Beginning of the year

Not only is this the beginning of the new Jewish calendar but it is also the beginning of my year as a Yahel participant. For those of you who don't know, Yahel works with partners in Gedera and other nearby cities in Israel to work with the Ethiopian Israeli population. For more information on their programs and the organization, check out www.yahelisrael.com.

We are now three days into the Yahel program and I could not be more excited about this year. There are 8 of us participants living and working together, and we are from all over -California, New York, Virginia, Canada, and Georgia. We are three men and five women with varying Jewish backgrounds and Hebrew ability. I am the oldest and most of the rest of the group just finished college.

We are living in a house with 5 rooms and 2.5 baths. We have a nice kitchen and an outside patio. We have air conditioning downstairs but not in our rooms. That isn't going to be a problem in the next few weeks because even now it gets chilly at night.

Gedera is a small town with about 20,000 people south of Tel Aviv. The neighborhood is nice and everything we need is within walking distance. The big thing about Israel is they don't have one-stop shops like Target or even the big grocery stores where you can get almost everything you need from one place. Stores here are small and have a speciality for the most part. There is this great spice and bulk food store nearby that we found. At the grocery store, there are mainly only groceries although they have a bigger selection of shampoo than the pharmacy. Need envelopes? I went to a store that had kids' toys and they had some paper goods there. There is a health food store that sells Tofutti and seitan but it is pretty expensive. Sometimes I just miss going to one store and getting everything I need (CVS, Kroger, Target)!

Our orientation for the next few weeks will discuss the Ethiopian Jewish experience in Ethiopia and coming to and living in Israel. We have already discussed what our schedule will generally look like once school is in session. We are going to have ulpan (Hebrew language study) every week for the entire 9 months including a four day intensive beginning session during orientation in a few weeks. We will be volunteering much of the week in a few different capacities and learning about 10 hours week. There are a few overnight trips and seminars throughout the country, as well. In the last few days, We also had a traditional Ethiopian meal with injera, lentils, a dish made from chickpeas, and a potato and carrot stew. We also had buna, a traditional coffee "ceremony" from Ethiopia. The coffee is offered in small glasses about the size of shot glasses and we drink 3 rounds though we were told that you don't have to drink it all if you can't handle the caffeine. People typically drink it three times a day and is a time when mainly the women apparently sit and chat.

From the little information we have received about Jewish practice among Ethiopian Jews, we learned that Ethiopian Jews follow a more biblical Jewish practice. Because it is not written in the Torah not to use the radio on Shabbat, that is not prohibited in Shabbat, and because most Ethiopian Jews did not have electricity in Ethiopia, the practices are pretty different from what I have been learning about lately. Also kosher has a different meaning because the Torah only says not to boil a goat in its mother's milk; hence eating chicken and cheese is not a problem. It is so interesting knowing that all the oral law written down by rabbis after the Biblical period are not followed by this Jewish community yet they are very much Jewish and have always been identified as such in Ethiopia. Only after the community has come to Israel and encountered the other Jewish communities has their identity been questioned by the Ashkenazi or Sephardi communities.

I'm looking forward to continue learning this year and I am so excited about how the next 9 months are going to progress. I know the 9 months will be over before I know it.

I hope everyone has an easy and meaningful fast this Yom Kippur!

Rosh Hashanah

Shana tova everyone! I spent the holiday with a friend of mine from the Jewel program. It was a thoroughly Latin American/Israeli holiday. The first night we went to the home of a rabbi from Argentina. Everyone spoke Spanish (and some English and some Hebrew but mainly Spanish). Since my Spanish is much better than my Hebrew, I understood at least some of the conversations. Monday morning we went to shul and heard the shofar blow. For lunch we went to a family from New York, so I could participate more in the conversation but for dinner, we had guests over and the conversation was mostly in Hebrew. I am picking up a few more words here and there but I need to study more. Looking forward to ulpan starting next week. We had played a lot of Monopoly (the travel one with the cards instead of the real monopoly) and I read a bit. We went back to shul on Tuesday and then chilled the rest of the day. Tuesday night after chag was over, we watched a movie.

I tend to use this time of the year To reflect on the past year and look ahead to the next year. I usually participate in 10Q (google it) that gives prompt questions every day between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It's amazing how much of a different place physically, mentally, and spiritually I am this year than last year. I think we often forget to stop and reflect on how life changes and where those changes influence you as a person. I'm learning so much about myself and what I want for myself in the future but also I'm leaning about the vast difference and similarities between people and among cultures. Being a backpacker, you meet so many different people and hear their stories. We are all typically trying to make the best of our experiences.

Anyway, I wish you all a happy and healthy new year and year to come!

Travels through next week

I haven't written in a while. I've been too busy traveling! After our cruise, Helen and I spent a day in Athens to see all the sites there and then took a day trip to Delphi. Both are really neat and I really enjoyed learning about and seeing some of the ruins. It is just so crazy to think that these structures were constructed over 2000 years ago and are still standing. Then in Wednesday, we went to Budapest. We got there in the evening and were too tied to really do anything. Plus I started to come down with a cold. By Thursday, my cold was full blown, but we did a 3 hour walking tour, mostly of Buda, then found the Great Synagogue in Pest and went to the Széchenyi thermal baths. That was exciting for a while until I started thinking about all the people in the baths and the bacteria. Then I was ready to get out. We ate dinner at a place that my friend Libby suggested since she lived there for a year and then we went back to the hostel to pack. Some travel stress ensued due to the Lufthansa strike, but everything turned out okay. When I got back to Tel Aviv after midnight of Saturday, I was exhausted. My cold got worse and I spent Saturday in bed. I'm feeling better thanks to medicine!
I've been in Eilat since Monday. I waded in the Red Sea (which is not red but is gloriously chilly) and you dry off within 10 minutes of getting out of the water. Tuesday, I took a jeep tour to Timna Park, a desert near Eilat that has wall carvings from ancient civilizations. Today, I went to Petra, Jordan. It was cool, but a long day for only 3.5 hours at the site. I'm going diving with dolphins tomorrow and then back to Tel Aviv before spending Rosh Hashanah with a friend and her family. I'm hoping to go to Jerusalem next week for a few days before ending back in Tel Aviv to meet up with my group for my program. Looking forward to doing laundry, unpacking, and settling in one place for a while!

Not an upscale ferry

Helen and I booked a four day, three night cruise in the Greek islands a few months ago. My mom was convinced that it was an "upscale ferry." At last, I'm glad to say that it was not an upscale ferry. We started in Athens on Friday morning and left the port around 11am. We spent the day on the boat (I went to the pool and laid out in the sun) and arrived in Mykonos around 4. Mykonos was adorable and we walked through town for a bit. Watching the sun set was gorgeous but there is no way my camera would capture it well enough. Even so, I took lots of pictures. We went back to the boat for a three course dinner and went to bed early. The ship was rocking pretty hard in the middle of the night. We got up early Saturday morning to join our excursion in Kusadasi, Turkey. In Kusadasi, we saw Ephesus with one of the wonders of the ancient world. It was so great to have a tour guide. We wouldn't have known anything that we were looking at without one. They also took us to a rug store (Turkey is known for their rugs) and we watched a demonstration of the different rugs available. They were so amazing but incredibly expensive. I chose to buy a small square that you can put on a table or something. Then we walked through the bazaar on our way back to the ship for lunch. Again I went to the pool after lunch but got sunburnt - oops. In the evening, we stopped in Patmos and we just walked around for a bit. Sunday morning, we woke up to for our trip to Oia Village in Santorini. The island is very pretty and full of shops. I bought a lot of souvenirs and we ate on the island. After getting back to the ship, we promptly took a long nap before dinner. This morning, we had to get off the boat by 7am so we got up early again. The cruise was so nice and relaxing and it actually was not very expensive, even with the excursions.

Today we are finally seeing the sights in Athens and tomorrow we want to take a tour to Delphi before going to Budapest on Wednesday.

Have a good week everyone!