After our visit to the Supreme Court, we headed to Tel Aviv for our brief visit to the warmth, the secular, and modern NYC-like city. We started at one of my favorite places in Tel Aviv - Nachalat Binyamin. This is a main pedestrian walkway in downtown central Tel Aviv, where on Tuesdays and Fridays, local artisans come and set up a HUGE and amazing art fair. After a stop at the amazing juice/smoothie stand, we did some shopping around the art fair (and the purchasing of a mezuzah as a gift and a Chamsa wall-hanging for myself), and then I went with my friend Sam to Roladin, one of my favorite Tel Aviv restaurants (as can be proven by the number of people I have introduced to the fabulousness of it). We ate outside (because it was warm enough to actually do that!) and enjoyed people watching/me running after busses with election advertisements on the sides of them so that I could take pictures for my Advanced Israeli Politics class next semester.
After lunch we met up with the rest of the group in front of the newly-kosher Burger King and walked through Shuk HaCarmel (the main Tel Aviv market), where I had random run-in #5 of Israel - a girl from my Hebrew class when I was at Hebrew U. Then we boarded the bus to our hotel. We all got very excited as we passed the famed Hayarkon 48 hostel (and Kink toast across the street), on the way to the Basel Hotel, which was basically right across the street from the beach. We dropped our stuff off in our rooms, and then went to the beach to take some pictures at sunset.
Our evening program was at the Reform Temple of Beit Daniel. We met with their rabbi, who explained to us the differences between Reform Judaism in the US and Israel, and how the Reform movement was an important alternative to secular Judaism in Israel. Then some Israeli students (who were mostly actually Americans who made aliyah) who belonged to Beit Daniel came to meet with us and talk to us about the community, life in Tel Aviv, security dilemmas faced by people our age in the IDF, etc. 2 of them happened to be GW alumni, so that was pretty cool. We had super-Israeli pizza with them for dinner as we continued our discussion. Then, together with the students, we listened to a speaker from an organization called Mishpachot Shakulot (Bereaved Families). This is an organization of Israeli and Palestinians who have lost a family member in the Conflict. We were suppose to hear from an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, but due to the security situation in Israel right now, the Palestinian was unable to make it passed the checkpoints to Tel Aviv, so we only heard from the woman. Still, it was very fascinating, and she told us how her son, who preached reconciliation and social action rather than violence, was killed while working at a checkpoint by a sniper. She preached reconciliation and understanding, saying that we need to be able to relate to each other as bereaving people who share loss and who share grief when there is loss. It was very interesting, but a little too eutopian for me to buy into - I wish the world worked like that, but terrorists will never be able to understand us as human beings.
After the program, I went back to the hotel, where Guy (my roommate from Hebrew U) and Marissa (one of the girls on my program from the US, who is Guy's girlfriend in and Israel visiting him for winter break) came to meet me at the hotel. I wanted to be able to go out with them, but we had to stay in the hotel, so we hung out in the lobby and caught up for a while. It was really great seeing them both again and hearing what they are both up to. Guy is in Tel Aviv now studying computer science, and Marissa is applying to social work grad school, and is hoping to do her program in Israel.
The next day, Wednesday (aka New Years Eve 2009) we had to do some rearranging to our schedule once again to ensure that we stayed as safe as possible in the security situation. We were supposed to take a tour of Jaffa, the old port city, which is also a mostly Arab area. Because of supposed riots that day before, we decided not to do that, but instead went to a place called the Jaffa Institute (similar name, so similar thing, right?). The Jaffa Institute is a program that helps underprivileged children and their families. They run an after-school program to ensure that kids from the poorer neighborhoods of Jaffa and the surrounding areas have at least one hot meal a day, do their homework, take their school seriously, and are hopefully able to remain in school and join the army to continue to be part of Israeli society. Apparently, many people from poorer areas tend to end up in jail for drug convictions and other minor crimes, and anyone with any sort of criminal record will not be accepted to the army. Because of this, it makes it difficult for them to get a job later, because most employers look to army experience and training as important job experience for later work, especially when the applicant did not go to college, let alone graduate high school. The Jaffa Institute works to fix these problems, and put the kids in their program on the right track. They also realized through their services that giving these kids a hot lunch (schools in poorer areas of Israel end at 1 because that's all the national government funds for, so lunch is after school) is not enough to ensure they are well fed, so they started a sort of food bank program, in which they bring families twice a month a box of many of the staples that are important for daily living (oil, rice, cereal, chickpeas - this is Israel after all, pasta, other canned food, etc.). We assisted with this program, assembling (very quickly I might add - we finally had good team work even if IDC didn't work out well) 25 boxes filled with food to be delivered to these families. I think we all really enjoyed learning about the Institute, and then helping them out, even just a little bit.
After we left the Jaffa Institute, we headed over to Rabin Square. I think I mentioned this the last time I went to Rabin Square (when I went to meet up with GW Birthright in June), but I have recently gained a new appreciation for this site, as I wrote a 40-page final paper for my Arab-Israeli Conflict class in Israel about the effects on foreign policy and domestic attitude following Rabin's assassination. This really gave me a nuanced understanding with which to approach this visit, because, unlike the last Birthright visit, the explanation given by our tour guide was much more in-depth than just a simple relaying of the facts (then again, our tour guide, Yael, never simply told us the basic facts...in case I haven't mentioned this yet, Yael was AAAAAAAWESOME). She told us about how, right before Rabin's assassination, she had been very involved in the anti-Rabin movement, as she was a member of the "Greater Israel" school of thought that she had been brought up with in her religious family (Greater Israel is the idea that Israel should exist in all of Israel that was promised by God to the Jews - aka against the giving up of Gaza and the West Bank, for example). However, as soon as she saw that the movement against Rabin was getting more violent and out of hand (like pictures of Rabin dressed in Palestinian head gear, etc.) she realized she no longer wanted to be actively involved in the movement, because Rabin was still her Prime Minister and the 1948, 1967, and 1973 military hero she had heard so much about. However, as soon as word spread that Rabin was assassinated by a religious Jew, she immediately felt like she was being judged, because she wore skirts which labeled her as religious as well. Yael told us about how this event meant more to Israeli society than simply the murder of their Prime Minister, but it brought about an age of increased pluralism and understanding in Israel, something that we as American Jews, and Jews participating in the ATID program which taught us to appreciate all forms of religious and political perspectives, could truly appreciate. It was really interesting hearing her story, and shed a more personal light on the information I had learned while writing my paper last spring. Before we left, instead of listening to Shir L'Shalom (the Song of Peace - the song sung at the rally right before Rabin was assassinated), we went to the Rabin memorial and listened to Shir L'ahavah (Song of Love) as a reminder that Rabin's assassination taught us that it is time to love and appreciate one another instead of fighting over different views of what peace and security meant.
After this, we had a little bit of free time around Rabin Square to have lunch. Some of us found a place called Magic Burgers Bar. What is Magic Burgers Bar, you ask? Well, it is basically a poser for Burgers Bar, but definitely equally as good, right down to the Burgers fries. It was pretty fantastic, I have to say. Also, while waiting for my usual grilled chicken sandwich (wow that sounds awesome right now...) one of the soldiers waiting for Israel as well saw that we were wearing our super shnazy green ATID jackets, and asked us about our program. After explaining, I noticed he had a very American accent and asked if he had made aliyah or was just volunteering in the army. Turns out he was Israeli but had lived in the US for a few years growing up, hence the American English accent. Where in the US? Ann Arbor! Such a small Jewish world.
Anyway, after lunch (and the purchasing at a small grocery store of some individual bottles of what turned out to be very dry champagne for our New Years pre-party celebrating later) we headed over to Alma College, a pluralist, secular Yeshiva in Tel Aviv. We talked about the Shabbat Kiddush and what you should do if there is a prayer that you just don't agree with. It was interesting to see this kind of text study in an environment that was open to the possibility of change from tradition, though I don't necessarily buy into that school of thought.
We went back to the hotel for dinner and some free time to get ready for our New Years Party. After realizing that the champagne I bought was never in a million years going to make it down my throat beyond a few sips, we finished getting ready for the party, took some pictures, and headed off coatless to Hangar 11, a warehouse type building on the pier that is apparently use usually as a concert hall. Well, we assumed that we were going to be able to go right in, so our lack of coats would just be more convenient due to the lack of coat checks, but we had to wait for our counselor to get the tickets from will call, and basically froze. In the mean time, Sonya, one of the girls from American, got her foot run over by a cab as she was getting out (police report later filed, though her foot turned out to be fine, luckily). Anyway, we finally got into the party after a few minutes of penguin-style snuggling to keep warm. The party was, well, interesting. We had been told we were going to an Israeli party with a performer and a DJ, but it was nothing like what we expected. The room was HUUUUGE, and the bar's selection of juice mixers was sadly minimal, especially considering Israel's huge supply of awesome juices, but whatever. But anyway, there were cirque del sole style performers all over the room, which seemed kind of bizarre, but the best was yet to come. At around 11:15, this band came on with...how do I best describe this? Another band of very crude muppets. Yup, muppets. They talked a lot about some very crude, sexual, and inappropriate things (made super awkward by the fact that the Hassidic Rabbi running our program was there...awwwwwkward!) Anyway, we were hoping they would leave in time to start the new year in a non-ridiculous way, but the count down included the crazy muppets as well. Oh well. Otherwise, it was fun though, dancing to awesomely Israeli techno music. I don't think it was exactly what any of us expected, but I had a pretty decent time. Certainly better than last New Year's.
And of course, after a crazy New Year's, we had to wake up BRIGHT and early to leave Tel Aviv for our adventures in the North....
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