So I'm now anticipating a change in location and activity. I'll be leaving Jerusalem on Sunday and going to an army base to begin three weeks of Tsar-el. It is a community service program for the army that is fairly popular. The only clothes of mine that I'll be wearing will be undershirts, socks, and underwear. I won't be bringing any t-shirts or anything that I usually wear. It'll be the first time that I'm away from all my possessions that I've grown so attached to after wearing them and seeing them everyday for years. I'm excited for this distance even though it'll likely be very novel.
After the Tsar-el I'll have a week or two of vacation followed by two months of Marva starting on January 6th. Marva is army program that I've been talking about for months. I don't know much about it so I won't post about it right now.
I've had a break here since last Wednesday. I spent Shabbas with the rest of my program because it was a closed Shabbas. We had to go to programming and everything was planned and it was very BBYO-esque. On Sunday, after waking up late and taking it easy, some friends and I went down to Tel Aviv beacuse there were bomb threats in Jerusalem and we weren't allowed to be on the streets there, but Tel Aviv was safer. So we went to Tel Aviv and walked around the city for a bit jut to check it out and then had dinner. After dinner I left my friends to meet up with a new pair of friends and we went to one of their counsin's house for the night in Ramat Gan. The cousins were very nice and they give us beds and a couple of meals.
After sleeping for a while I got up to go back to Tel Aviv to watch Across the Universe, a musical movie that features on songs from the Beatles' repertoire I really liked it and afterwards we took a bus back to Jerusalem and just hung out for the rest of the night. By now it's getting pretty cold in Jerusalem so at night you have to wear shoes and a sweatshirt, or a jumper as the Brits like to call it. I've been going to more bars than I did in the beginning of my time here.
It'll be hard for me to update this blog when I'm doing my two military-related programs because I won't have my computer with me for those times and the time off is Shabbat so I can't use my computer anyway, but I'll somehow find time for updates; don't worry fans.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Since last post I have been a little busy. My mom and dad were in Israel so I saw them a fair amount. I met some scientist friends of my dad's and it was very nice to see my folks. My group went to the Mevo Modi'in Moshav. It practises what is known as Carlebach Davening. A moshav is a type of settlement. It can be similar to a Kibbutz, but I think there are plenty of moshavim that are quite different. I didn't fully grasp the philosophy of the moshav, but I did find out that there is plenty of artists and I didn't see any farmland, so I'm under the impression that it doesn't emphasize community living and labor, as is found in the Kibbutz movement. Shlomo Carlebach was a musician and Rabbi. His followers use his music in their prayer services and the end result is very very beautiful. The moshav's population follows this format of davening so the services are filled with song and it's great. The whole Carlebach movement is inside Orthodox Judaism. The people on the Moshav were basically hippies. Before Shabbat our host played us some songs on this small, strange guitar looking thing. I really enjoyed the trip and hope to spend another Shabbat on the moshav.
I found out my placement for the next three months and I will be doing Marva, the army program. I'll spend the first two or three weeks doing army community service. Then two weeks vacation followed by two months of living on an army base doing army training stuff. Towards the end of those two months I will leave two days earlier than everyone else to go to Poland for an extra trip, but I'll speak of that closer to the date. While in the army I'll do some basic training, some in-field training, a lot of learning, and more. Supposedly the first two weeks are terrible because you're not used to waking up that early and the program is really slow because it's all classes, but then after that it gets awesome. I'm excited.
I'm in the middle of exams and I'll be done tomorrow afternoon. For my King David class I had to pick a chapter that we didn't study in class and examine it closely. Afterwards my teacher came up to me and told me that I found things in the chapter that she had never thought about and that she was very impressed. Shwing! I have a week vacation next week so I'll be staying in the hostel for it, but going on day trips in and around Jerusalem. It should be awesome!
I found out my placement for the next three months and I will be doing Marva, the army program. I'll spend the first two or three weeks doing army community service. Then two weeks vacation followed by two months of living on an army base doing army training stuff. Towards the end of those two months I will leave two days earlier than everyone else to go to Poland for an extra trip, but I'll speak of that closer to the date. While in the army I'll do some basic training, some in-field training, a lot of learning, and more. Supposedly the first two weeks are terrible because you're not used to waking up that early and the program is really slow because it's all classes, but then after that it gets awesome. I'm excited.
I'm in the middle of exams and I'll be done tomorrow afternoon. For my King David class I had to pick a chapter that we didn't study in class and examine it closely. Afterwards my teacher came up to me and told me that I found things in the chapter that she had never thought about and that she was very impressed. Shwing! I have a week vacation next week so I'll be staying in the hostel for it, but going on day trips in and around Jerusalem. It should be awesome!
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Sigd and Tottenham and Phylacteries
So now that I'm very accustomed to living in Jerusalem and I know my way around I find myself very very busy. I go to all different types of events and have little time to publish them in an internet blog. Nevertheless, I feel I have a commitment to the fans of this blog to update as regularly as I can afford to.
I went to a city called Rosh Ayin with my History of Zionism class. Rosh Ayin is a primarily Yemenite city that absorbed tens of thousands of Yemenites during their mass immigration to Israel. Called Operation Magic Carpet, Israel removed the entire Jewish population in Yemen in the 1950's and brought them here using airplanes. It was a humongous immigration that was hard to accommodate when they first arrived. Also the Yeminites are neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazi and they didn't really fit into Israeli culture. So at Rosh Ayin are all these Yeminites and we met a few and talked to some about their migration. After we went to a dance studio and learned some Yemenite dancing.
I'm doing a program called Shevet which is a part of Young Judaea Year Course that leaning towards being religious without being completely observant. Through Shevet I get to do a lot of amazing things that I wouldn't do otherwise. We tied our own tzitzit last week and were given the option of using tekhelet, a special blue die that comes from snails, that is supposed to be part of tzitzit. So as I'm writing this I'm wearing my new, freshly-tied tzitzit with a thread of tekhelet in them. My program had a workshop where we learned how to do it and were given the strings and everything.
We visited a yeshiva, basically Rabbi school, and were given a chance to study and speak with the yeshiva students. I learned with a guy who actually went to and worked at Camp Airy. It was a good experience to find out more what it's like to be part of a yeshiva.
My mother visited me and took me to Eilat, the southern-most city in Israel that is on top of the Red Sea. While there we toured the immediate area of the city and saw some of the southern parts of the Negev Desert, including the Timna Pass and the Red Canyon. I also scuba dived. One one of our days we left Eilat and went into Jordan and then to Petra. Petra is this 2,000 year old city that is famous for an ancient temple carved 10 meters into the face of a mountain. Here is a picture.
My mother bought me my first set of Tefilin, phylacteries.
Yesterday I went to Sigd, an Ethiopian celebration of their return to Jerusalem. They used to celebrate it in Ethiopia and it was a fast day for mourning their exile, but now they it is more of a festival. I saw this cool Ethiopian dance circle and this interesting fish rod-looking instrument. It was incredible to see the thousands of Ethiopians that showed up in this one park. Celebrating with them was also really cool. Picture.
Last night I went to a soccer game; Hapoel Tel Aviv vs. the Tottenham Hotspurs. Tottenham, for those who aren't into football, is an English soccer club whose fan base calls itself the Yid Army because it is primarily Jewish. My roommate is a crazy Tottenham fan, his bed sheets are Tottenham, so he bought a bunch of tickets and a bunch of us went to the game. Tottenham won 2-0 and I learned that Israeli soccer is not impressive. Tottenham played half-decently, but Hapoel Tel-Aviv was awful. I went to my first European football game in Israel. Here is a picture of that as well.
I went to a city called Rosh Ayin with my History of Zionism class. Rosh Ayin is a primarily Yemenite city that absorbed tens of thousands of Yemenites during their mass immigration to Israel. Called Operation Magic Carpet, Israel removed the entire Jewish population in Yemen in the 1950's and brought them here using airplanes. It was a humongous immigration that was hard to accommodate when they first arrived. Also the Yeminites are neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazi and they didn't really fit into Israeli culture. So at Rosh Ayin are all these Yeminites and we met a few and talked to some about their migration. After we went to a dance studio and learned some Yemenite dancing.
I'm doing a program called Shevet which is a part of Young Judaea Year Course that leaning towards being religious without being completely observant. Through Shevet I get to do a lot of amazing things that I wouldn't do otherwise. We tied our own tzitzit last week and were given the option of using tekhelet, a special blue die that comes from snails, that is supposed to be part of tzitzit. So as I'm writing this I'm wearing my new, freshly-tied tzitzit with a thread of tekhelet in them. My program had a workshop where we learned how to do it and were given the strings and everything.
We visited a yeshiva, basically Rabbi school, and were given a chance to study and speak with the yeshiva students. I learned with a guy who actually went to and worked at Camp Airy. It was a good experience to find out more what it's like to be part of a yeshiva.
My mother visited me and took me to Eilat, the southern-most city in Israel that is on top of the Red Sea. While there we toured the immediate area of the city and saw some of the southern parts of the Negev Desert, including the Timna Pass and the Red Canyon. I also scuba dived. One one of our days we left Eilat and went into Jordan and then to Petra. Petra is this 2,000 year old city that is famous for an ancient temple carved 10 meters into the face of a mountain. Here is a picture.
My mother bought me my first set of Tefilin, phylacteries.
Yesterday I went to Sigd, an Ethiopian celebration of their return to Jerusalem. They used to celebrate it in Ethiopia and it was a fast day for mourning their exile, but now they it is more of a festival. I saw this cool Ethiopian dance circle and this interesting fish rod-looking instrument. It was incredible to see the thousands of Ethiopians that showed up in this one park. Celebrating with them was also really cool. Picture.
Last night I went to a soccer game; Hapoel Tel Aviv vs. the Tottenham Hotspurs. Tottenham, for those who aren't into football, is an English soccer club whose fan base calls itself the Yid Army because it is primarily Jewish. My roommate is a crazy Tottenham fan, his bed sheets are Tottenham, so he bought a bunch of tickets and a bunch of us went to the game. Tottenham won 2-0 and I learned that Israeli soccer is not impressive. Tottenham played half-decently, but Hapoel Tel-Aviv was awful. I went to my first European football game in Israel. Here is a picture of that as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)