Wrapping Up

On Thursday, we woke up early, had a group wrapup discussion, went out to lunch, and headed to the airport. After 3 hours at the airport, an 11 hour flight, 1 hour going through customs, and 1.5 hours on the train, I am HOME! And exhausted.

Just a couple of final thoughts from the trip before I go to sleep for the next year or so:

Israel is an amazing place. It's beautiful and diverse (at least in geography) and impressively ancient. It's strange and kind of great to be in a place where Judaism is the dominant culture rather than a minority. Like any other country, Israel is certainly imperfect, and I definitely don't agree with a lot of what I saw. However, I still experienced it as a very special place. I certainly don't intend to make aliyah, but I would love to go back sometime. I would love to have more time to explore Tzfat, Yad Vashem, the markets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, visit Eilat, spend more time with my cousins, and relax on the beach for a whole day.

The concept of "birthright" is still problematic for me. The land of Israel (especially Jerusalem) is sacred to many different religions and ethnic groups for different reasons. Although I agree with the concept of a Jewish state, I don't think that it is practical or even a good idea to completely implement it. I particularly get how after the Holocaust, it seemed important to create a safe haven for Jews to go to if needed. However, Jews can't afford to isolate ourselves or exclude others. If every Jew in the world moved to Israel - well, first of all, there wouldn't be nearly enough room - but also, people growing up outside of Israel wouldn't know anyone Jewish, and ignorance breeds hatred. I think it's important for Jewish people to be a part of the global community, and part of that is being inclusive. There is no reason why Jews and Muslims and Christians can't live side by side as fellow citizens of the same country. And if we all have an equal claim to the land, then the concept of "birthright" as a thing only for Jews makes no sense.

That being said, the biggest takeaway I have from this trip is the amazing welcome my group had. Every Israeli we met seemed so happy to see us. The vibe was not "Welcome to our country, visitor!", but rather "Welcome home, you belong here, we're so happy you're here!" Although Israel is of course the Jewish state, I never considered it a home, but it certainly felt like one.  I had also never really thought of the global Jewish community as an extended family, but I now see that in some ways, it is.

In my first post here, I wrote about how I don't like it when people greet me as a "member of the tribe." Post-Israel, I still think it's a really awkward thing to say, but I kind of get it. Even though there are a lot of Jewish people in the world from all walks of life, we all share a common heritage, tradition, and ancestry that does connect us in many ways. "Jewish" is only one part of my complex personal identity, but it is an important part. This is something that I want to hold onto over the rest of my life. Even if I'm not religious, it's still important to me that I'm Jewish.

Thanks all for reading and coming on this journey with me! I hope you enjoyed - I sure did!

Much love,
Amy

Crazy Part Two: The Crazy Strikes Back

On Wednesday morning, I woke up at 5AM to do early morning yoga with Aylee, one of the girls on the trip. Doing sun salutations in the middle of the desert before the sun was even up was definitely a new experience. Why so early? Oh, you know, so we could be ready to ride camels at 6AM. Like you do. I rode a camel! There are pictures! It felt higher up than I expected, and it was very bouncy. Especially since my camel had a discipline problem and didn't want to walk in a straight line behind the other camels, so it kept drifting toward the rockier edges of the trail. Lots of fun though!

After camel riding, we had breakfast with the Bedouins and got on the road (still without showering!). Our next stop was Masada, a huge mountain fortress in the desert where King Herod had a really fancy palace. There's also a crazy story about Jewish rebels fighting the Romans, who retreated from Jerusalem to Masada. When the Romans came to set up a siege, the rebels killed themselves rather than become slaves to the Romans. There were lots of cool archaeological remains at this site, including small stones with the names of the rebels that they used to draw lots to figure out who would kill whom. We were supposed to hike up Masada, but when we got there a little before 9AM, it was already so hot that we weren't allowed to hike up and had to take the cablecar up instead. I was disappointed, it looked like a good hike! But we did plenty of walking around on the mountaintop, and it was HOT.

The other thing we did on Masada was to have "Bar/Bat Mitzvot." This was a weird thing. There was a young rabbi named Rabbi Gilly who showed up a couple of times on the trip. He reminded me and Al of a used car salesman, just a touch of the smarmy. His thing was that many of the people on our trip never had a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, and that as 13 year olds, we probably didn't fully get the significance of it anyway, so we should have another chance as adults. I feel like religion meant way more to me when I was 13 than it does now, but I went along with it anyway because I wanted to get the most value out of this free trip! He called it a "Bat Mitzvah," but really it didn't feel much like one. Each of us spoke for a bit about what this trip had taught us about our Jewish identity. Then Rabbi Gilly talked with us about the meaning of our Hebrew name and gave us a blessing based on that. Then we sang songs and they threw candy at us, and then we were done. Quickest Bat Mitzvah ever!

After lunch, we went to Ein Gedi, a really awesome oasis in the middle of the desert wih springs and a waterfall. To get there, we climbed up a bunch of stairs that were completely exposed to the sun. At this point, it was really hot, and after all the walking around on Masada, it was awful. However, just as we were about to give up, we reached the waterfall, with a deliciously refreshing pool at the bottom just big enough for all of us. Swimming has never felt so wonderful!

I could have stayed at Ein Gedi all day, but our next stop was the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth (about 1300 miles below sea level!). I had always heard that the Dead Sea was so full of salt and minerals that you floated without trying, but actually experiencing it was really crazy! We rubbed mud all over our bodies, then floated in the sea and let it wash off. The mud and minerals were supposed to make your skin softer, but I didn't feel any difference. It was an experience I will remember, unlike anything I've done before.

After the Dead Sea, we drove an hour and a half back to the hotel in Jerusalem, where we were able to shower, many of us for the first time since Tuesday morning! It felt so good to get off the dirt from the beach, hiking, camel riding, sleeping in a tent, and swimming in the Dead Sea. After dinner, we had a seminar with an update on the political situation in the Middle East. I had been dreading this, but it was actually pretty cool! This guy Neil Lazarus is a British comedian/political analyst/really good public speaker, and his views on politics in the Middle East were surprisingly fair and liberal (and often hilarious!).

It was our last night, so people wanted to have a last hurrah party, but we were exhausted, so most of us just ended up going to bed. What a crazy two days!

Crazy Part One

Okay, I'm about a day behind with blogging, but I think I can catch up! This post is about our adventures on Tuesday 8/20.

Monday's schedule flowed really nicely - as I said in my last post, everything we did was connected. In contrast, Tuesday's schedule was crazy and completely disjointed. It's also worth noting that from early Tuesday morning until Wednesday evening, I did not have access to wifi or a shower. The lack of wifi is why I'm a day behind here. As I tell you about what we did during that time, you'll understand why the lack of showers was noteworthy. Also, I am really exhausted right now, so I apologize in advance for any incoherence.

Tuesday started with a lovely morning trip to the beach in Netanya. The waves were huge and crazy, the weather was beautiful, and we had such a wonderfully relaxing time. After too short a time (I could have stayed at the beach all day), we drove into Tel Aviv. We took a brief tour at Independence Hall and learned about the founding of the State of Israel. We actually sat in the room where the declaration took place and listened to an audio recording of the declaration while our overly enthusiastic tour guide ran around acting out all the different parts.

Next we went to lunch in the Carmel Market. Sadly, I wasn't able to explore the market, but not too sad, because instead, I split off from the group and had lunch with my cousin Lisa! It was great to spend some time with her, even though it was way too short. We ate at a wonderful little Italian place, and we caught each other up on family happenings, talked about the trip, and even talked some Israeli politics. Ever since I was young, I remember hearing, "When you go on a Taglit trip, you'll spend some time with Lisa," so I was really happy to be able to do that!

After lunch, we drove to a kibbutz to learn about a program taking place there. UJA, one of the sponsors of our trip, runs a program called Tech Career, which focuses on training young Ethiopian Jews to go into high tech, one of the biggest career fields in Israel. We learned about the history of the Ethiopian Jews. I remember being fascinated when I learned about this in Hebrew school, and it was just as fascinating to hear a second time. I'm not going to go into it here, but please look it up or ask me if you want details! Anyway, we met a bunch of the students in the program and had the opportunity to talk with them. Unfortunately, it was way too structured, so the interaction felt really forced. There was also a big language barrier, as their English was just about as good as our Hebrew (not very). Overall, not a highlight of the trip.

After this, the day only got weirder, as we drove down to the Negev desert and prepared to spend the night in a Bedouin tent. This was a fabulous, totally out of this world experince that I can't even begin to capture in writing. We got to the campsite and set up in our tents - all the women in one big tent, and all the men in another. We took some time to walk around the enclosure. There were a couple of other groups there too. Then we sat down to dinner. I had been told that this meal would be very meat-heavy, so I brought granola bars just in case, but to my surprise and delight, they served soy schnitzel for the vegetarians! To my further surprise and delight, it was delicious! Probably my favorite meal on the trip. There were also Israeli salads, pita, and yummy tea and cookies for dessert.

After dinner, we met with an older Bedouin man who spoke with us about the Bedouins, their history, and their traditions of hospitality. He was great, he painted a beautiful picture of life in the desert, including advice on how to avoid being attacked by hyenas, wolves, and scorpions! He also played music for us on a cool tribal instrument similar to a guitar, but with Middle Eastern tuning instead of Western. At Scripps, I had heard many recordings of Eastern music with different scales and tuning, but it was a totally different experience to see it played live in front of me.

At this point, it was dark out, so we walked out of the campsite further into the desert to do some group stargazing. There was a gorgeous full moon, and you could see millions of stars. The desert at night was quiet and peaceful, and they gave us some muchneeded time to meditate. I was completely blown away by the hugeness of it all.
Here I am sitting in the middle of the night, halfway around the world from home, in the desert written about in the Bible where Jews wandered for 40 years trying to find Israel - heady stuff! After some guided meditation, we walked back to the camp to find a bonfire waiting for us! We sat around the bonfire for a bit, but I was exhausted and headed to the tent to get some sleep.

What a crazy day, but the crazy was just getting started... more tomorrow!

The Broken Road to Freedom

(Note: I wrote this Tuesday morning about our Monday adventures, but lost wifi before I had a chance to post it! Tuesday update coming later tonight now that I finally have Internet again)

Yesterday was a long and heavy day. In the morning, we checked out of the Jerusalem hotel and drove to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. "Yad Vashem" is a reference to a passage in Isaiah. Some people are asking God for help because they don't have children and are worried that they'll be forgotten after death. God says that their memory and their name will not be forgotten. "Yad Vashem" means "memory and name," and the purpose of the museum is to make sure all the people who were killed in the Holocaust are remembered, whether or not they have family to remember them.

The museum is beautiful, and I particularly loved that the architecture was all very intentional and meaningful. I also liked that the museum actually started with video of Jewish people living happy, normal lives in the 20s, and it ended with hope for the future, rather than just being sad the whole time. A very powerful and effective way to tell the whole story. We also went to the Children's Memorial. It's a pitch black room with candles burning and mirrored walls around the room reflecting the candlelight. It looks like a million stars are shining brightly all over the room. There's a voice recording reading the name of each child, how old they were, and where they were from. So incredibly sad.

Yad Vashem is doing a project of documenting Holocaust survivors' stories. They actually take survivors with a film crew to the towns where they grew up, the ghettos where they lived, and the concentration camps they were brought to, so they essentially relive their story. We watched one of these videos, and there were lots of tears all around.

After a lunch break, we went to Mount Herzl, the national military cemetery of Israel. It's actually physically connected to Yad Vashem as a reminder that Israel's existence is intricately connected with the Holocaust. We saw Theodor Herzl and Yitzhak Rabin's graves. We also walked through the military cemetery and heard stories about soldiers and their lives. I was glad that they told us individual stories - it was sad, but made the whole thing more real. It was particularly hard to look around at a lawn full of graves, most of which were for people younger than me.

After Mount Herzl, we said goodbye to the Israelis and dropped them off at the bus stop. Then we drove up to Netanya, where we are staying at a hotel right on the beach, with lovely views of the Mediterranean Sea (see below - the view from my hotel room!). After dinner, we drove to Tel Aviv for a night out by the Port, which is essentially a huge boardwalk right on the sea. It was a nice relaxing night, but we didn't get back to the hotel until late, so today we're all exhausted.

These next two days are going to be a marathon, and I most likely won't have wifi again till Wednesday night. Till then, I hope you all are having a great week so far! Can't believe I'll be home in just a few days!

Jerusalem!

So when I split up Friday, I totally forgot to talk about the market, Machane Yehuda! We went there when we first got to Jerusalem, before heading to the hotel. It was a huge, crazy market, and my first haggling experience (which went pretty well, I think!). There was lots of yummy food and about a million people. I ate at Aroma, an Israeli cafe that has a few locations in New York. I love Aroma in NY, and it was really cool to eat at the orignal location!

While walking back to the bus, I suddenly heard someone say, "Amy?" I turned around to see Jacob Silvermetz (a friend from Camp JCC) sitting at an outdoor cafe. Who runs into someone they know incredibly far away from home, on the street in Jerusalem? Me, apparently. Anyway, Jacob is living here now, I guess he made aliyah. We had a nice little catchup.

Okay, flash forward to Sunday! On Sunday, we toured the Old City of Jerusalem. It was really fantastic - we walked around the Jewish Quarter and talked about the history of Jerusalem. We went up on the rooftops and looked out over all four Quarters (the others are Christian, Muslim, and Armenian). To her huge credit, Merav talked with us about why Jerusalem is important, not only to Judaism, but also to Christianity and Islam. This was completely glossed over in my Hebrew school experience.

We talked with the Israelis in our group about what Jerusalem means to them. I spoke with Tal - she grew up in a nonreligious family about an hour outside of Jerusalem. She comes to the city about once a year, and she said that every time she comes, she has an experience she's never had before. When Israelis are in school, they do a field trip to Jerusalem, and when they join the army, they are brought to tour Jerusalem. We saw a bunch of new soldiers touring around the city while we were there.

We had lunch and shopping time in the Cardo market. They told us to stay in the Jewish Quarter, but there weren't signs (at least not in English!), so Al, Sarah and I ended up accidentally spending most of our time in what we later learned was the Muslim Quarter - whoops! We had such a blast - the market was huge and crazy, and the vendors were really pushy. We found one vendor who was nice and gave us really good deals on everything. He was definitely an improvement over the guy who followed us out into the Cardo yelling lower and lower prices. I loved this market shopping, it was so much fun -  wish they had this kind of thing in America!

After lunch, we went back to the Kotel. We had an opportunity to have some alone time at the wall and write notes/prayers to put in. I couldn't believe how many little pieces of paper were in the wall, some incredibly old and some brand new. At the wall, I stood next to an Orthodox woman who was praying with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was a really powerful experience.

Next, we toured the City of David, the restored archaeological remains of Jerusalem when David was king. It was so amazing. We saw his palace, and we talked about the water system of the city. Then Merav said we would be walking through the tunnels that led water into the city. This was crazy! The water was at knee height for the most part, but sometimes it was almost all the way up my leg! It was a really narrow and short tunnel that we walked through in single file for about 45 minutes - lucky I'm not claustrophobic!

When we finally came back out into the light, we climbed the tall hill back into the Old City. As we were walking up, we heard the Muslim call to prayer echoing through the city. It felt so authentically Middle Eastern, it was amazing!

For dinner, we went out to a banquet at a Mediterranean restaurant. Delicious food, so much pita and hummus and salads of all kinds! Then back to the hotel, where the Israelis led some activities to teach us about Israeli life. We learned Israeli slang, did Israel trivia, and did some (highly modified) army drills.

Finally, we did some mental and emotional group preparation for today's trip to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. I've been to the DC museum many times, but I think this will be very interesting. We talked about how Israel was founded as a direct result of the Holocaust, and therefore the museum is intricately connected to the IDF and the government. It will be a very serious day, but also I think we'll learn a lot. Then we'll go up to Tel Aviv tonight!

Shabbat Shalom!

Shabbat in Jerusalem was definitely a unique experience. The bus dropped us off on Friday evening just outside the Old City walls, where we sat in a circle and talked about the meaning of Shabbat. Then we walked through the old city and stopped in a secluded area to light the candles and say the blessing together.

Then...we went to the Western Wall. I have never seen so many Jews all celebrating together in my whole life - what a powerful and moving sight! Unfortunately, we had a tech-free Shabbat, so I didn't get pictures, but that memory will stay with me for a long time. At the wall, there was a gender divide, so the women in the group went to the women's side. We all know that I'm normally not a fan of things like gender division that encourage discrimination and alienate people with complex gender identities. However, I am also a huge fan of communities of women spending quality time together, and this felt like that. All the women - Orthodox mothers with young children, soldiers, visiting tourist groups - were all singing and dancing together and generally having a fabulous time. It was totally surreal and a little overwhelming to be celebrating Shabbat at the Kotel in Jerusalem.

When we'd had our fill of snging, dancing, and general merriment, we went to Shabbat dinner. This was awesome! They had set up a catered dinner for us in an archaeology museum, so we were eating dinner in a restored living room from the time of the Second Temple. The food was good, company was good, and the location was amazing! Our tour guide Merav is finishing her Masters in Archaeology, so there has been a lot of really interesting archaeological information on the trip.
After dinner, it was already 11PM (aka 23:00), but the Orthodox were still CRAZY partying in the streets of the Old City. We walked the six miles back to the hotel (authentic Shabbat experience!), and then crashed. The walk back through Jerusalem was lovely - cool desert air, beautiful surroundings - and the sleep was pretty great too.

Saturday was a much needed restful day. After the late night, we slept in, then had a kiddush and a checkin session where we shared stories about our experiences in Israel so far. After lunch, we had FOUR HOURS of free time, so we all went to the pool! The hotel we're staying at is part of a kibbutz, so the pool area was filled with hotel guests and people from the kibbutz. It felt so good to swim and relax and have fun after the busy last few days. There was also an amazing water slide that we went on!

After showers, we took a leisurely group walk around the kibbutz, then had dinner. We met on an outside porch area for a lovely short Havdalah service. Havdalah is one of my favorite parts of Judaism. The candle and spices and feeling of togetherness is always really special - I remember that from youth group.

Once Shabbat was over, we actually had a free night out in Jerusalem! They dropped us off on Ben Yehuda Street, an area with lots of shopping, cafes and bars. Matan, one of our Israeli guys, had a friend who worked at a bar, so he set all of us up with free cover and drink specials! Pretty much the whole group went. There was a dance floor, but I stayed upstairs and spent quality time with my new friend Sarah! Sarah is awesome! She's a musical theater writer, and we know lots of people in common. Hopefully we'll stay friends once we're back in New York. Toward the end of the night, two Israeli guys came up and started flirting with us - the authentic Taglit experience? They had just moved to Jerusalem. We weren't really interested, don't worry, but we had to admire their effort. We talked with them for a bit, then said goodbye, walked up Ben Yehuda Street and got some gelato, then met up with the group to go back to the hotel.

Such a lovely, restful, fun-filled Shabbat! Today we are touring the Old City - more on that later!

The One Where Things Get Political

Friday was such a huge day, I'm dividing it into two blog posts because it couldn't possibly fit in one! To start, we checked out of our hotel in Tiberias and loaded all our stuff on the bus. Then we drove to a kibbutz called Sde Eliyahu.

At Sde Eliyahu, a woman named Sarah gave us a tour of the kibbutz and a history of kibbutzim in general. Unlike the shoe factory we went to Thursday, Sde Eliyahu is an Orthodox kibbutz. They're very concerned about maintaining the purity of the kibbutz, so when others decided to industrialize, they stuck with agriculture. Their industry is organic agriculture, and they do some really cool things. Sarah told us about how, instead of using pesticides, they figure out what species are threatening the crops and then introduce those species' natural predators to the environment. They also use donkeys as lawn mowers, which is just fabulous. The factory on Sde Eliyahu is a bug factory - they grow bees for pollination and other bugs to eat the plant-destroying bugs. We saw a bumblebee colony and a few different species. Don't worry, there are lots of pictures that I'm sure you all will be so excited to see!

After our tour, we loaded back on the bus and drove to Jerusalem through the West Bank (which was totally safe on Friday, otherwise we wouldn't have driven through it! Side note: In case any of you are worried, they take our security VERY seriously here. We have armed security guys that come with us everywhere. Our bus is also tracked, so the Israeli government always knows exactly where we are. So calm down!). On the drive, our tour guide Merav talked with us about Israeli Arabs and citizenship, which opened up a whole can of worms.

So here's the deal with Israeli citizenship (and why "Birthright" is a problematic thing for me): IT IS WAY EASIER FOR ME TO BECOME AN ISRAELI CITIZEN THAN IT IS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN LIVING HERE THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. That's right, just because I'm Jewish, I can pretty much say hey, I want to be an Israeli citizen, and I will be. If I chose to make aliyah, not only would I be a citizen, the state of Israel would give me a stipend and would pay for me to get a university degree. This is crazy. Whereas if you're not Jewish, it's "pretty much impossible" (Merav's words) to become a citizen.

Merav, to her credit, was very insistent that the Israeli-Arab situation is incredibly complex, and that there are a million different points of view, no one of which fully encapsulates the situation. She talked about how some Israeli Arabs are citizens of Jerusalem but not Israel, so they need work permits to travel to the rest of Israel. During the Intifada, they stopped issuing work permits. Merav also told stories about good relationships between Arabs and Jews. She grew up in the West Bank, and her family's housekeeper was Arab. His son had medical issues, and Merav's father used to drive to Jerusalem to get medicine for him, because the housekeeper would have had to go through checkpoints. Which is all very nice, but I find it really awful that this Israeli person couldn't get medicine for his son just because they were Arabs. It all feels very Apartheid/U.S. pre-civil rights movement.

What's even more insidious is that Arabs are seen as this inherently dangerous group of people. Not just by Israelis, but by Americans too. Several people on the trip asked Merav about the Arab Quarter and whether it's safe to go there. I know in the U.S., even in New York City, I see awful anti-Muslim propaganda all the time. Islam is one of the most practiced religions in the world. There are an enormous variety of people who practice Islam. The percentage of Muslims who are involved with terrorist organizations is TINY. It's like saying all Christians are like the Westboro Baptists. It completely ignores what the religion is and how it is normally practiced to focus on one teeny tiny subset of the population. Are terrorists a problem? Absolutely. But terrorist does not equal Muslim, and Muslim does not equal terrorist. The common perspctive here is that Jews are "real" Israelis, while Arabs are second-class citizens (or not citizens at all). I wish that this trip gave us a chance to interact with Israeli Arabs, to learn about their lives and hear their stories. But of course, the whole point of this trip is that Israel is our "birthright" and not theirs.

Okay, that's the end of my political rant for the day. Anyway, the bus ride was fun - we stopped in the middle of the desert for a sand dune bathroom break (authentic Israeli experience!), and we saw some camels, and Al won a 5 shekel bet some of us had made about how long the bus ride would be. We drove to Mt. Scopus at Hebrew University and looked out on a beautiful view of all of Jerusalem (pictures to come). Then we drove to the hotel and found our rooms. I'm staying with a girl named Mallie, who is a native Manhattanite and is very nice. We've been living well together so far. When we got to the room, we had some time to prepare for Shabbat in the Old City, which I will tell you all about next time!

Kabbalah and Kibbutzim and Kayaks, Oh My!

If there's one thing I can say about this program, it's that the days are FULL! Each day feels more like 2-3 days, with all the different things we're doing. We're having a blast but, as people warned me, we're also tired most of the time. That's ok though, we're definitely getting the full experience!

Yesterday, we loaded up the bus and drove to Tzfat, one of the four holy cities in Israel. On the way, we stopped on the side of the road at a question-mark shaped bus stop (or, as Al and I say: bus stop? These are everywhere!) to pick up eight young Israelis who are joining our trip. Because we're an older group, most of our Israeli friends are out of the army and in school, though we also have a couple of soldiers. It's been interesting to hear their different attitudes toward the IDF. Some of them say, "Thank goodness I'm done with military service" after their mandatory three years. Others have chosen to extend their service because they like being soldiers. Others extended their service because they like having a steady paycheck. Most of our people were in Intelligence in the army - we have a lot of engineers and technical people. I haven't spent much time with most of them yet, but I had lunch yesterday with a woman named Michal, who is in university and is one of the bubbliest, sassiest, most fun people I've ever met. She's hilarious!

After picking up the Israelis (who will be with us for five days), we drove to Tzfat, which is up in the mountains. I love how towns are built into the sides of mountains here, it's beautiful! In Tzfat, we walked through the streets, went into an awesome candle factory, and saw a beautiful old synagogue. Tzfat is a very spiritual city connected to the mystical side of Judaism. It's also an artist colony, the streets are full of tiny art galleries and jewelry stores.

We went to the art studio of a guy named Avraham who grew up in Detroit and moved to Israel maybe 15 years ago. He makes art based on Kabbalah, so he showed us some of his pieces and talked about how they express Kabbalistic ideas. It was really interesting! He does a lot of pieces based on the patterns of shofar blowing - there was one recent one he had made that was based on a spectrograph recording of the shofar sounds, it was so cool! He was also a hilarious stoner type who loved to talk to us about how we're all connected and it's"so crazyyyyyyy." He was funny, but I also found what he said about meditation and the spiritual side of Judaism really interesting!

After we left Avraham, we had some free time to wander around Tzfat and explore. We had lunch (I ate falafel with Michal), and looked through some of the shops. It was REALLY hot today, and a lot of the walking was on steep hills, so we were all pretty tired by the time we got back to the bus.

But the day was just starting! We drove to a kibbutz with a shoe factory where one of our tour guides had spent a lot of time as a child. Most of the people in our group went in the factory to buy shoes, but I didn't need shoes, so I wandered around the kibbutz on my own. It was a really nice, solitary wander through an incredibly quiet and peaceful space. After all the craziness of Tzfat, it felt good to unwind. I met some Israelis on my walk, and they were all very friendly. One of the weirdest things about Israel is how many children there are here - SO MANY! They're everywhere, usually many to a family! Al and I saw a woman getting on the elevator in our hotel with two sets of twins AND another child in between! So many children...

We got back on the bus and were all exhausted, but we drove to the Jordan River and went kayaking! It was more like rafting than actual kayaking, but it was such a blast! We got in water fights with each other, people were jumping in and out of boats and swimming in the (very shallow) river, and there was a small waterfall that was really fun to go over! It certainly woke me up! We all got soaking wet - it was very playful and fun! As one of the women in my kayak pointed out, it was also a little surreal to be floating down the Jordan River, which we've heard about and sung songs about our whole lives. Very cool.

Once we were all thoroughly soaked (which felt amazing after the hot day), we headed back to the hotel. The staff offered us the option of going into town for a night out, but it would have been an hour of walking uphill for only an hour of time spent in town, so about half the group opted to stay back at the hotel. We bought a few bottles of wine from the dining room and drank them together on one of the hotel balconies, while getting to know each other and the Israelis. Our group is definitely divided into about three different social scenes, but we're getting to know each other better and definitely don't seem like strangers anymore. The guys in our group are pretty universally awful, but some of the women are great! It's nice that we're mostly from New York because hopefully these friendships will continue after we get back.

Okay, time for me to go finish packing! We are leaving the hotel today and driving down to Jerusalem for Shabbat. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I don't have a way to transfer them from my camera. I'm taking lots though, and will share when I get back! Hope you all are doing well! I can't believe it's already Friday!

Wandering Around the Land

My Wednesday started off with a Bible quote. Not the way I usually start the day, but the point of traveling is to embrace the unusual, right? Merav, our tour guide, read a quote where Abraham is told to "wander around the land" and get to know it, because it will be given to him and his descendants. This, of course, got me thinking about how, according to the Bible, Christians are descendants of Abraham because they branched off from Judaism, and Muslims are also  descendants of Abraham through Ishmael. So clearly Jews don't have exclusive claim to this land. But I did like that quote applied to our trip, and it stuck with me.

We started our day by driving to the northernmost part of Israel and doing a Hatzbani hike on a trail that runs north to south through the whole state. Because it was 100 degrees outside (our Hebrew word of the day was "cham," which means "hot"), they had us do a hike through the shade and in water. "In water" meant that we were sloshing through at least knee-high water, walking on often slippery rocks that weren't always the most secure place to step. This was not what I had expected from the hike, but it turned into a fun challenge that we all helped each other through. Nothing helps a group bond like literally leaning on each other for support!

After the hike, we piled on the bus and went to lunch in Katzrin. During this bus ride, we did a "speed dating" activity where we switched seats and spent a few minutes getting to know someone on the trip. Actually a pretty decent activity! I had some nice conversations with some of the people on the trip, and some surreal exchanges with the Cream of the Crop. Most of that group are from Long Island and have literally never left Long Island in their lives. I feel a little sad for them, they just seem so young and naive. And really dumb. Like shockingly so. Weird...

After lunch, we went to tour the Golan Heights Winery! We had an adorable little old Orthodox tour guide named Shalom, who explained to us how the topography and climate of the Golan Heights makes it an ideal spot for winemaking. He showed us the process they use for harvesting, aging, and bottling the wine - so interesting, my inner wine snob was jumping for joy! Then we had a tasting of some of their wines - delicious! - and explored the shop for a bit. They had an exhibit of all sorts of wooden stuff (serving platters, lounge chairs, skateboards, etc.) made out of the French oak barrels they use to age the wine. Really cool! Shalom also gave us nice corkscrews as a gift.

Once everyone had their fill of the winery, we drove up to Mt. Bental, an old army post on a mountaintop that overlooks Israel on one side and Syria on the other. Here, we were treated to a delightfully one-sided view of Israeli politics in which Israel was presented as the do-no-wrong hero and the entire Arab world (but especially Syria) as a dehumanized, faceless enemy. Ugh. Thankfully, half the group was intelligent enough to recognize the bias, and the other half was too stupid to understand what was being discussed (the Cream of the Crop!), so I don't think any lasting harm was done. Hopefully this will be the last of the political indoctrination attempts, but I'm not holding my breath.

By this time, we were all exhausted from walking in the sun all day, so we napped on the bus ride back to the hotel. When we got back, we had time to shower (which felt SO good, we were dirty and gross) and eat dinner. Wednesday night featured more group bonding activities, then going over plans for Thursday. Today, a group of young Israeli soldiers and students will be joining our group for the next few days. We'll be going to Tzfat this morning to learn about Jewish mysticism, which is really interesting to me and Al! Then this afternoon, we'll be kayaking down the Jordan River - whee! After that, who knows?

You all are darlings for reading super long updates, and I just want to close with an observation. I find the relationship between Taglit and the state of Israel absolutely fascinating. The program is partially funded by the State, so Israeli citizens' taxes pay for us to be here. All the Israelis we've seen have been friendly to us and will smile and say hi, but they also won't approach us or start a conversation. It's like there's an understanding in Israel that Taglit groups are a protected entity, so nobody wants to come near us at all. It's a very strange feeling that we're protected and maybe even welcomed/appreciated, but also overtly avoided, which makes it hard to learn about Israeli culture other than from our tour guides. I'm interested to see how our interactions will be with the Israelis joining our trip today!

Boker Tov!

Good morning! I'm writing this as I watch the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee, the lowest altitude lake in the world (600 feet below sea level)! Here I am in Israel, and it's already been quite an adventure.

On Monday afternoon, Al and I grabbed our (impressively lightly packed!) bags and took the train to JFK. We met up with our group in the terminal and went through checkin, but not without incident. You see, my friends, Al Binder is a SUSPECTED TERRORIST! We think it was a combination of her being from Boston and having a brand new passport (renewed for this trip). Either way, she was profiled and asked a lot of questions about her background and why she was going to Israel. Security in general was understandably very tight for all of us. Thankfully, they decided that Al was not a terrorist and let us go through security.

Once in the terminal, we wandered for a few hours before meeting up with the group at the gate. This is where we first noticed some of the...eccentricities of our group, who Al and I have lovingly nicknamed "The Cream of the Crop." There is a big group of people on our trip who are well meaning, but actually dumb as bricks. To the point where it's both painful and entertaning to listen to them try to process life. On the bus in Israel, Al and I were sitting right in front of these people, and we couldn't look at each other because we would just start cracking up. But more on that later.

The flight was long, but pretty uneventful. The food was surprisingly decent (look Mom, I'm eating!), and most of us were able to get a good amount of sleep. When the flight finally landed around 1:30PM (we were delayed almost two hours taking off), we went through Customs and got our bags without incident. We met up with the group to go out into the world, but two of our darling groupmates were missing because they had decided that now would be the perfect time to go to the bathroom and straighten their hair without telling anyone. The Cream of the Crop!

Once we found these two, we went outside into the delicious dry heat, met our Israeli staff, and got on the bus that will be our home for the next ten days. We were supposed to drive to Cesaria and check out the Roman aqueduct, but ran into awful traffic. So we ended up stopping at a strip mall and havng sandwiches. Unfortunately, they'd forgotten to get sandwich options for the veggies and ciliacs, so Binyamin (one of our tour guides) gave us money to get falafel at the mall, which was DELICIOUS!

We loaded back on the bus (the hair-straightening girls were late again), and drove 1.5 hours north to the hotel in Tiberias. We ate dinner, got our Israeli cell phones and changed money, then had some "group bonding" activities. At this point, it was about 10pm, so we were all exhausted and not really in the mood for bonding. However, Al and I did meet some nice, smart, and friendly women on our trip over dinner. There will be plenty of time for bonding once we've slept a bit.

We headed up to our hotel room - Al and I were lucky enough to snag a double with a balcony overlooking the sea (picture below!). We were exhausted, so crashed pretty early. Today, we're going hiking in the Golan Heights, then to a wine tasting! More on that later...

For now, we are safely in Israel, our group is not bad (and at least good for a laugh!), the country is beautiful, and we are excited for all the adventures to come!

Why the Skepticism?

As you can tell by the title of this blog, I have very mixed feelings about going on a Taglit trip to Israel. For many years, I was adamant that I didn't want to participate in the "Birthright" program (yes, the word "Birthright" will always be in quotation marks in this blog). It seemed to me like the whole purpose of these trips was to a) indoctrinate young American Jews into a very conservative one-sided view of Israeli politics and b) throw a bunch of young American Jews together in the hope that they will get married and have babies. Yes, this sounds dramatic, but from what I've heard, it's not too far off. Over the last few years, I've watched friends go on the trip and come back completely different people, not necessarily in a good way. There's something strange going on when otherwise intelligent people seem to lose their ability to critically analyze a situation from multiple sides. The word "brainwashing" comes to mind. I wanted to stay as far away from that as possible.

When I told friends I had decided to go on this trip, several people were shocked because I had been so vocal about not wanting to go. So what changed? Well, the bottom line is I'm 26 years old and, like many people my age, I'm really poor right now. I love traveling, but haven't been able to travel outside the U.S. since I was 18. I'll admit, the prospect of a free trip is what finally won me over.

So why am I still a skeptic? What could possibly be wrong with a free trip? Well, as a friend pointed out, nothing is really free. There are always hidden costs, and the main cost of this trip is that we will see the Israel that the Taglit organization wants us to see. I'm sure there will be lots of propaganda about the Arab "enemy," and I'm sure the Israeli army and government will be painted as perfect Jewish heroes who can do no wrong. I'm sure that "Israeli" will be defined as "Jewish," and that there won't be much discussion (if any at all) of the lived experience of non-Jewish Israelis. I'm sure that I will be offended many times by what I hear and experience on the trip.

HOWEVER...

I'm going to Israel! I'm going to see amazing sights, experience a different culture, go hiking and kayaking and camel riding, float in the Dead Sea, stay in a hotel right on the Mediterranean Sea...it's going to be awesome! I'm going to be lucky enough to share this experience with a wonderful friend from college and make fun new memories together. We're going to take fabulous pictures and have all the adventures and then come home and have incredible stories to tell. And at this point in my life, unlike when I was 18 and had just graduated high school, I feel confident enough in myself to know that I can take the Taglit message with a huge grain of salt. I definitely plan to make the most of this trip. Like every experience in life, I will take from it what is useful to me, and I will leave behind what is not. And I'll also take lots of pictures and post here a lot so you all can share my adventures too! Four days till departure!

Judaism and Me

When I was young, my family used to go to synagogue a few times a year. I really liked the tradition and singing the familiar tunes and feeling like I was a part of something bigger than myself. I also had a strong friendship circle there. I went to Hebrew school for basically my entire childhood and, while teachers varied from great to horrible, my classmates and I became very close. We went to each other's B'nai Mitzvot, planned youth group activities together, and had so much fun attending regional dances and conventions. I have wonderful memories of dressing up in costume for the Purim carnival, going to Junior Congregation every week and hoping I would get to have a part in the service, and taking the annual "walk around the synagogue" during the High Holidays. Several of my Hebrew school classmates have kept in touch and are still my close friends. So for me, Judaism always felt like a strong community that I loved belonging to, even aside from the religious part of it.

Around my Bat Mitzvah and shortly after, I became much more invested in the religious side of Judaism. I was very active in my youth group, regularly attended Shabbat services, and even read from the Torah at services. I thought that I might go to seminary and become a cantor, because I loved singing and I loved Judaism, so why not combine the two?

Then I went to liberal arts college. It's such a cliche to go to college and lose touch with your religion, but for me, it made a lot of sense. My college professors taught me to challenge the ideologies that I had previously accepted without question. I learned to think critically and challenge hegemony. Faith began to seem flimsy in the face of logic. Organized religion started to look creepy instead of comforting, and the existence of a higher power seemed less and less likely. I certainly tried to hold onto my religion in college. I went to the hillel welcome picnic and to services a couple of times, but I didn't feel the same sense of community that I had come to love in my synagogue. Some other Jewish students who felt the same way invited me to try services with them at a synagogue pretty far from campus, but at that time, I was already drifting away from religion.

Judaism is really wonderful if you're part of the in-crowd, but I have found that it thrives (like many religions/social groups/etc.) on exclusion. There are the "members of the tribe" and the "gentiles," and a clear differentiation between the two. At my confirmation at age 16, the rabbi gathered my whole class together and told us that if we did nothing else right in our lives, we should be sure to marry someone Jewish. I remember learning in Hebrew school an incredibly biased and one-sided story of the creation of the State of Israel. Our curriculum basically ignored and denied the common humanity that we share with Arab nations, painting these people as a faceless "enemy." Of course, I completely understand that there is a long history of violence, oppression, and marginalization in Judaism. But my liberal arts education taught me that there are at least two sides to every conflict, and that labeling people as "the other" may help to build a sense of community among a group, but it will never lead to a healthy relationship between communities.

My sophomore year of college, I discovered feminism. I mean, I knew it existed before then, but I had never really studied it or been passionate about it. Over the last seven years, I have embraced feminism, and I've found that it fills a lot of the same needs for me that Judaism used to. I feel a strong sense of community with other feminists, a sense of belonging to a larger cause that is inclusive of others and supportive of all communities in the struggle against oppression. I definitely still feel culturally connected to the Jewish community, but it feels a little weird to me now to be in a group of predominantly Jewish people and be welcomed as "one of the tribe" (sometimes in those exact words). While I do identify as Jewish, it's a complex part of my identity that I struggle with a lot. I used to know what Judaism meant to me, but now I'm not quite sure. I don't know what to expect from my upcoming trip to Israel, but I'm sure that it will change my relationship with Judaism in some way. Whether it will clarify things for me or make everything more confusing remains to be seen.