Siyur to Mea Shearim and the Belz Synagogue

For this week's siyur, my class and I went to go visit the extremely Orthodox part of Jerusalem called Mea Shearim. We didn't have an organized tour because we were just walking around in the town. We were also advised to walk in same gender groups only. The community of Mea Shearim is all Haredi and anyone that comes into their community must be dressed modestly. They have signs all over town telling citizens to dress modestly or else it offends them. This community is also very Anti-Zionist and they have signs about that all over the place too. I myself, was covered completely: loose, long sleeve shirt, loose skirt down to my ankles and tights and closed toed shoes. My friends and I just walked around taking in how different it is there (keep in mind that this place is a 5 minute walk from downtown Jerusalem). Also, I saw three different kinds of shops: bakeries, stores selling siddurim and toy stores with Purim costumes (Purim is this weekend!!!). My friends and I also all had our first Hamentashen of the year :) This experience was very interesting and I'm glad I went because to be honest, I have always been very curious to see what it's like there.

Next, we went to the largest synagogue in the world, the Belz synagogue. This s a Hassidic synagogue and is gigantic and breathtakingly gorgeous. It has a huge courtyard (which will be used for the Rabbi's eldest grandson's wedding soon) and there are thousands of Hasidim that belong to this shul. The Rabbi's house is connected and can also hold about seven thousand people. Just to give you perspective on how big this place is, when you walk in, you are already on the sixth floor. Meaning that there are five floors underground. We learned all about the Hasidim and how they got to Jerusalem. Then the interesting part was that we got to ask our tour guide questions about the Hasidic way. Some highlights are that : iPhones are not Kosher, they won't serve in the army (unless the army becomes Haredi) or do a year of service, and they are very against the LGBT community, and they have matchmakers that set couples up. You have two hours to decide if this you want to marry this person and after that date, the next time you see your future partner is at the wedding a year from then.
Safe to say that it was very interesting to get his viewpoint, but also kind of uncomfortable.
The synagogue itself is fourteen stories and the main room of prayer can seat 2000 men (and counting) on the first floor and the women's floor (above) accommodates about 1000 (women are not required to go to shul every Shabbat). It is GORGEOUS.

Valentine's Day!

For Valentine's Day this year, I attended a party on a boat! We boarded at the port of Yaffo and sailed all around Yaffo and Tel Aviv. People from all different programs were there but I think that the majority was Year Course. I met a bunch of new people (a few people that are going to Arizona with me next year) and had a very fun time! These are the kinds of experiences that make Year Course so fun!!!

My Anthropology class goes to Yemen!!!

This past Thursday, my anthropology class learned all about the Yemenite Jews. We learned about their time in Yemen and when they were brought to Israel through the "Magic Carpet Project" in the 1950s. What was really cool was that our teacher brought a famous Yemenite dancer to class who taught us all about the culture. She brought clothes with her for us to try on and taught us some of their language and their customs. And then of course she taught us some dances and performed for us. Such a unique experience!!!!!

Jerusalem, I love you

I actually never want to leave Jerusalem.... only two weeks left until I move to Bat Yam. Yearcourse stop going by so fast!!! :(

The David Project Israel Advocacy Seminar

The David Project and Masa Israel Programs sponsored a three day Israel advocacy seminar for my section which was all about teaching us how to take this amazing experience (living in Israel) and bring it back to our collective college campuses. The seminar was very well put together and a very enjoyable three days (although the days were super long).
Day 1: Our first part of the program was a program put on by this woman named Helen Gottstein called The Four Faces of Israel. This woman, Helen walks in with an ultra Haredi outfit and a thick Australian accent. She tells us all about her upbringing and life here in Jerusalem. It is obvious that she is Ultra-Orthodox due to her customs and views. The whole speech was turned upside down when one of my peers asked her, “What is your definition of Zionism and are you a Zionist?” She responds by saying that she thinks that Zionism is the biggest lie in the world and that she is absolutely NOT a Zionist. She believes in the Land of Israel and not the state. My friends all started questioning her on why she doesn’t believe in Zionism and why she lives here if she “hates Israel so much”. She also doesn’t believe in the army (of course) and says that there is nothing in this country worth protecting (Ouch!). The whole time this was happening, I was super confused. I wasn’t angry or upset. I just didn’t understand why she was brought to speak to a bunch of Zionist teenagers but I listened purely because I was interested in “the other side”. Before I know it she takes off her hairpiece and tells us she’s an actress. This was the first face. The second was an Orthodox woman who made Aliyah from the USA (thick southern accent) who is extremely right wing. She makes a few racist jokes about the “A-rabs” and the “Mooslims” and claims that she believes in the 1 state solution and that the Arabs don’t deserve land. Third, was the left side activist who believes in Land 4 Peace. She strongly supports the 2 state solution and thinks that there should be no more fighting. She calls the Israeli Defense Force the Israeli Attack Force and calls the Haredim “parasites”. The final woman was an Arab woman living in East Jerusalem. She needs to go through a checkpoint every morning to get to work in the West Bank and feels that this country is very racist towards her. She has no problems with Israelis and just wants equal right, nothing more and nothing less. “I don’t need to pay the price for the Holocaust”. SUCH an interesting program, sorry if I ruined it for anyone who hasn’t seen her!!!!
Next, we had a program called “Israel and Me”. We were given a sheet of paper with “yes” written on one side and “no” on the other. And then we were asked a bunch of pretty hard questions about Israel and there were no “maybes” allowed!!!
Some examples:

1. Should all Israeli citizens have to serve in the IDF?
2. Should citizens be able to do national service instead of the army?
3. Is it more important for Israel to be a democratic state than a Jewish one?

After this we all split up into different workshops. In these workshops we made presentations to be presented on the last day. I was in the branding workshop. This means that I was learning about different brands (catchy name or logo for something) in the world today such as Nike’s “Just Do It”. As of right now, Israel has a very negative brand because most people immediately think of the conflict when they think of Israel. What they don’t know it that Israel is a very energetic place that contributes a lot to the world in many different areas. Our job was to create a new brand for Israel. My group came up with “A home full of history, building on a bright future”. This means that Israel is a place with history for many religions, and it is also a place that is innovative and very advanced in medical and technological aspects.

This was the picture on our shirt:

Next, a man named Khaled Abu Toameh came to speak to us. He is an Arab Israeli Muslim Palestinian who is a writer for the Jerusalem Post and a TV producer. He is a man who was born and raised in Israel to Arabs who have Israeli citizenship. He claims that he isn’t Pro-Israel or Pro-Palestine, but pro-facts.  He lives in Israel and writes for The Jerusalem Post because of the freedom he has to write what is really happening in his eyes. If he lived in any other Arab country he would not have the same rights. He is a moderate Arab (which is slowly becoming a dying breed) and he is actually such an intelligent man. It was really interesting to hear him speak and hear his opinions on the issue. He explained to us all about Hamas and the PLO and what steps he thinks should be taken in order to reach peace. He says that it is best to currently maintain the status quo. I took about three whole pages of notes on his talk. I will definitely be following his articles from now on.
Nighttime Activities: We went to the Malha Mall at night for our nighttime activities. We had about an hour of free time and Israel’s version of American Idol (Kochav Nolad) was holding their auditions in the middle of the mall!!! So exciting! Except for everyone sucked…  So then we went to the mall’s gym and got ready for our Spinning through Israel class!!!! This class was so cool!!! We were spinning with one of our teachers in this room with pump up music and a huge projector that was showing different places in Israel, so fun (but so hard). Then our second portion was “Rikude Am” (Israeli Dance). The teacher was horrible and the whole time I just wanted to take over (because I am the dance specialist at my camp). But overall this was a really cool experience.

Even though this day started at 9 am and ended at 11 pm, I really enjoyed myself!!!! Yay Day 1!!!!!

Day 2: Second day of the seminar was a siyur to Tel Aviv and Holon. We started the day with a trip to Google’s new campus in Tel Aviv. This is a place where entrepreneurs bring their start-up businesses and have events and basically use the space to create the new company.  We listened to a woman named Joanna Landau who is the founder of a company called Kinetis. This is a non-profit organization that focuses on changing the conversation of Israel. They are targeting audiences that don’t know what is actually going on and immediately think of conflict whenever Israel is brought up. One of their main tactics is to bring five popular bloggers from all over the world (millions of viewers) who don’t know much about Israel (mostly not Jewish) and show them Israel through the lens of what they are interested in. For example, they would bring five music bloggers and show them for a whole week all about the music in Israel and then they blog about it. Then, their viewers all of a sudden see how great the culture in Israeli music is and then they think about music instead of conflict whenever Israel is brought up.
Next, we listened to man from Google speak and he told us all about how Google in Israel works. He told us that Israelis were the ones that invented the auto-completion tool for Google and are now working on a new invention called “Google Glasses” which is basically like Siri for glasses. Actually the COOLEST invention in the whole world. He also told us how Google helps start-up businesses actually put their ideas into action which is actually really cool for entrepreneurs.
Next we actually met with entrepreneurs that came to tell us their stories and give us advice on starting your own business. We met with Asquith Israel Merchant Bank, Tel Aviv Angel Group, Serrendip Media and Krembo Wings. The first three companies are banks, loan companies and tech companies respectively. Krembo Wings, however is what really caught my attention. When I was back in Arad, I went to a play about Krembo Wings with my students so it's pretty cool that I met the founder. Krembo Wings is a youth movement that integrates handicapped/mentally retarded kids with regular kids. This woman is absolutely incredible she started this movement in high school and just recently opened her 20th branch!!!! Go her!

Next we had lunch at the mall in Holon. There, we all bought candies and toys for kids to play with. We did this because we were going to visit kids who are a part of a program called Save A Child's Heart. First, we went to the hospital to meet with one of the doctors who started the whole program in 1995. He's such an awesome man who dedicates over 50% of his time to surgeries for SACH. This is an amazing program that has fixed over 3000 kids' heart in over 44 different countries. And over 50% of the kids being treated are Palestinian. Next, we actually traveled to the house that the kids live in before and after the surgery. There were ten kids currently there (1 from Romania and 9 from Zanzibar). We showered the kids with so much love and presents! I think that they were a little bit overwhelmed. But it was so fun just to hang out with them and make them laugh. The kids were anywhere from 8 months to 17 years old. Even though none of them spoke a word of English, "every child smiles in the same language" so it was still fun :) Another funny thing was that the kids loved being photographed and every time they saw cameras, they would smile really big! So adorable!

Amazing, amazing, amazing day!!!!!!

Day 3: The third and final day of the seminar had a lot going on just like the previous days did. We started off the day with two speakers Sheri Mandell and Shmuel Shalem. Sheri is a woman whose son was murdered by terrorists while hiking with his friend. She told us all about his story and what she had done because of this. She started a whole foundation called the Kobi Mandell Foundation. With that, she created a camp for grieving children and a support group for grieving women. What an inspirational woman. Not everyone can take such a horrible situation and make something positive out of it. The next man was not very interesting he told us about how he started a company that provides museums all over the world with the electronic tour guides (Zzzzzz).
Next we had a very interesting presentation done by StandWithUs which is an Israel Advocacy group that focuses on education. They brought two women overy who were both very funny and very cool and had all of our attention. Then each one explained to us her story of why she got involved in Israel advocacy and then continued to explain how we could to in our respective colleges. It's scary to think what kind of Anti-Israel people I'm going to face, but after this seminar I feel obligated to stand up for Israel!
The last thing we did was complete our projects and then present it to the section. Once again there was a photography, storytelling and branding workshop. There were some pretty amazing presentations. For example, one of the girls that took the storytelling workshop told us the story of the day she decided that she was making Aliyah and joining the army next year. One of the educators said that he literally had chills from what she said. Very cool!!!

This whole seminar had really long days and a lot of information, but I think that it was very well done. I really feel confident to go to college next year and be ready to show people that is Israel is way more than the conflict that is going on with the countries that surround us. I am so grateful for the David Project and MASA for making this happen, I truly enjoyed myself and learned a lot!

Sorry it took me so long to post this, it was a lot of writing!!! Enjoy!

This Week's Adventure!

Yearcourse Lockdown: On Sunday, my ulpan class and I were invited to our teacher's house for dinner and there we also watched a few episodes of  "Srugim" which is a Hebrew TV show that we watch in class. So that night we had a program before the dinner about our volunteering in Bat Yam (yes we are starting to prepare for Bat Yam which means yearcourse is 2/3 over with already!!!!). After the program, our section leader told us to go straight to one of the classrooms and wait for further instructions. We thought there was going to be some sort of surprise party for our other leader due to the fact that his wife just had a baby. Boy were we wrong!!!! Apparently some items were stolen and we had to wait in these classrooms until they checked every apartment until they found it. Also, everyone had to give up their alcohol ahead of time in order to not get in trouble (I'm a good girl and don't have alcohol in my apartment hehe). My class was allowed to leave in order to go to the dinner Baruch Hashem. We watched a few episodes and played a few games. Two hours later we were getting ready to leave only to find out that the staff was only halfway through the apartments!!!! What the hell?! So we stayed at a coffee shop until it closed and arrived to Beit Ar El just as everyone else was allowed to go back to their apartments. The item that was "stolen" was actually just lost in the owner's room and the whole thing just turned into one huge alcohol search (one apartment had 14 bottles confiscated). Thank God I got out of the lockdown! Esther for the win ;)

Jerusalem vs. Herzeliya BBall Game: On Monday after I said bye to my mom, my section and I went to a basketball game in Jerusalem!!! We all wore red to support Jerusalem and sat in the worst seats with a bunch of Orthodox children. The game itself was not that enticing to watch because the players kind of sucked, but it was fun to be with my friends. And Jerusalem won!!!

Yellow Submarine: On Tuesday, a few friends and I went to this bar called The Yellow Submarine. On Tuesdays, they have free jazz nights and we've been wanting to go all semester!!! The lady singing and the band were absolutely incredible, I'm happy that I went :)

Wednesday Adventure: Wednesdays are our free days so I went with Sarah and Gal to the Jewish Quarter. Sarah and I went to Hadaya jewelry and I bought a ring that says the quote, "In order to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down" in Hebrew!!! I'm so excited to pick it up on Friday!!! Then we all went to this BEAUTIFUL overlook that shows all of Jerusalem. Seriously, Jerusalem is becoming my favorite city in the world. It is the most beautiful place with such breathtaking views. I really love this place, I don't wanna leave!!!!!!!

Everyday this week so far has been an adventure! Lovin Yearcourse!!!!!

My time with Ema!

Right after the Holocaust seminar ended, I took a train to Netanya to go see my mom!!!!! Once I got to the train station at Netanya, my mom appeared out of nowhere! This was the first time I've seen her in five whole months! We spent the first night just hanging out and just being happy in each other's presence. The next day was pouring rain so we couldn't really go anywhere :( but I went to get a haircut and then we had a mother daughter shopping day :) The whole weekend was filled with going to see friends and shopping.

Unfortunately, because of the rain there just wasn't a lot that we could do. On Saturday night, I went home and then the next day my mom came to Jerusalem! My film teacher personally called me over the weekend to invite my mom to class so she came to have lunch with me and then come to class to watch a movie called Next Stop Greenwich Village. Interesting movie to say the least. Later that night my mom took my friends and I out to dinner on Ben Yehuda which was really fun and we shared 20 shekel pizza pies!

The next day after my siyur (which I'm not blogging about because it just wasn't that interesting), I went to see my mom in Tel Aviv and we went to dinner at the famous chocolate restaurant Max Brener. It was so delicious we had a chocolate souffle with a mini milkshake and some ice cream. I need to back there with my friends and get the  chocolate martini!!!!!

On Thursday I went to Tel Aviv to meet up with my mom and her friend from the army, Nava in Tel Aviv for dinner. We went to a delicious hamburger restaurant on the marina. It was a very nice and relaxing night after that we just went back to Netanya.

On Friday morning my mom and I walked around the beautiful boardwalk in Tel Aviv and then went to Jaffa (again with Nava). This was my first time in Jaffa during yearcourse. It's also a very beautiful port and there's a shuk with touristy things and good food. Later that day my mom and I met up with two of my mom's friends from high school and went to lunch at a delicious seafood restaurant (finally shrimp in Israel!!!). I love the fact that my mom's friends treat me like family it's an amazing quality that Israelis have. Then we had a lovely shabbat dinner with my grandparents.

On Saturday we went to Caesaria! It's a beautiful national park on the beach with ancient ruins from when the Romans controlloed this area, The place is absolutely gorgeous and we were there just as the sun was going down!!!

Another great thing was that I received the news that I was accepted to the University of Arizona while with my mom!!!

I'm also so happy that the weather was so amazing this weekend because the previous one was just horrible.

So my mom leaves today (Monday) and we spent the day in Herzeliya shopping and walking around the marina and the beach before she leaves.

I'm so grateful that she came. We had so much fun and I really missed her. I love you mom!!!