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:
- Should all Israeli citizens have to serve in the IDF?
- Should citizens be able to do national service instead of the army?
- 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:
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!
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