Pesach (Passover)

April brings... MOM AND DAD to Israel!!! Just spent 10 days traveling the country with them. So much fun. I can't believe it's already over! Time flew too fast.

Dad's first falafel!

 We stayed in Jerusalem for a bit, then hit all the hot spots including the Old City, Masada, Dead Sea, alllllllll over the north including Tiberias, Nazareth, Akko, Haifa, Cesarea, and then ended in Tel Aviv! We even went to Ashkelon to meet some of my amazing adoptive family.

crater right outside Yerucham

adorable in the Old City

Ashkelon beach!

Pita as a Kipa.. Tiberias

Akko

Cesarea

Ahh, Tel Aviv sunset on the beach

March Catch Up 2

At the end of March, OTZMA had a northern tour seminar. The weekend before, Shauna and I decided to go visit other OTZMAnikim in Beit Shean, up north. GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS! We were so amazed by the beautiful greenery. We decided that we had been living in the desert for too long. We visited Beit Shean National Park too. Then we met up with the rest of OTZMA and toured a little bit of the north, sites included a Druze village, a hike, and Akko! Enjoy the pictures:

playing around Beit Shean

Beit Shean National Park

self timer skills from a tree branch

ahh the beautiful north

crooked hostel room in a Druze village

taking a break on the hike

Safta Gamilla factory and store, lovely soap and candle products

Akko

whats left of an ancient port in Akko

March Catch Up

Purim was spent in Sde Boker, a nice little kibbutz in the desert not far from Yerucham. There is an international university there, so we were able to go to a Purim party with the students! There were some awesome costumes. The next day there was a parade put on by the high schoolers. They made all of these amazing floats. Very talented students!

Where did the time go?

February and March completely flew by. I have no idea where the time went and how it is already April. February had a few noteworthy events:

 I visited my adoptive family in Ashkelon for the weekend, getting away from the desert and spending some time in the beach was just want I needed. I missed this city. I lived there for only 2 months in the beginning of the program but I love it, as I have blogged about it in previous notes. I rested, laid on the beach, and just relaxed. Most of my weekdays are filled with teaching, coaching, tutoring, and learning, so this free time just for myself felt fantastic. 

Ashkelon beach :)

OTZMA also had a Shabbat Mifgash, where our program meets with a group of Israelis who work in the summer camps in the states. Shabbat Mifgash means a meeting over the Shabbas weekend. We participated in ice breakers and discussions, went into the woods for some team bonding activities, brought in Shabbat together, continued some more discussions and just got to know each other. One of my favorite activities was the “Speed dating” where our madrichim sat us in two circles: and inner circle facing the outer circle, all mixed in with each other (Israelis/OZTMAnikim). We were paired up and given a question to discuss. The questions ranged from “If you could invent something, what would it be?” to “the most romantic thing you’ve done/had done for you.” After each question one of the circles would move a few seats so we got to talk to almost everyone. Another activity I really enjoyed was called “Beseder/ Lo Beseder” which means “Okay/Not okay.” The way this worked was our madrichim would bring up a topic or an issue and each one of us would say if it was beseder or lo beseder for them. It was really interesting to see all of the different perspectives from everyone, especially among the Israelis. The topics ranged from Justin Bieber to the settlements in the West Bank to Gilad Shalit. 

March brought many good things. My birthday being one of them!

So Nili, our sweet, sweet program coordinator of a mom took Shauna and me out to lunch for my birthday in Beer Sheva. We went to this really nice Chinese restaurant and wined and dined for a good two hours. The next day I received two cakes for my birthday! One from Shauna and one from the teacher I work with Karen. She is such a sweet and amazing woman!

 That night I ventured to Ashkelon to meet up with my friends Arielle and Rachel also from OTZMA, because the next morning, we were headed up North to go……SKY DIVING!!! Yes I finally went sky diving! It was a gift to myself for my birthday. We trekked by train to the North, up close to Haifa. The place was in Habonim beach and the landscape was absolutely beautiful. We couldn’t have asked for better weather that day. Max, another OTZMAnik met up with us and decided to sky dive last minute too. How spontaneous! We were all freaking out, but we were determined to go through with it. I don’t think it really hit me until I was loaded into the plane. I was the first one in, which meant last one out! I had to sit through and watch all of my friends fall out of the plane before me! That was torture. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling I felt when I first fell out of the plane. A gist of it is like when you dream that you are falling and then you jerk yourself awake, it is that feeling before you jerk awake. And it also lasted more than a second! The experience just falling and flying through the sky was beyond amazing, especially getting to see the beautiful Israel landscape below me. My sky diver was so tall that I could stand on his feet while we were in the air!

After falling from the sky, all of us traveled to Haifa to visit some more OTZMAnikim living there. This was my first time to Haifa and it was beautiful! There were quite a few others that traveled up to Haifa for the weekend as well so we all went out to a nice dinner! The plans were to go out to this local bar for the night, but I felt sick (due to my ongoing stomach problems) so I stayed in and others went out. Bummer. But the next night I got to go out!

reenacting skydiving

After dealing with some health issues- and a special thanks to my host family who helped me out with it all, I got to attend the Building Future Leaders Conference hosted by MASA. So I was two days late but I was caught up to speed and enjoyed the rest of my time there. Along with several other OTZMAnikim, hundreds of other MASA participants were there. It was nice to meet other people from different programs in Israel. For the rest of the week there were workshops and seminars and discussions that were helpful and insightful for us. We also had another outdoorsy team bonding day with our groups. For one of the teamwork obstacles, I offered to NOT be the leader of the group because I thought someone else could do a better job at the task (which was to direct the team in opening a well and getting a bucket in the well without some of them seeing, and being directed by a partner whom I was directing without speaking!) I wish I was able to explain that better, but that is how complicated the task was. To add on to that, we were timed! So since I volunteered myself to be anything other than the leader, the rest of my group volunteered me to be the leader! So… I stepped up and became the leader. My group for the whole conference included some amazing people and I was really lucky to end up in this group. I love MASA events because I am meeting people just like me from all over the world in different programs all living in Israel. It’s unfortunate that I only have 3 more months left on the program…

some of the amazing people in my group!

Overview of January

January brought the Conflict and Hope Seminar. All of OTZMA was brought back together for a jam packed week of workshops and lectures of different views of the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict. I am not going to go into every detail of every lecture, but I do have to say good job to the OTZMA staff for putting this together. A lot of hard work went into planning this seminar, especially with all of security issues. They took us into the West Bank, we were hosted for Shabbat by families that lived in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, visited a small Arab village, and we listened to well-educated people that fell on both sides of the spectrum: to the extreme right and to the extreme left. Now, before this seminar, I was only a little informed of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from what I read in the news, and I didn’t know what to think or even grasp a concept of it. After this seminar, I am feel very well-informed, both sides have been explained to me to some extent (which hasn’t happened before since the US or anywhere else fails to distribute unbiased news) ….and not to say that each side isn’t biased themselves… but I can see how any kind of peace talk isn’t this simple agreement that can be made in a day. There are TONS of issues that are involved in order to create peace. The fact is, I may have become more informed on the whole conflict, but I STILL can’t grasp my hands around the concepts. Does that even make sense? If I was confused before, I am more confused now. Even overwhelmed by the information I received. I am unable to grab a hold of a single opinion of my own in this. There are so many unanswered questions that will go unanswered, for everyone. But I still ask why can’t there be just ONE Jewish State?  Maybe you understand how complicated this issue really is. Maybe you don’t.

View from Nokdim, a Jewish settlement

My lovely roomie for the week

Adorable little boy in an Arab village

Suseya

OTZMA at Neve Shalom

Other happenings in January:

Hike in Sde Boker, small Kibbutz town 20 minutes away. Maybe you have seen pictures from facebook. We met a friend, Oren, who took us right into his backyard- the desert. We hiked for about 5 hours or so and explored and talked. It was pretty amazing. Did a little make-shift rock climbing, and yes, I am out of shape.

We went to a Bath-Mitzvah! One of my students/gymnasts had a Bat-Mitzvah that we were invited to. This girl, no joke, is me when I was her age, 12. She does gymnastics, she likes to paint, and she plays flute (I played in 6^th grade). It wasn’t hard to become friends with her when we first met. She is like a little sister to me now, I am already sad thinking about when I have to leave…Anyway, she had a big dinner for Friday night Shabbat and then the service was Saturday morning. In more religious communities, women don’t read from the Torah in front of men, so all the women were in one room as Ester read from the Torah. It was nice seeing several classmates, and all the women of the community. I felt such a nice, connected sense of community there, supporting Ester.  She did so well, I was so proud! After all of the services came the Shabbat lunch, which was another big meal for all of her family and friends. I will admit, Moroccan food is quite delicious! I was grateful to be a part of Ester’s life at this time and to have this experience. There are not enough words to express how wonderful Yerucham can be; the close-knit community and the amazing people that live here really create a sense of togetherness and belonging.

One thing that never gets old here, the desert sunsets