Well, it has certainly been a very busy last few days - packed with nonstop activity, leaving us all pretty exhausted, but I guess that's what these kind of trips are known for, right?
On Wednesday morning, we had a seminar at the kibbutz we were staying at in the Negev with Rabbi Aryeh Ben David, founder of an spirituality organization called Ayekah. We worked in chevrutah (partners) and in groups to work through some texts about Chanukah that related to spirituality, and did a "spirituality checkup". It was really interesting, and I think we all really enjoyed the interactive nature of the session.
After the seminar was over, we loaded the busses and began the journey to Jerusalem. We stopped for lunch at a mall in Ma'aleh Adumim, where I went to Aroma - yum! It was very exciting - my first Aroma back in Israel. I also saw the first of many election posters, which I have been taking pictures of for my Israeli Politics professor for next semester.
After lunch at the mall, we made our first stop in Jerusalem at Har Hazeitim - the Mt. of Olives (after passing Hebrew U on the way, which was very exciting). We looked out over the Old City and the graves, some from hundreds of years ago, along the side of the mountain. We made a "L'chaim" as we first glanced at the Old City and the Temple Mount, and listened while one of the girls on our trip, who is in Israel for her first time, said Shehecheyanu. Afterwards, Rabbi Chin, the Rabbi leading our group, told us about how his ancestors on his mother's side are buried there, and then took us around the corner to his father's grave. His father, who was also a rabbi, had died about six months ago, and he told us about his father which was very emotional for him, obviously, and very moving to all of us.
We got back on the bus, and headed to the entrance of the Old City. After stopping at King David's grave, we went to the site where they are rebuilding the Churba synagogue. Then we started to head towards the Kotel, but before we did, we stopped on a platform to talk about holiness. As we were talking, we started hearing the Hatikvah playing over a loudspeaker, so our tour guide decided to stop the discussion to let us go look out over the Kotel while the Hatikvah was playing. When we went to the overlook, we found a Muslim group from South Africa who was there as part of a tour of the Middle East. We had some really interesting encounters with them, which gave us some really nice moments of hope. One woman, in full Muslim dress and full hijab, offered to move out of the way so I could see and take a picture. One of our staff members was wearing a fuzzy hat that was similar to one that one of the Muslim women was wearing, and the Muslim woman said to her that their hats should be friends. This led to them having a conversation with our staff person explaining to the other woman about the significance of the Kotel to Judaism. Also, it turned out that the Hatikvah we had heard was part of an introduction to a swearing-in ceremony for Nachal, a unit of the Israeli army. They announced that the main ceremony was going to be in a few hours, but we got to see some of their initial formation.
After a quick stop at the Kotel, we went to the Davidson Center (the archaeological park along the other side of the Kotel) where we had a Chanukah party with some Israeli soldiers. We lit candles, ate donuts, and sang and danced with the soldiers. It was SO much fun and really inspiring. Afterwards, we changed our schedule and decided to go to the swearing-in ceremony for Nachal. Unfortunately, it started late, so we missed a great portion of it because we had to leave, but we at least got to see the beginning (the raising of the flag and some other parts). Afterwards, we went to dinner at a restaurant in Talpiyot, which was kind of strange and had really weird food like Turkey testicles (ew), which became a joke in our trip.
The next day (Thursday) was a very archaeological day, so obviously I loved it. The morning started with a session with a Professor of History and Archaeology at Hebrew U named Lee Levine. He talked to us about the Hasmoneans (oh so apropos for Chanukah), and various aspects of the story, like the possible explanations for why the holiday actually lasted for 8 days (besides the Hebrew school answer of the oil miracle). It was a really interesting session.
This was followed by another interesting session at the Pardes institute. In honor of the week's Torah portion being part of the Joseph story, we learned about Joseph's coat. First, we watched clips from two modern-day interpretations of the Joseph story: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Dreamwork's Joseph King of Dreams. We saw how the movies depicted Joseph's coat and what the reasons given for the coat were. Then, we looked at various texts explaining what the word pasim (the Hebrew term used to describe Joseph's coat) meant. The texts described various interpretations of what this meant, including design, color, and symbolism. It was a really interesting and creative session. While there, I met someone in their educator's program who is going to be teaching for a month or so at JAMD (my high school) next semester, so I found that really cool as well.
After a delicious lunch buffet at Pardes, we traveled through the rain to Ir David, the City of David. After watching a fabulous 3-D movie (that can really only be compared in level of fabulousness to the Golan movie from my field trip in the spring), we put up with the rain to go and visit Hezekiah's water tunnels. While I had been there before with my JAMD trip, it was really cool doing it again. These tunnels were used to protect Israel's water supply against attack, and brought water into the City of David/Old City. Especially after having read "The Source" (a historical fiction book based on Megiddo and other archaeological sites around Israel), which talked about a similar tunnel, I thought it was really cool to go through it again. Even though it was dark and wet (and we had to go outside into the cold and rainy weather in our wet clothes right after) it was still a really fun and cool experience. As we waded through the water directed by our keychain flashlights, we sang songs (ranging from Salaam to old school Backstreet Boys), which made it go by faster and was a lot of fun.
When we got out of the tunnels, we met with an IDF spokesman for Ir David. Before the planned program, he brought us down into an area underneath the Ir David visitors center where they are currently excavating what is believed to have been either David or Solomon's Temple (there is some debate over whether it is 10th or 9th century BCE, but the head archaeologist on the dig is convinced it is David's Temple due to some embedded 10th century pottery). A few weeks ago, they found two seals with the names of two of the people mentioned in the book of Jeremiah who, on behalf of the king, wanted to kill Jeremiah because of his attacks against the king. These seals together, prove, without any doubt, the legitimacy of each other. Because they were both found, there can be no doubt that these seals are referring to the biblical men by their names. I found this completely fascinating, especially given my interest in archaeology and because we had learned about Jeremiah and his suffering in prison by the king in my Hebrew Scriptures class last semester. Also, two days before we were there, they had found a huge treasure of Byzantine coins, worth about half a million dollars, which had apparently made big international news since we had been in Israel. Basically, the visit to that site was the coolest thing ever.
After taking us to the site, we went to a small room in the Ir David visitors center, where we discussed the historical/religious, and therefore political, importance of Ir David. Located in East Jerusalem, this area is very controversial, but every important to showing that the Jews do have a long history in the area (not to mention that Baron Rothschild had bought the area well before the creation of the state). It was really interesting to hear his perspective, and we were told we would get the other side of the political spectrum later in the trip.
After a quick stop at the hotel, we went off for some free time in Emek Refaiim. I went with my friend Sam to Burgers Bar (yum!), where they were giving out free sufganiot to their customers for Chanukah! Then we went to Michal Negrin (this is me we are talking about), where I found a sale (yay!) so I got some rings for myself, and a birthday present for a certain someone whose birthday is the day I get home. After I started practicing my Hebrew with the saleswoman, we got into this whole conversation about intermarriage in the US and if my parents were worried I would fall in love with a non-Jewish boy. She then proceeded to tell me how, when she had been in the US for a year, she fell in love with a black man (insert sarcastic gasp here), but it didn't work out because she knew her family would never accept him. Well, it turns out she worked in a mall selling Dead Sea products (yes, so typical/hilariously Israeli) in Connecticut, in a town near where my friend Sam is from. So this random chick gave Sam a note to give to Roland "Ronnie" at Kay Jewelers in the mall. Basically, it was pretty hilarious.
Friday started with an interesting, but overly passive, study session at the Conservative Yeshiva on the Zohar. We were all pretty exhausted and were basically being recited to, so I don't really think any of us were huge fans of it. Then we took the busses to a gorgeous lookout point over the whole city called the Haas Promenade, where it is presumed that Abraham first saw Mt. Moriah on his way to the mountain for the "binding of Isaac". It was also important in recent Israeli history for border issues, etc. pre-1967.
After the lookout, we went to the shuk at Machaneh Yehudah - yay! It was super exciting to be there, but CRAAAAAZY busy since it was only a few hours before Shabbat. I got some fresh pita and babganoush for lunch, and did a little bit of shopping (including getting Marzipan rugelach and sufganiot, yummy!). However, I was INCREDIBLY disappointed to find that an Aroma coffee shop had been built IN the shuk (for those of you familiar with the area, it's in the outdoor part on the end towards Marzipan). Now, this was definitely not there last time I was here, and frankly is just way too much modernization for such a classic area. I love Aroma almost as much as Amanda, and we both are very upset and disturbed by this recent development. It really is heresy.
Anyway, after the lovely rush and craziness at the shuk, we returned to the hotel to get ready for Shabbos. We lit Chanukah and Shabbat candles at the hotel, then proceeded to our host synagogues in Emek Refaiim. The program had set us up with host families for dinner, and we were going to their respective shuls to meet them there. Our family went to a shul called Yael, which, as far as Jerusalem synagogues go, was really nothing to write home about...but I will anyway - small, modern orthodox synagogue, with a small and crowded women's section. I ended up standing, but we missed Kabbalat Shabbat so it really wasn't for too long anyway. Luckily, though, the night was salvaged by our AMAZING host family. I went to dinner with my previously mentioned friend Sam and another girl, Rachel, who are both students from American University. We met up with our host family and began walking to their house as I started playing Toronto Jewish geography. The dad was from England and the mom was from Toronto. They had 4 sons, 2 of whom (and 1 friend) were at dinner, who were all born and raised in Israel but spoke perfect American (or I guess Canadian) English. They had gone to camp at Ramah Toronto (which is where all the Ramah people from West Bloomfield go) so that was fun finding all the people we knew in common. It's really impossible to fully capture the dinner experience, but it was really incredible. We felt really comfortable with them, and basically spent the entire time laughing, making fun of Rachel's crippled-state (she has a boot on her foot...long story) and determining how to make a food castle (instead of a food pyramid). The food was also delicious - we had vegetable soup with a meat stuffed matzah ball, chicken with porcini mushrooms and garlic, actual lettuce salad (a rarity in Israel), green beans, LOTS of amazing latkes (our first and only of Chanukah in Israel - apparently donuts are bigger here for Chanukah than latkes), and for dessert, "parve milkys" (pudding in little glass dishes with whipped cream and strawberries). It was basically amazing. After dinner, we went back to the hotel for a quick program with the group and a late bedtime.
Shabbos morning I went to shul with my friend Nehama to Shira Chadasha (see a blog entry from my first week of my semester here for more descriptions on Shira Chadasha). I had never been there on Shabbat morning before, because most of what makes it amazing is the Friday night singing, but there was Hallel for Rosh Chodesh so we still got a good taste of the singing. There was a wedding and a bat mitzvah, though, so it was pretty busy, but we managed to get seats. We then returned to the hotel for lunch and some rest, before a study session and snacks at the OU Center to wrap up the early shabbos.
We came back to the hotel for a really moving Havdallah ceremony, and then went to get ready for our night. As we were getting ready, we found out that, during Shabbat, Israel had started raids in Gaza, and that Gaza had fired missiles back. It was pretty scary, and everyone was freaking out. They had us call our parents and tell them we were no where near the range of the missiles though, so I still felt safe.
After a quick bus ride to Tel Aviv (with a stop for dinner at a mall where I had Big Apple Pizza a la Yaffo St.), we went to an AMAZING concert at the Mayumana center in Tel Aviv with David Broza. Basically, Mayumana is this group that does all kinds of crazy percussion, like with garbage cans, beat boxing into long pipes, and even percussion with a jug in water. One of my friends called it Israeli Stomp but better. They had taken the music of David Broza, a famous Israeli singer, and incorporated it into their show. So, we not only go the wonderful pleasure of seeing David Broza live, but also got to see this really really cool group. We were basically all dancing the entire time in our seats, and talking about it all the way home. After the concert, when we were about to board the busses, our tour guide's husband pointed out that David Broza was standing in the lobby of the building. We ran in, and ended up getting a picture with him! It was SO cool!
On Sunday, we started our day with splitting up, with the boys and girls going to different orthodox yeshivot. The boys went to Ohr Somayach, and we went to Mayanot, a recently newly created girls seminary. It is a Lubavitch yeshiva but is very open to people of all different religious affiliation, and one of the past students who spoke to us had grown up with basically no Jewish background, and spent a few months studying there right after they opened. We started our study session with looking at the Shema and the first paragraph of the Shema, but it ended up going into this really intense discussion about women in religion and other related topics. It got pretty heated, but was really interesting.
After we left the seminary and picked up the guys from their yeshiva, we headed back to the Old City for some shopping time. I got a mezuzah by this Judaica artist Emanuel who I found when I was here last time and got candle sticks by him. I'm starting to collect mezuzot for my future law school big girl apartment, so it was a good addition to the collection. I walked around the Cardo with Alexis, one of the girls from Maryland on our trip, while the other girls ordered Hadaya jewelery.
After that, we went on a ridiculously long tour of the separation border. We had to edit it, though, because we were supposed to go to a refugee camp and into East Jerusalem to learn more about the Palestinian perspective, but because of riots there following the Israeli operation in Gaza, we had to cancel that part, and just stay on the Israeli side of the green line. We did get to go to several look-outs and see the fence, and see a few developed settlement towns in the Jerusalem area. We also had to cut down the tour a little bit because of Chanukah traffic (no joke).
After a quick break at a coffee shop, we continued on to the AJC (American Jewish Communities), where their social director, Rabbi Ed Rettig, talked to us about the differences between American and Israeli Jews, and how we needed to get on the same wavelength so we could relate to each other and have debates, rather than right now, which is basically Israelis and Americans talking to each other and thinking they mean the same thing but really don't. It was pretty interesting, but I think we were all a bit too tired to fully pay attention.
This was supposed to be followed by some free time/dinner on Ben Yehudah, but that was cancelled because of the security situation. I was really upset, especially because nothing has happened in the Ben Yehudah area in a really long time, and I felt that this was being a little over-protective (especially because other groups, like Meor) are still going. Instead, they brought us carry out to the hotel and we hung out with that for a little while.
Earlier in the day, they had notified us that, despite being unsuccessful earlier in booking tours of the Kotel Tunnel, we got a call that day saying that there was a last minute cancellation for that night and we could have the spot. This was really exciting, especially because there is usually a 3 month waiting list, because our tour guide had worked as a guide at the Tunnels (and I personally was excited because I haven't been there in about 5 years, so it was nice to go back). Though really late at night (the slot wasn't until 11pm) at the end of a really long and tiring day, the tunnels were really fascinating, especially coming from my new archaeologically infused viewpoint.
On Monday morning, we divided up again, this time into groups based on our professional career interests. I went with all of the politics kiddies to the Foreign Ministry, where we met with the head of the Department of Civil and Diplomatic Law (aka the legal advisor to Foreign Minister/Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni) which is basically the coolest job ever. The meeting with him was especially interesting because of the current situation, which is mostly what we talked about. It was really interesting getting his perspective on it. I also managed to get an apparently illegal picture of the outside of the building before getting yelled at by the security (apparently the sign that says "state of israel foreign ministry" is super top-secret?). They also made us check our camera at the door when we were going through security, so no more pics after that.
groups based on our professional career interests. I went with all of the politics kiddies to the Foreign Ministry, where we met with the head of the Department of Civil and Diplomatic Law (aka the legal advisor to Foreign Minister/Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni) which is basically the coolest job ever. The meeting with him was especially interesting because of the current situation, which is mostly what we talked about. It was really interesting getting his perspective on it. I also managed to get an apparently illegal picture of the outside of the building before getting yelled at by the security (apparently the sign that says "state of israel foreign ministry" is super top-secret?). They also made us check our camera at the door when we were going through security, so no more pics after that.
After our meetings we did ODT (outdoor training) which ended up being IDT (indoor training) because it was raining, which all the Israelis are happy about because they need rain, but of course, as tourists, it's not so fun. Anyway, ODT/IDT is basically low ropes course bonding exercises, which weren't really so successful. We had some trouble working as a team and communicating, mostly because we are all leaders and wanted our opinions heard, and because we have become pretty socially divided, which really shined through in these activities. Oh well, ce la vie.
After ODT we came back to the hotel for "processing", where we got a chance to reflect a little in our journals about the activity, and then broke up into pairs to do this thing they really enjoy having us do called "deep listening", where you just listen to the other person talk for 10 minutes. It was nice to get some stuff off my chest. Then we had a really nice dinner at the hotel, followed by a session with Amotz Asa'el, former editor of the Jerusalem Post and founder of Business Week Israel. He helped balance out the right and left politically that we had already heard from, arguing that Israel is not really as polarized as everyone says, and that there is a general consensus amongst Israelis with most major issues. He answered a lot of our questions, and it was overall pretty interesting.
After the session, we had some free time. On our way out of the hotel, my friend Sam and I noticed that there was a bunch of commotion in the lobby. Apparently, after our session, 8 of the people in our group squeezed into an elevator that could fit maybe 4, and not too comfortably either. Obviously, the elevator could not handle this, and got stuck. They were stuck in there for 45 minutes until help came, so we took the opportunity to make fun of them as much as humanly possible. After they got out, Sam and I headed over to the new nearby outdoor mall (which leads into Zion Gate of the Old City) and went shopping for Ahavah products and stopped in the Michal Negrin store (and I didn't even get anything!). It started to rain pretty hard though, and of course I didn't bring my umbrella that one time, so we headed back to the hotel. Everyone there was hanging out, and drinking, and playing scattegories, so we opened up the wine we bought at the shuk and hung out with them, then headed to bed.
Tuesday morning, our last few hours in Jerusalem, we went to the Supreme Court, where I went on a field trip last semester. After a brief tour (lines and circles!) we discussed the legal issues of the separation barrier to round out our discussion. It was pretty interesting, but a lot of it was stuff I knew already from my Israeli Legal System class in Israel last spring, and various other classes I've taken.
After that, we boarded the busses, said goodbye to Jerusalem, and headed off to Tel Aviv...Tel Aviv update to come soon!
I'm staying safe, I promise!
Happy New Years!
<3 Leah
