It's been a busy last week, since we started most of our placements. Last Thursday, we went to Jerusalem, starting at Mount Herzl to see the memorial for Ethiopian Jews who died on the way to Israel. The memorial is in a weird place and you have to walk through a gate to get there, but you can't get back through the gate, so we walked through the woods to get back on the path. We don't know if that was an intentional part of the visit or not. I'm not convinced it is. The memorial had stone dojos (traditional Ethiopian houses) and written testimonies of some individuals' experiences. I read a prayer and a short poem I found online and then we had a short discussion about what we thought. I liked that we saw a part of Mount Herzl that we hadn't seen on Birthright. Apparently, many Israelis don't even know that it is there (and it was only completed a few years ago to commemorate those who died on the trek in 1984). So, it was pretty cool to see it.
We then met up with a tour guide to hear more about Ethiopian Christians in Israel. It was an educational day! We toured the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and learned about the struggle over the claim to the roof between the Coptic Christians and the Ethiopian Christians. After eating the best hummus in the old city (I'm not even kidding - it's across from one of the stops of the Via Dolorosa trail), we walked through the Arab market to the Ethiopian Church. Unfortunately, it was closed, but we still got to see the outside. The tour guide left us then and we went to meet Kasa, an Ethiopian Jewish activist who lives and works in Jerusalem. She told her amazing story and we were able to ask questions.
I stayed in Jerusalem for Shabbat and had a lovely time with my Hebrew teacher from Jewel and her family. I also met another girl who is living in Jerusalem. So good to meet new, cool people! Then, it was back to the grind Saturday night - back on the bus, that is. The transition from Shabbat to the rest of the week I think is much harder when you keep Shabbat. All of sudden, you are thrown back into life of technology and transportation and it absolutely breaks away from that calm and quiet you have during Shabbat. I don't keep every Shabbat, but when I do, it's always new and I always learn something about other people, myself, and the world in which we live.
Monday night, we went back to Jerusalem for the MASA opening event, which included one hour of MASA promotion and then the Idan Raichel Project came on. The beginning was ridiculous and over the top. But the Idan Raichel Project was so amazing. I wish we could have stayed longer, but alas, we had to get back to Gedera. I'm hoping to get some of his music because it was really great!
On Tuesday, we had ulpan as usual. In the middle of the class, after break, the siren starts going off. We all stop and wonder what we need to do. Thankfully it was just a drill, and apparently the other ulpan teacher knew about it. Our program coordinator came in and confirmed that it is just a drill, no need to worry, and we will have a discussion about it later. Our ulpan teacher didn't seem too fazed by it, and we briefly had a discussion about better to have rockets than natural disasters which you can't get away from, really. I thought about the tornado sirens at home and how scared I always am when I hear those sirens. The sirens sound the same here, and everyone knows what to do when they go off. In the States, I always had a plan for what to do in case of a tornado. While you can't really escape either, the point the ulpan teacher made about better have rockets than natural disasters really made me think. Is it better? I don't know. It's just a different threat. I'm sure an Israeli in St. Louis during tornado season would be terrified (although probably not because Israelis seem to know what to do in case of an emergency). Regardless, while the chance of rockets coming to Gedera are very, very slim, it is good to know exactly what to do when sirens go off, and we had a discussion after ulpan to remind us. (Don't worry, Mom and Dad! Everything is good here!) Just another part of life in Israel.
By the way, I'm working on uploading photos from my trip thus far. Please be patient and I'll post the link when I have them all online! Have a good rest of your week and Happy Halloween for those celebrating it!
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
בית ספר ומשרד
Last week, we started our major placements in the community. One of the places I will be volunteering at is the Pines school (pronounced like penis or pea-nes). I feel that there are so many differences between the schools here and the ones in the US. The biggest difference which I feel I'm going to have a problem with is classroom management and discipline The classroom is chaotic. Pure chaos. And it doesn't seem to me that the students really listen to authority. When the teacher asks them to be quiet or sit down or do a certain exercise, there is a constant struggle. It seems like there is a lot of threatening of repercussions but there is no punishment that will make a difference. The teacher tries to give positive reinforcement but it doesn't seem to be enough. Stickers or small candies are not enough to make students want to behave. I think it is just part of the culture. All the classrooms seem to be the same. At the least the few that I have seen. I will need to start bringing games that will hopefully catch the kids' attention more. It was so hard. I'm comparing this experience to when I worked in the first grade class in Atlanta for a few months. In the US, there is respect for authority. The students call the teachers by their last name and when you are misbehaving, there are consequences that matter. Also, the students want to please the teacher. There is order. Kids are not all over the place. They don't all crowd around the teacher and yell to get their way repeatedly. I feel it is going to be a challenging year but I hope I can help with English (and as my Hebrew gets better, it will be easier).
I also started working in the חברים בתבה (Friends by Nature) office. This is the nonprofit that facilitates the projects in seven Ethiopian communities throughout Israel. I will be working on a project to help Ethiopian Israelis prepare for the application for the shluchim program. This is a Jewish Agency program that brings Israelis to work at Jewish summer camps. Ethiopian Israelis are disadvantaged in the application process and we are trying to prepare those individuals who are interested in participating in the program in preparing for the intensive interview process. The application deadline is in the next few months so we don't have much time to pull everything together.
I haven't begun my shabab, where I will be tutoring English in the home, and I haven't started another English teaching group where I will get the opportunity to teach older men and women (25-50 years) whose Hebrew is more advanced but the learning will all be oral. While it will be challenging, I think it will be really rewarding for all involved.
This weekend I am going to Jerusalem. We are having a one day seminar on Thursday about Ethiopians in Jerusalem and then a few of us are staying Thursday night at a hostel (that's the plan anyway) and I will be spending Shabbat with my Hebrew teacher from Jewel and her husband.
שבוע טוב!
I also started working in the חברים בתבה (Friends by Nature) office. This is the nonprofit that facilitates the projects in seven Ethiopian communities throughout Israel. I will be working on a project to help Ethiopian Israelis prepare for the application for the shluchim program. This is a Jewish Agency program that brings Israelis to work at Jewish summer camps. Ethiopian Israelis are disadvantaged in the application process and we are trying to prepare those individuals who are interested in participating in the program in preparing for the intensive interview process. The application deadline is in the next few months so we don't have much time to pull everything together.
I haven't begun my shabab, where I will be tutoring English in the home, and I haven't started another English teaching group where I will get the opportunity to teach older men and women (25-50 years) whose Hebrew is more advanced but the learning will all be oral. While it will be challenging, I think it will be really rewarding for all involved.
This weekend I am going to Jerusalem. We are having a one day seminar on Thursday about Ethiopians in Jerusalem and then a few of us are staying Thursday night at a hostel (that's the plan anyway) and I will be spending Shabbat with my Hebrew teacher from Jewel and her husband.
שבוע טוב!
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Neighborhoods and community
I have lived in a few different types of communities. I grew up in a suburb, went to college in a semi-rural area with fewer than 18000 people, lived in the mountains for a few summers on a camp, studied abroad in a city on a harbor with about 394,000 people, spent a year in St. Louis in the city, and I'm now living in Israel in a town with fewer than 20,000 people. While it is not rural like Carlisle, it is not a city like St. Louis. All these places have had different vibes and perhaps different definitions of community.
In the neighborhood where I grew up, it was quiet. People knew each other, maybe not everyone on the street or in the neighborhood, but we were close with people who may have lived a few doors down and we checked in on own neighbors who were older adults. Kids could play in the street, well some of the streets and I remember riding bikes in the neighborhood with friends without parental supervision a few times. Our suburb was definitely a community and worked to become an independent city by 2005.
College was different from this, obviously, and it could be louder into the night because of parties or people up and about late into the night. There were pockets of friends and you sometimes lived with your friends and sometimes not. In the dorms, we may have regarded each other at times and not at others. We didn't get to choose where we lived or who we lived with until we were upperclass, but it still worked. We were Dickinsonians and if we run into others who went to school there, even if they were in a different year, we are all members of the community of Dickinson alumni.
Last year, living in a city for the first time, I got used to noises from the street, and I remember being woken up by a domestic dispute one morning in winter when it appeared someone was kicking another person out of their house. My apartment building for the first 6 months there was filled with half young people in their 20s and half over 40. I didn't know my neighbors. For the next 6 months I lived in a building filled with mainly young professionals and graduate students, and again I didn't know my neighbors. While the neighborhood was quiet sometime, it was clear that I was in a city and there were times of day I wouldn't go out by myself and places nearby that I wouldn't go alone. I was involved with a nonprofit and a community of Jewish young adults who lived in different areas throughout the city and worked or studied different things. Being Jewish, we had a connection that brought us together.
The neighborhood I am living in now is different yet again from all my previous experiences. It is often loud, mostly with the sound of children. Sometimes it is playful, but I hear a fair share of crying children and yelling between adults. Most mornings I am woken to the sound of a particular child who is always crying. Children hang out in the streets in large numbers with one or two adults and stay out even when it is dark. The Shapira neighbors where I live in Gedera seems to be small, but welcoming.
At a barbecue the other night, we had a discussion about what makes a community a place where we want to live, and many of the answers had to do with knowing your neighbors, feeling safe, good facilities and schools, and a general sense of belonging in the community. Every place I've lived has been different but I have been able to fit in somehow. While many the above observations are concerned with the physical surroundings, and Gedera definitely is different than anywhere else I have lived, I think that the feeling of belonging is important and as we get more involved in the community, I hope that I can feel like more of a member of the community rather than an outsider Just before sukkot, we talked about temporary living, like the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years. This is my home for the next 9 months and while I am only here for a short time, it is important to me to feel like a member of the community, both within our house of Yahelnikim (the Yahel participants) and in the Gedera community. The group of Yahelnikim go together because we all have an interest in social change and what we are doing here, but we also are a group a strangers getting to know each other and live harmoniously in a house for the next 9 months - like the Real World but actually unscripted and hopefully without the drama.
In the neighborhood where I grew up, it was quiet. People knew each other, maybe not everyone on the street or in the neighborhood, but we were close with people who may have lived a few doors down and we checked in on own neighbors who were older adults. Kids could play in the street, well some of the streets and I remember riding bikes in the neighborhood with friends without parental supervision a few times. Our suburb was definitely a community and worked to become an independent city by 2005.
College was different from this, obviously, and it could be louder into the night because of parties or people up and about late into the night. There were pockets of friends and you sometimes lived with your friends and sometimes not. In the dorms, we may have regarded each other at times and not at others. We didn't get to choose where we lived or who we lived with until we were upperclass, but it still worked. We were Dickinsonians and if we run into others who went to school there, even if they were in a different year, we are all members of the community of Dickinson alumni.
Last year, living in a city for the first time, I got used to noises from the street, and I remember being woken up by a domestic dispute one morning in winter when it appeared someone was kicking another person out of their house. My apartment building for the first 6 months there was filled with half young people in their 20s and half over 40. I didn't know my neighbors. For the next 6 months I lived in a building filled with mainly young professionals and graduate students, and again I didn't know my neighbors. While the neighborhood was quiet sometime, it was clear that I was in a city and there were times of day I wouldn't go out by myself and places nearby that I wouldn't go alone. I was involved with a nonprofit and a community of Jewish young adults who lived in different areas throughout the city and worked or studied different things. Being Jewish, we had a connection that brought us together.
The neighborhood I am living in now is different yet again from all my previous experiences. It is often loud, mostly with the sound of children. Sometimes it is playful, but I hear a fair share of crying children and yelling between adults. Most mornings I am woken to the sound of a particular child who is always crying. Children hang out in the streets in large numbers with one or two adults and stay out even when it is dark. The Shapira neighbors where I live in Gedera seems to be small, but welcoming.
At a barbecue the other night, we had a discussion about what makes a community a place where we want to live, and many of the answers had to do with knowing your neighbors, feeling safe, good facilities and schools, and a general sense of belonging in the community. Every place I've lived has been different but I have been able to fit in somehow. While many the above observations are concerned with the physical surroundings, and Gedera definitely is different than anywhere else I have lived, I think that the feeling of belonging is important and as we get more involved in the community, I hope that I can feel like more of a member of the community rather than an outsider Just before sukkot, we talked about temporary living, like the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years. This is my home for the next 9 months and while I am only here for a short time, it is important to me to feel like a member of the community, both within our house of Yahelnikim (the Yahel participants) and in the Gedera community. The group of Yahelnikim go together because we all have an interest in social change and what we are doing here, but we also are a group a strangers getting to know each other and live harmoniously in a house for the next 9 months - like the Real World but actually unscripted and hopefully without the drama.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
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!
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!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
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!
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!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
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!
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!
Monday, September 3, 2012
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!
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!
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