Idan Raichel at The Jerusalem Convention Center!

Last night Yearcourse attended the opening ceremonies for a program called Masa Israel Journey. This is a program that sponsors almost all of the programs that send young Jewish men and women to Israel for volunteering and studying. They happened to help me out with my tuition for this program as well :)
This whole event was focused on a concert given by Idan Raichel, but another part that I really enjoyed was a video that was put together by Masa that showed a bunch of different kids on different programs from different countries like Mexico, USA, England etc. that are just like me and are doing the same thing as me. They said really great things that really got me excited to be here for the next several months (I can't believe I have already been here for two months and have only seven left to go). This was the first time that it really hit me that the reason that I am here is bigger than just to party in Tel Aviv or make new friends. The reason I am here is to be immersed in Israeli culture and to make a difference in places like Bat Yam and Arad through my volunteering and most importantly to make the most out of all that this amazing country has to offer me. Yay Yearcourse!!!!!!!!

Pictures from Idan Raichel :)

Sunrise at Masada!!!!!!

This past Thursday, my fellow Aradians and I went to hike Masada at 4 in the morning so that we could see the sun rise!!!!!! We woke up at about 3 in the morning and got to Masada around 4. We climbed up the Roman Ramp (not the infamous snake path thank god) and got up to the top in 10 minutes!!!

After we watched the sun rise, we had a sikkum on the top of the mountain talking about our experiences so far and it was really interesting to hear stories from other people in my group and also fun to share my stories. We also had a two hour tour, that was LONG but also very informative.

All in all it was a great experience to see the sun rise over Masada and I'm happy I had the chance to do it.

Hadassah's 100th Anniversary Celebration and InDNegev!!!!

 I feel like throughout my time here in Israel, every weekend just gets more and more exciting.....
 My past weekend was packed with so many great things that I hope I don't forget to write them all down!!!
The great part about my program is that our weekends start on Thursdays. We have a "siyur" (trip) every Thursday and after that we are free for the weekend!!!
 This Thursday all of yearcourse attended Hadassah's  100th Anniversary Celebration in Jerusalem. For those of you who don't know, Hadassah is the women's Zionist movement and this movement has done MANY great things for Israel in fields like medicine, education and politics. There were thousands of people there (mostly older adults) and a huge majority was from America!!! The reason that all of yearcourse was there is because Young Judea is the Zionist movement of Hadassah and they funded YJ for many many years so why would we not be there to support???? Anyway the whole event was super fun because the food was great, I got to see my friends from other sections that live in Jerusalem and Bat Yam, and the program itself was very well done. There were videos about what Hadassah has done for Israel and there were music and dance performances. There was also a really cool artist that makes art with sand who came to the event and performed.
  All of that stuff was really cool and all BUT the most interesting thing about this event was that the Prime Minister of Israel BB Netanyahu was there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was awarded with a very prestigious award from Hadassah for all that he has done for the nation of Israel. He then gave a speech and talked about how important Hadassah is as well as a little bit of campaigning by naming all of the things he has done for Israel in his time as Prime Minister. I was so surprised that he showed up and seeing him speak was soooo cool! It isn't every day you see the Prime Minister speak............

haha when I sent my mom this picture she thought I was watching TV!!! Such a great experience to see him speak I will never forget it!!!!!! We'll see if he gets my vote when the election rolls around in January!!!! 

 After the Hadassah event, my friends and I went back to Arad, grabbed our stuff and took a shared taxi to the grounds of the music festival InDNegev! This festival was from Thursday to Saturday and dedicated completely to indie music (I did not know one band....). The second we got there and had to set up our tents and belongings, a few of our male neighbors came over to help us set up not knowing we could understand Hebrew..... as one of the guys was setting up our tent he was talking on his cellphone saying how he was setting up a tent for some hot American girls. He was pretty embarrassed when I replied to him in Hebrew thank you!!!!! LOL

 Because we arrived to the festival pretty late due to our previous engagement, the festival itself was over for the day but that doesn't mean we missed out on any fun!!! Those same guys who helped with the tent earlier invited us over to there area for some snacks and drinks and we all sat around and talked until 4:30 in the morning..... SO FUN!!

 That night we all went to sleep freezing and woke up at 8 am drenched in sweat in our stuffy tent..... Yay for desert weather! Once we woke up, we got ready, ate some breakfast from the food that we packed for ourselves and started our day by going into the festival!!! It was 9 by the time we got in and there were already bands playing and people EVERYWHERE. There literally must have been at least 15,000 people there just from the amount of tents around.... My friends and I immediately got a necessary iced coffee and made our way to the stage to check out the music. None of us really knew any of the music/ it wasn't our type of music we would usually listen to but it was still good music nonetheless. 

This festival had so many people and so many different things to do that there was always something new that could have been explored. On Friday my friends and I did so many different things such as:

got painted!!!!

took a nap in a public napping area....

jumped rope!

 watched the sun set

ate thai food!!!! YUM

Friday was the longest day ever with so much going on and so many things that we did!!!!! That night we hung out with our neighbors again and had lots of fun with them! So refreshing to finally meet Israeli guys who are normal and not creepy arsim..............

 Our last day at InDNegev wasn't very long because we left around 1 but it was still fun because we got to see some more cool music and there was a huge white wall and paint that everyone could paint whatever they felt like..... What I drew was not surprising......

and of course we left our mark as well!!!

I was also really happy to see my friend Zoe from camp who happened to be at the festival as well!!!!

Leaving the festival was super hard because it was a Saturday and there were no buses from where we were so we had to find a shared taxi that wouldn't charge us a lot of money because its Shabbat. Props to my friends Yael, Aviva and me for finding us a good ride for a good price!!! The only downside was that the ride was only to the Beersheba bus station which was closed for Shabbat and when we arrived at 2, the next bus to Arad was 7 pm and nothing was open to even keep us busy. 

After waiting around for a few hours, finally another shared taxi drove by and drove us back to Arad and finally we were home!!!!!!!!

Safe to say it was the best weekend yet and I say that after each blog post because every weekend keeps getting better and better!!!!!!

I LOVE YEARCOURSE

A free concert in Arad!!!

Last night, my friends and I got an opportunity to attend a free concert right in our beautiful city of Arad!!!! The concert was for a "mizrahi" singer named Eyal Golan who is SUPER popular in all of Israel!!!! Lucky for me that I grew up with Israeli parents so I knew some of the songs :) The whole experience was so fun because literally the whole town was there. This is the first time that anything exciting has happened in Arad since we've been here!!!! I had a great night thanks to this amazing experience yay!!!!

Visiting the Bedouins!!!!!

 This past Thursday, my section and I went to Beer Sheva (a city 40 minutes from Arad) to learn about the Bedouin culture in Israel. My expectations of the trip were that we would be visiting actual Bedouins that live in tents and ride camels (yes I know, very stereotypical). My mom even joked that I need to be careful just in case someone wants to trade me for some camels!!!!!!! Oh mother....
 Anyway, what we actually did was way different than I expected. We started out at the Thursday market which literally sold everything from home appliances to women's clothing to handmade works of the Bedouin people. The market was awesome I loved seeing so many different cultures coming together and I even scored on some extremely cheap shoes :). I definitely want to return to this market sometime soon.
 After the market our tour guide to us on a walk to a different market and on the way we found Bedouins that were literally sitting in the middle of an empty dirt parking lot with about three hens/roosters each that were just attached to some sort of leash. The whole thing was so medieval that I couldn't even bear to look..... My friend even saw a merking take place :(((((((((
We also saw Bedouin man that was sitting outside the shuk selling the most random things in the world. It seamed as if he looked around his house and picked random things that he wanted to sell (like a garage sale). He literally was asking us to take pictures of him....
 After that we went to yet another market!!!!! This shuk was very similar to the previous one but it was still fun to find such cheap bargains!!!
 Our last stop of the "tiyul" was at a Bedouin artist's home in Segev Shalom (a Bedouin town in the negev). The artist is a woman who is very well educated and is actually a teacher in the school in her town. She embroiders and paints tiles and her artwork and all of her embroidery is recycled fabric from her mother's old clothes.... HOW COOL!!!!!

All in all it was a great trip even though very different from what was expected.
My friends and I ended our trip in Tel Aviv for a birthday party of a Brit from a different section... What a night!!!!!!

Eat, Drink, Dance, Sleep.... REPEAT (Simchat Torah at Tzfat)

Tzfat, Israel is known as the most spiritual city in the whole country and while Jerusalem is the place to be for holidays like Yom Kippur, Tzfat is THE place to be for Simchat Torah. Young Judea gave year coursers the opportunity to go to Tzfat for the holiday and we stayed at at a really nice hotel/hostel and it was really nice to spend time with year coursers the are in other sections (Jerusalem and Bat Yam).
Our journey began in Arad at eight in the morning and we only got to Tzfat around two.... Why did it take so long you might ask?? Because we literally drove from the bottom of the country to the top.... If you think about it, it shows how small Israel is if you can do a trip from the south to the north in six hours.
 Once we finally got to Tzfat, we got off the bus decked out in our modern Orthodox chic clothing and were immediately overwhelmed with how beautiful this place really was. The whole city is high up in the mountains and everywhere you turn there is a gorgeous view. As we checked into the hotel (I got to room with four of my closest friends yay!), there was lots of chaos and there were so many people that I needed to meet!!! My friends and I were dying to go exploring before the chag started because I have heard that Tzfat jewelry is like no other. But unfortunately my jewelry shopping will have to wait until my next trip. Our first activity to kick off the trip was a lecture by the Rabbi who is in charge of a program called "Ascent" which is a place to stay and learn in Tzfat for young Jewish travelers. This rabbi was very interesting as he told us that he grew up secular and eventually became orthodox after studying at Cornell University. This Rabbi seamed really cool because he told us about how he went to Woodstock and to be honest how many Rabbis do you know that have done that??? A super awkward encounter that I had with him the next day was when my program and I was about to leave for morning dancing and when the Rabbi and I passed each other, he put his hand up in front of my face. Now, being an American teenager when someone does that it looks like they are suggesting a high five. I of course was NOT thinking and I almost high fixed him when I realized that he was just trying to tell us that we were leaving in five minutes. The Rabbi seemed very offended and informed me that he is a "married man". Now I totally respect "Shomrei Negiah" but it was an honest mistake and obviously I was not trying to offend him. Totally embarrassing but one day I'll look back at it and laugh when I feel less humiliated....

 So I got out of order here lets rewind to the first night. After we had the lecture we had time to get ready for the chat and then we all congregated for kiddush (there was so much food that I filled myself up before dinner even came around). After that we had services that had men and women sitting separately of course. Once again, because I am not a regular at temple back home I was pretty lost the whole time. After services was the best part. The whole point of Simchat Torah is to dance with the Torah and to just be happy! So my friends and I danced the night away with the women of Tzfat singing all different kinds of songs in Hebrew and English. Fortunately I was not lost in this part because I knew most of these songs from camp!!!!!! Although it was quite disappointing that we couldn't even see the Torah, I still had lots of fun with all my new and old friends! A woman told me that the reason that the women don't dance with the Torah is because we are at a higher level of spirituality than men and so we don't need to dance with it while the men do. I don't know if I believe that's actually true but I went with it anyway.
 Something that is interesting about Simchat Torah is that the whole holiday's purpose is to be happy. Going along with that it is a mitzvah to go to temple and dance and drink the night away. Needless to say I might have taken had wine poured in my glass by a Rabbi..... ;)
 The next morning was when we all went Shul hopping to see all the different kinds of customs and traditions that each shul had. We went to a Saphardic shul and an Ashkenazi shul and the differences in the separations between male and female were huge as well as the decorations inside the shul. One of the Shuls we went to didn't have a place for the women to dance we could only go upstairs and watch the men dance from above. Well us being Americans and most of us are not Orthodox, we decided that it wash't for us and we went and danced in the streets instead. A women came out and started yelling at us saying that it's disrespectful to dance in front of the Shul and that we need to go somewhere else. I personally don't think it was disrespectful because we weren't disturbing the men at all and the Rabbis on our program were completely okay with it.... Sometimes people need to be more open minded.....
 The rest of my day was filled with services and more food and more wine. I attended a lecture about Kaballah (Kaballah is high in Tzfat due to the fact that Tzfat is a very spiritual city which goes hand in hand with Kaballah), which was super interesting because the extent to how much I knew about it previously was that Madonna was did it.... The lecture taught me all about the origins and teachings of Kaballah and I'm really glad that I went and learned more just so that I can be more informed about the subject.
 The last organized part of our program was a tour around the old city of Tzfat. Our tour guide told us that just in the old city alone there are at least twenty shuls!!!!!!! That's crazy!!! It was really perfect that I went to the Kaballah talk right before this tour because a lot of the things that were talked about in the tour were things that were just explained to me.
 After we celebrated the end of the chat with a musical havdallah, we all packed up our stuff and headed to this huge town center where there were hundreds of people dancing and celebrating. This was definitely my favorite part of the whole trip because I was dancing with all my friends and these adorable little girls that were mesmerized by the fact that we're American!!!
 All in all I had such an amazing time in Tzfat, the whole community was so unified and so happy and I just couldn't help but be happy the whole time. I cannot wait to come back and visit and I got a coupon that granted me a free two night stay at the Ascent house in Tsfat!!!!! Jewelry here I come....... :)))))

Ein Gedi!!!!

I have been living in Arad for a little over a month now and I have finally gone to Ein Gedi. I have been here before with my family but it was soooooo long ago that this trip was something that I was really looking forward to!!! For those of you who don't know what Ein Gedi is.... it's a humongous nature reserve full of amazing wildlife and animals. We saw deer and a bunch of other animals that no one could identify. The best part about it is all the waterfalls, pools and springs that are located there. At least twenty or thirty year coursers were all in this one pool with our madricha frantically taking pictures of everyone while also trying to keep all of the cameras dry. The whole park is full of people swimming in the refreshing pools and it is just the most gorgeous setting especially with the dead sea in the background....

I had so much fun at this park with all of my friends from year course and even though we were only there for an hour it was still pretty amazing!!! I am definitely going to come back so I can go to the higher pools and really take my time.

Visiting the Glass Museum in Arad!

Today my section and I went to go visit the local Glass Museum that is here in Arad. We started out with about a half hour walk to the museum and my friends and I were having such an amazing time blasting country music!!!
when we got to the glass museum we were immediately mesmerized by how beautiful the sculptures were.... The artist sculpts glass in such a unique way that every single piece of art is special and has more than meets the eye...
What was super cool about the sculptures was that in order to catch the effect the audience needs to walk by it and the effect won't work if you stand in place. An example of an effect is glass that is a concave surface but it looks like the back of a woman's body... SO COOL!!! I was so impressed by the artwork  ecause each piece looked so well done and very well thought out.
After the tour, we got to meet up with the Israeli Scouts that are living in Arad for their own gap year before they go off to the army. I already knew these guys because they volunteer at the middle school with me! They are really great and they lead a program about the army which is ironic since they haven't been in the army yet...
After our program we had time to explore the artist quarters and hang out. Our night ended with an amazing hour of zumba!!! I had so much fun because it reminded me of israeli dancing but on crack :) It was super fun and all of the yearcoursers were super into it!!!
Our night ended with a tshirt that symbolized all of the different youth groups in Arad getting together for programming and dancing!
All in all it was a great day!
oh and I can't forget to mention that I am officially moving into the apartment I wanted! And I am so happy that they kept me and Sarah together... Can't wait to be all moved into my new apartment with Sarah, Aviva, Emma, Leora, Frances and Rivka!!!!
Gotta go pack!