it is giving me insight into what life can be like for Israeli families. Last night when we were in the bomb shelter, everybody was very relaxed about it and even took it as a joke. I asked around to see if maybe the reason people were so relaxed was because they were so used to it. For many people, it was there first time hearing a siren and going to a bomb shelter, but somebody else told me that he went to a bomb shelter every day for a month and a half.

I know that we are very safe at the mechina-it is unlikely that anything will hit us in the first place, and even if something came close, we are well protected in the rooms and hallways until we can make it to the shelter. However, there is fear that these attacks will continue, in which case I will continue to be scared to ride on buses (basically my only form of transportation here) or even go on runs outside of the mechina, because the bomb shelters will be far away. I remember talking to my Israeli family about 6 years ago, when the attacks were more common, and they told me that they did not let the attacks impact their life-it is not healthy to live in fear 24/7. This is something that all Israelis must deal with; even if there are not attacks in their neighborhood, the country is so small that everybody knows people around the country, so an attack in a place that is far away still has a high probabilty of affecting you.

After the initial stress this afternoon, when we all crouded around the TV and watched what was happening in Jerusalem, everything went back to normal. We continued to stay updated on the news, but other than that, we are going back to our normal schedule-leaving for Survival Week on Saturday (I think...they still haven't told us when!) My bag is packed so that I can leave in 15 seconds when I hear the whistle. Ahh!

Right now, we are in the middle of "Education Week," and all of our lessons are about education, which is one of the most interesting topics in my opinion! We have learned about problems in education in Israel, education for tourists, education in sports, education in agriculture, religious education, technological education, and much more. It's been inspiring me to think more strongly about having a career in education in the future.

So many updates!!!

Okay, I know I haven't written in soooooo long, so I am going to try to give a short update on everything we've done since Gadna! This is an almost impossible task, but I will try my hardest.

First of all, exactly one month ago, I was on a plane to BARCELONA for three days! I went during the one week break that we got from the mechina. I went with my friend Shir from the mechina and her friend Inbar from her high school. We had busy days and did so many amazing things-my favorites were seeing all of Gaudi's architecture, seeing a beautiful church about an hour and a half train ride from Barcelona, seeing the flea market, going on a bicycle tour of the city, and of course, the breakfast at the hotel!!! Other than that breakfast, the food really sucked in Barcelona, so we ate huge breakfasts, late lunches, and very small dinners. Below are a couple pictures, and I have a lot more that will hopefully be on facebook soon!

Shir, Inbar, and me in a chocolate shop in the Spanish quarter on Mont Juic!



Me and Shir in Park Gaudi!

The weekend after I got back, I got to the mechina a day early with the rest of "Taboo Committee" to decorate the mechina! We made lots and lots of signs and printed out lots of post-secret postcards to put around becuase they are taboo. It was really awesome!

We had a three-day trip in Haifa, which was something that we had all voted on as a group because the program had left us three completely empty days to do whatever we wanted! Haifa is a city with both Arabs and Jews living together, so we had a few lectures about that. We also visited the Bahai Gardens, a few schools that are considered to be exceptional, and Elijiah's Cave. After our three day trip, we went to a leadership seminar in Tel-Chai, which is very north, right on the border with Lebanon. We were there with a few other mechinot, and we had many interesting lectures about leadership in all spheres: politics, army, family, and more. While we were there, we got to stay in a special hostel for soldiers, and we all got beds!!! It was the first time we slept in beds on a trip, and it was especially nice after the night before, where all 45 of us slept in a tiny wrestling gym of some school with only one bathroom whose door wouldn't close. The wrestling mats also tempted the boys to have fights until late at night, which is a not-so-pleasant experience when there isn't room for that in the first place and you are trying to sleep. :)

The whole group in a rainy Chaifa!

Me and Sagit at the Bahai Gardens

An outside lecture!

Since then, we've had Israeli Culture Week, which I was also on the committee for (It was Chulyat Tiyulim), which ended up being great! It was stressful at first because everything was very last minute, but the feedback we got was great. We were supposed to have "Survival Week" this week, which is something that the counselors plan and we don't know anything about it, other than that we will have to navigate and probably not get very much food. However, because of the predicted rainy weather, they postponed the trip, which was very stressful for all of us becuase we thought they were lying to us-the whole week is kind of them keeping secrets from us. Anyway, we had to plan a week in about 2 days, and it actually is turning out to be one of the best weeks we've had! We had a two-day hiking trip today and yesterday around the area that we are living in, and we are bringing tons of interesting lecturers! I'm excited! 

Gadna

Two posts in three days! Woo!

I'm going to write about Shavua Gadna in this post, our week in army simulation. We spent the week in an army base called Tzalmon, in the north of Israel, close to the Kineret. The view there was BEAUTIFUL!!! Other than that, there weren't very many beautiful things about the week. Stam! (Just kidding!) No but actually, it was a very fun week, and I learned a lot, too.

I connected less to the week than a lot of people did, because it was a lot of talking about different jobs in the army and other things that apply more to people who are going to the army, which I am not. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about different "dargot" (levels) in the army, what different signs on the uniforms mean, "tohar haneshek" (literally meaning "purity of the weapon," but is the concept in the IDF of using weapons in a moral way), women in the army, and much more.

Highlights of the week:
1. They told us every morning we would have 20 minutes to get ready, which is relatively a lot. They ended up waking us up early for two of the mornings and telling us we had 7 minutes to get our uniforms on, go to the bathroom, and do whatever else we needed to do.
2. Yom Shetach, our Day in the Field. We spent a day outside of the base in the middle of some vines, simulating what fighters do when they train in the field. We learned and practiced how to do army crawls (we all have black-and-blue knees now), we did a "masa," hike/run/journey, with stretchers and crawling, and we did a group competition where we had to eat a can of tuna, a can of loof  (the most DISGUSTING thing in the world...basically meat leftovers), and chug a 5 liter jerrycan of water as quickly as possible. It was very fun. We were supposed to sleep outside that night, but there were 4 drops of rain in the middle of the night, so we weren't allowed.
3. We stood in "Hakshev" for hours at a time. This means with your legs in a v position and your hands in a special position behind your back. It hurts, but I can now do more push-ups because the hand position makes your arms stronger I guess.
4. I shot an M-16!!!! I didn't hit the target at all, but it was mostly because I was so nervous.

We were all split up into groups of about 15 that we spent allllll our time with during the week. My group was great! We made lots of cheers, and we came out of the week much closer than when we began. Tzevet Sheva 4eva!!!!!!

One more thing-I had already done this week 3 years ago with my EIE program when I was here as a sophomore in high school. It was a very similar thing, except that this time, they tried to make it harder for us because we are older and in a mechina, and I didn't have to translate the whole time :) Anyway, this week brought back many Gadna memories and just EIE memories in general, and I realized how meaningful that semester was to me. Later in the week, I visited my brother YONI at Tzuba, where EIE is based! He just got here for the program. I miss EIE, but I know that it helped me in the best way that it could, and now I am moving on to even bigger and better things.

Campus Jerusalem

I'm going to write about our trip to Jerusalem now, which actually happened about three weeks ago, but I am going to try my best to remember the details!

The mechina organized during the summer for a different program to plan this trip for us, and they provided us with tour guides and a place to sleep and some funding. This is very different than what usually happens, because we didn't get to pick the places we wanted to go or prepare the lectures ourselves. Although this was a downside, the upside was that our tour guides were great and gave us knowledge on a level that we would not have been able to do ourselves.

The first three days of the trip were very difficult. We spent three hours a day doing archeological work, which sounds cool, but basically we just stood in an assembly line for three hours and passed 5-pound bags of sand to each other. The sand in the bags would later be inspected by archeologists who would look for artifacts to discover exactly what the place we were in was. After the 3-4 hours, we learned in a classroom about the City of David until we had lunch at 2:30, which was very late for us. Then, we walked around the City of David and learned A LOT of history about the place. Some of us were a little dissapointed that we spent so much time focusing on the City of David and not on the rest of Jerusalem, but we learned a lot and it was pretty interesting. It was harder for me because I didn't understand everything, and we only got about 5 hours of sleep every night, so many people had trouble staying awake during the day.

After the first three days, the trip got a lot a lot better. We learned about the green line that separated Israel from Jordan before the Six Day War, and about how this line was drawn by military men who had no intention of the line lasting longer than a couple months, but it ended up lasting 20 years. The line was drawn hastily, and people's houses were cut into two, so they couldn't cross from the kitchen to the living room without being shot. We learned a little about Christianity and Islam in Jerusalem, because the place is holy for many religions, and this part was especially interesting to me. Then, we walked to Shuk Machane Yehuda, which is a famous market in Jerusalem. We played a game where we had to walk around and ask the shopkeepers for recipes related to their own ethnic group. Most people were very nice, and we even got a few free samples!

The last day, we woke up at 3 am to start a "masa," or journey, called our "Aliyah L'Yerushalayim." Basically, we walked from Ma'ale Adumim area to Jerusalem in order to simulate the hike that Jews used to make from their homes to Jerusalem for specific holidays to make sacrifices at the Temple. We ended at the Kotel, the Western Wall, and we had a meaningful closing circle and wrote notes to put into the wall. This was my first time at the Kotel this year, and it was great to be there again.

So to sum this up, the trip was really really hard. We were always exhausted, and it was tiring to spend so much time in an assembly line passing sacks to each other. However, it was also one of the most fun trips we've had, and I'm so glad that I finished it to the end (about half the group left in the middle because it was so hard...we ended with 29 people out of 50). Jerusalem has a different atmosphere than other cities in Israel, and I've decided that when I do live in Israel, I will want to live in Jerusalem.

An example of every 5-minute break we had!

Me, Ori, and Sagit with a beautiful view of Jerusalem!

Brad, Roy, Tali, me, and Ori. We are also by the view, but it is blocked by trees. I like this photo anyway though :)