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 :)

Campus Negev!

We got back last week from a week-long trip to the Negev, which is the desert in southern Israel. It takes up about 70% of the land in Israel, but there are very few people who live there because it is a desert and there is very little civilization set up there. The trip was AWESOME-I learned a lot and had so much fun with the people I was with. Some highlights:

1. We spent a day learning about Bedouins. First, we went to "Ohel HaShalom," the tent of peace, and spoke to Bedouins who told us about Bedouins who go to the army. It is usually looked down upon in their culture to join the army, but there is an organization that helps them in the army if they decide to go. We also learned there about different specifics in their culture, such as the whole idea of hospitality (it is a rule that they must prepare tea or coffee for each guest they have), and how they live together in tribes with one man who is responsible for telling them what they can or cannot do. We visited about four Bedouin homes during the week, and we heard a different point of view from all of them, which was also really cool.

2. We learned a lot about what people who live in the Negev think about the Zionist idea of having people move from the cities to the desert in order to habilitate all the land that Israel has. Most people who live there told us that they moved because they love the sand, the peace and quiet, the security, etc. They have to drive an hour and a half each way to take their children to school, but it is worth it to them because they feel that they have a better quality of life. This is interesting because most people seem to think that habilitating the Negev is a purely Zionist idea, but the people who are putting it into action did not move because of Zionism.

3. We went on an all-day hike in Ein Akev, which was amazing. We did a little solo-hike, and it was great to feel alone in the middle of the huge desert. We also took a break to go swimming in a FREEZING spring before lunch-it was probably the coldest I've ever been in my life! You couldn't breathe as soon as you got in, and within a minute I could not feel my toes. Picture below :)


This weekend is "Shabbat Ptucha," meaning that many of our Israeli recruitees are coming to spend Shabbat with us, to see if they like the mechina and can see themselves spending next year here. Everyone is really excited about it, and we are working hard to put it all together!

A few hours after the recruitees leave, we are leaving for Jerusalem, where we will spend the week doing archeological digging and touring around the city. I'm very excited!

Getting into the water!



After a few minutes...




Our whole group at Mitzpeh Ramon!