Tzfat, Purim, Tel Aviv, and Kibbutz Channaton...plus, of course, classes, field trips, and days/nights around Jerusalem

Hey readers!

So I know it's been a RIDICULOUSLY long time since I last wrote, and I apologize - between classes, work, midterms, touring around Jerusalem, spending time with my fellow students, and every day life, it's been difficult to find time to update. Anyway, I'm writing now from Athens International Airport (and, probably from the plane as well seeing as I only have about a half an hour until I board). I'll update later about my last 6 days in Athens, but now for your reading pleasure: the last month in Israel.

Last I updated, I was about to leave for a weekend in Tzfat. After a bus ride that, with stops, was about as long as a flight from Detroit to San Diego, my roommates Courtney and Jessica, my friend Amanda, and I arrived in Tzfat late Thursday night. At the bus stop in Jerusalem we had met a group from a yeshiva in Jerusalem who were also going to the same place we were - Assent. Assent is basically a secret Chabad house (in that it doesn't advertise itself as Chabad, but very obviously is when you get there). Since we had missed the dinner that everyone else was having, they got us leftovers and told us to eat quickly because the night's lecture was about to start. We had signed up to go there on a weekend program, in which they were supposed to be lectures about Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), Tzfat, and Purim, in addition to Shabbat prayers and meals, and some touristy activities as well. Well, the lectures ended up being mostly about Purim, and how we are supposed to wipe out Amalek (mini-lesson in Judaism: when the Jews were wandering through the desert, a nation called Amalek attacked the Jews from the back - where the children and elderly were. Because they were so immoral and attacked the most innocent and weakest part of our nation instead of attacking the soldiers, the Jews were commanded to "wipe out Amalek". Haman, the villain of the Purim story, was part of Amalek, and anyone after him who tried to wipe out the Jews - ex. Hitler - was presumed to be part of Amalek). Anyway, by the end of the weekend we were pretty sick of hearing about Amalek, but luckily the first lecturer didn't really speak at all about Amalek, and stuck more to Kabbalistic ideas. He was a really good lecturer, but unfortunately, he only spoke one more time over the weekend. I should also mention that Molly Mardit from JAMD, the same person from my high school that I had seen at the Carlebach Moshav about a month before, was also at Ascent for the weekend, and we just so happened to be put in the same room (again!).

Anyway, the next day we decided to skip the morning lecture and the group's tour in order to do some of the touristy/shopping stuff that the schedule did not allow for otherwise. This turned out to be a very good decision, since, due to pouring rain, the program changed what they were doing, and ended up taking a bus to a nearby town instead of doing the things they had planned on doing in Tzfat. This way, we got to actually see Tzfat (the city we had come to see after all, even if it was by means of walking in the POURING rain on slippery cobblestones). We went to the famous Tzfat candle store, some Jewish book stores, the workshop of David Friedman (a famous Kabbalistic artist who speaks to different groups about themes in Kabbalah that he uses in his art), and some of the famous synagogues in the area, as well as the different artists shops (Tzfat is famous for its artists colony). Unfortunately, some of the synagogues we had wanted to see were closed, but we at least got to see the Ashkenazi (European Jewish) Ari synagogue (the Ari was the man who wrote the book that modern Kabbalistic study is based on). We also went to the Tzfat cemetary, where we saw the grave of the Ari, as well as the graves of several high school students from Tzfat who had been killed in the crossfire in the 1970s after being taken hostage by the PLO while on a field trip. This was particularly interesting for me since I had learned about the hostage situation a few weeks before in my Arab-Israeli conflict class. At some point during the day, we also had lunch at this really cute vegetarian restaurant, which was really more like a room with 2 or 3 tables with a house style kitchen attached to it and two women cooking some items from their menu. During lunch, they were also baking whole wheat chocolate chip muffins, so obviously the whole "restaurant" smelled amazing the entire time we were there, and we had to have a muffin before we left.

Tzfat, all nice and overcast/rainy

Noah's Ark, made into a candle at the Tzfat candle store

The hand-carved ark at the Ashkenazi Ari Synagogue

It cleared up a little bit

Pretty amazing flag picture, if I do say so myself

The cemetery for the Tzfat students who died in the PLO hostage situation

Friday night, we went with the group to a local synagogue for services. While it was fun it first, it had to have been one of the longest Friday night services I have ever been to in my entire life. It lasted over 2 hours, and that was with us leaving early. The program hadn't left until just a little bit early, and we were all going to host families for dinner, so we all felt really bad because we were so late, but we didn't know where we were going and had to wait for them to take us there. When the four of us were finally taken to our house for dinner, we were met by a very large, Sephardic (Spanish/Moroccan Jews) Chasidic family with AMAZING food and an absolutely fascinating story. The father was a kosher butcher working in South America, and he only comes home for the holidays, so the mother ran the household. Her oldest daughter was there with her husband and two kids - a girl who was probably about 3 and absolutely adorable, and a baby who was only a few weeks old. There was also a teenage son, a pre-teen daughter, and two younger sons. She also had a daughter who was about our age, who had a very fascinating story. We saw her with a baby at first, and we didn't know whose baby it was because she was clearly not married (she didn't have a husband there and her hair wasn't covered, as is customary for orthodox married women to do). Later, though, we found out that it was her baby, and that her story was very unusual considering that she was raised in a very religious household in a very religious town. She had apparently been married and divorced, but her baby was not with her ex-husband, but rather with a boyfriend who had moved to Miami right before she found out she was pregnant. She was supposed to go visit him in Miami, but when she told him about the baby, he had said he didn't want her to come and didn't want anything to do with him. Well, once the baby was born and he saw how cute he is (he's about 3-4 months old), he asked her to come, so she told us she was going to Miami soon. Anyway, we stayed at their house for about 3-4 hours, talking with the daughter and the mom over dessert and tea and ended up going back to our program late. Once we got back, there was some storytelling and singing, and then we went to bed.

The next day after lunch, there were some more lectures, some rest time, and then a walking tour of Tzfat by the Rabbi who had given the lecture the night we got there. It was really interesting, but we were unfortunately rushed through it because it started late and we had to get back in time to finish shabbos. After shabbos was over, we caught the first bus back to Jerusalem.

Well, the next was Purim week, so in addition to having a three day weekend the next weekend, we basically had an entire week of celebrating. On Monday night, which was technically what should have been St. Patrick's day (but it was moved by the Church to earlier because of Easter, but we pretended it hadn't been), we were invited to a movie night with some people from first semester. That was the first night my friends and I started hanging out with this group of people from first semester, some of whom it turned out are roommates with some of my friends who are also just here for the spring. Anyway, I'm really glad we've been able to branch out and mix first and second semester people, because it's really hard since they had a whole semester without us and we had all of Ulpan without them, so when we were first making friends they weren't there for us to make friends with.

Tuesday night was the Hebrew U Purim Party, which was just down the street from our dorms. It was pretty fun, especially since it was a party where we basically knew half the people there (almost reminded me of a Phi Sig party lol). They had also hired all kinds of performers, including belly dancers, people on stilts, etc.

Us dressed up to go to the Hebrew U Purim Party - Jessica as a Bunny, Amanda as a Butterfly, Marissa as a cat, and me as Princess Leah --- get it???

Two of my friends dressed up as Elliot Spitzer and his prostitute

Thursday night was the actual Purim night, and it was really cool seeing how they celebrate it in Israel. For Megillah reading (when the story of Purim is read from a scroll in synagogue) I went to the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. It's a gorgeous synagogue that I went to when I was here with my dad, but I figured this would be a perfect time to go because, unlike on shabbat and most other holidays, I could go and take pictures of the interior. Plus, I could enjoy Megillah reading with Israelis. Well, the synagogue was as beautiful as I remembered, but because it is so big, it didn't seem very full, which was kind of disappointing. There were a bunch of kids and some adults dressed up though, which was fun, and the person who read the Megillah read REALLY fast so we were done in no time at all. After Megillah reading, I went out with a bunch of people downtown, and it was absolutely crazy. Everyone on the streets was completely wasted (as it is a commandment to be very very drunk on Purim), with people drinking on the streets and spraying party foam on random passersby. Music was playing in Zion Square (the main square downtown) and all down Ben Yehuda street. It was crazy seeing all the people dressed up and all the police and soldiers just standing by watching the craziness. It was lots of fun, and one of the girls we were with ended up getting into a rap battle with some random guy on the street that was kind of bizarre but also really hilarious.

The outside of the Great Synagogue

Inside the Great Synagogue

Zion Square on Purim night

People dressed up on Ben Yehuda Street

Friday and Saturday day we got a little bit of rest from Purim until Saturday night when Shushan Purim (the special Purim for cities that were walled during the time of Joshua) began. On Saturday afternoon, Jessica and I (with Amanda for a little bit) sat out in the student village and enjoyed the nice day while doing some reading. After Shabbat ended, the thee of us went out downtown for Sushi, and then came back to the Student Village where there was a Purim party right outside my dorm in the middle of the Student Village. It was pretty convenient, and a lot of fun. They had a costume contest, and the winner, who was dressed up as a Hookah, won a free airline ticket to Europe.

Hanging out in the Student Village

Party in the Student Village (that's my building in the background)

Me and my roommate, Jessica, at the party in the Student Village

Party in the Student Village

On Sunday (Shushan Purim day), Jessica, Amanda, and I went to the Old City. After a stop off at the Kotel, we walked through/around the city until we got to the house of Jeff Seidel, a pretty sketchy guy who runs a Jewish Student Center on campus that runs programs in an attempt to "frum out" (ie make more religious) anyone they can through fun trips and programs. Anyway, he had a Purim Seudah (the festive Purim meal) that was open to all students. About 20 or so students were there, and there was really delicious food and LOTS of alcohol. It was weird because Jeff (and his 16 year old son who looked 12) kept pouring people drinks and telling people they weren't drunk enough (though I guess it is a mitzvah, right?).

Purim Seudah at Jeff Seidel's

Monday it was back to classes. Then, on Tuesday, we had a dinner in our apartment for all the "regulars" who hang out in our apartment, because my roommate Courtney's boyfriend was visiting from Colorado for his spring break, and she wanted him to meet everyone. It was a lot of fun, especially since we had all been so busy lately that our apartment hadn't been as lively as it usually was, so it was nice to have everyone back there again. It was also obviously nice to meet Courtney's boyfriend, especially because we had heard so much about him, and knew how anxious she was to see him.

Roommate picture: Roi, Guy, Me, Courtney, and Jessica

Unofficial roommates picture: Marissa (our next door neighbor and Guy's girlfriend), Me, Jessica, Thai (Courtney's boyfriend), Courtney, and Amanda

During my Israeli Legal System class on Wednesday, we went on a field trip to the Israeli Supreme Court. We were given a tour of the building, during which the tour guide explained the architecture of the building, while reviewing some of the things we had learned in our class about how the Israeli court system works. We also got to sit in on one case, which was being heard by three justices, one of whom was the first Arab appointee to the Supreme Court, and another of whom was the Chief Justice. The case was also unique because of the criminals being tried was representing himself, which is apparently very unusual. We also got to see a few interesting features of the Israeli court system. First, all of the lawyers wear black robes like judges do in the US. Also, the lawyers from both sides (prosecution and defense) both sit at one round table, which each side getting one side of the table. Also, in the case of a criminal trial, the criminal sits in a special booth that only has one exit, which is into the back halls of the court through which they are led to and from jail. However, there are no doors through which they can get out into the courtroom. It was really interesting to see, especially having spent so many weeks learning about the court system.

The hallway of the courtrooms

The courtroom - judges's bench and lawyers table

The courtyard outside the courts

After class on Thursday, my friend Amanda and I went to the Old City to do some shopping in the shuk and to go see the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the church built on the location at which Jesus is believed to have been crucified. It was a beautiful church, with lots of different little chapels. It was also really interesting to see the people who were worshipping there, and how they acted at the part of the church where Jesus was crucified. It really helped me connect with the idea that Jerusalem is so important to many different religions. After we left the church, we saw people doing Via de la Rosa, walking through the 12 steps of the cross, where Jesus was brought and humiliated on his way to being crucified. A lot of people were doing Via de la Rosa for a few weeks because it was right around Easter, and since it was just the week after Easter, a lot of people were still doing it. It was really cool to see, especially because it was something I was so unfamiliar with. The group was carrying a large wooden cross while singing prayers, and at each "station" they would put down the cross, say some prayers, and then switch who was to carry the cross.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Lamps that hung over the rock where Jesus was laid after he was crucified

Picture in the main entrance to the church

One of the many domes in the church

The altar in one of the chapels

A prayer and incense ceremony in the main corridor

Where Jesus was crucified

People doing Via de la Rosa near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

View of the windmill/German colony from along the Old City walls

Thursday night we went out to eat downtown, and then went to a bar with some of our first semester friends. It was a really chill bar that was like a Turkish/Arab style bar, with low couches and cushions all along the walls. It was a lot of fun and nice environment to hang out after a busy week.

Friday morning my roommate Jessica, along with my friends Amanda and Jordana, and I got up early to catch a bus to Tel Aviv for the weekend. We planned to spend a nice weekend on the beach, and that was exactly what we did. It was a really fun weekend, and was basically spring break part one.

After we arrived on Friday and dropped our stuff off at the hostel (which was a block away from the beach), we had lunch and then went to the beach for a few hours until it got a little chilly out. After a much needed nap, we had a delicious dinner and then took a walk all the way down the beach, which was really nice. After that, we went to Max Brenner's, a chocolate restaurant which was DELICIOUS!

The next day, we spent a long day on the beach in the sun. It was perfect beach weather - not too hot, but not too cold either. We got lots of sun, read/napped on the beach, then had lunch at a restaurant right on the beach with our feet in the sand. After lunch, we moved down the beach a little bit for a change of scenery. We stayed most of the rest of the afternoon, took a break in a nearby mall in the evening, and then went back to Jerusalem. It was a perfect, relaxing weekend, and I got a great tan!

The Tel Aviv beach

Me and Jessica on the beach

Amanda, Jessica, and I at dinner

Footprints in the sand at night

Me and Amanda at lunch on the beach

The following weekend I went on a shabbaton at Kibbutz Channaton, the only Conservative (Judaism) Kibbutz in Israel. It was mostly students (undergraduate and rabbinical) from JTS (the Jewish Theological Seminary), but it was nice because it gave me the chance to hang out with some of my JTS friends that I hadn't seen in awhile and meet some new people I hadn't met before. We left very early Friday morning, and headed up north. We stopped for about an hour or two at a Druze village, where we walked around and did some shopping, and I had pita with labaneh (a kind of sour yogurt cheese spread) and zatar (a Middle Eastern spice) which was delicious! On the way out of the town, we stopped at another pita place on the side of the road, so I shared a thin pita (almost like a crepe) and chocolate spread with one of the other people on the trip. When we got to the kibbutz, we were supposed to have time to go swimming in the kibbutz pool, but it was WAY too cold, so we ended up just hanging out until shabbos. Friday night we had services, and it was really nice to go to a conservative service again with women being able to participate and men and women sitting together. After services we had dinner in the kibbutz dining hall, and then went and had a learning program. After the programs were done for the night, a bunch of us hung out in the room I was staying in and just hung out and played scrabble. It was a lot of fun and a nice time to catch up with people

The next day was a pretty relaxing day. After lunch, we had another learning program, and then took a tour of the kibbutz. Because the kibbutz is a dairy, we spent most of the tour with the cows. After climbing up to the top of the kibbutz (which had a great view) we went to see the different cow pens. There was an area for the regular cows, an area for the pregnant cows, and an area for the baby cows. We saw several VERY pregnant cows, some cows that were less than a week old (and even one that had been born earlier that day and one that had been born just a few minutes before we saw it). There was also a separate "cow hospital" for the cows who were sick or had recently given birth. After that, we went to the milking area, where we saw the cows being milked with very sophisticated machines. The kibbutznik who was giving us our tour explained to us that the milking machines are able to detect almost immediately if there is something wrong with the milk, so that no bacteria-infected milk gets mixed up with the milk that the kibbutz produces. It was really cool seeing the cows being milked and learning about the whole process.

After the tour, we relaxed by the pool for a little while (I went in for about a minute, but it was FREEZING!), and hung around until Shabbat was over. At the end of Shabbat, we had dinner, evening services, and then havdallah. Afterwards, we quickly went back to our room, packed up our stuff, and headed back to Jerusalem.

The view outside my window at Kibbutz Channaton

The next week was a very busy week, between a two-day Hebrew midterm and getting things done before break. That Thursday was the last day of classes before break, and when classes were over, I met with Jordana and Amanda, the two people I went to Greece with, to plan our itinerary. Then I packed and got ready to leave for Greece!

My next entry will hopefully come soon...look out for a Greece update!

With lots of love (now from Tucson as it took me several flights/layovers and a few days in Arizona to finally finish this post),

Leah

Finally Starting to Realize I'm in a Country with Conflict

Hey everyone!

So I know it's been a ridiculously long time since I've updated my blog...with classes and work finally under way, it's been difficult finding time to sit down and update.  So let's recap the last two weeks...I'll try to remember as much detail as possible! (so I apologize for the fact that this entry is going to be REALLY long!)

Wednesday two weeks ago was a LOOOONG day of classes.  I was still trying to figure out exactly what classes I was taking, so I had to go to 4 classes, even though I ended up dropping one of them.  I went to Hebrew in the morning, then Israeli Legal System, which I have now added as a class.  After a two hour break, I had Israeli Foreign Policy (which I have no dropped in order to solve the conflict between that class and Arab-Israeli Conflict and picked up Israeli Legal System instead), and then went to a three hour class on Modern Iran, Shiism, and the Iranian Revolution.  It was an unbelievably long day, and I'm just glad my normal Wednesday schedule is a bit better than that, with a four hour break that allows me to go home. 

The one highlight of the day, though, was that I finally booked my Spring Break tickets.  We have a week off plus Passover, so I am going from Friday, April 11th until the following Thursday morning to Athens, Greece!  I'm really really excited, especially because I have always wanted to go to Greece.  I'm going with my friends Amanda and Jordana, and am really looking forward to it.  After Athens, I am flying an unbearably long series of connections to Tuscon, Arizona, to spend Passover with my family, and then come back to Israel the end of April to finish off the semester.

Thursday was a nice relaxing day.  I had decided since I hadn't stayed in Jerusalem since the first weekend we got here that it was time to stay in Jerusalem again for the weekend.  So, after Hebrew class, I spent the day relaxing, and then went out downtown with a couple of my roommates and some other friends.  Thursday, though, was also the day that the conflict in Israel finally hit home.  For those of you who haven't been following the political situation here, Hamas in Gaza had been shooting Kasam rockets into the nearby Israeli city of Sderot for some time now.  It has recently gotten more frequent, but that Thursday they started firing rockets on Ashkelon, where my roommate Roi lives.  First of all, this meant that Hamas now has longer range rockets, but also worried us greatly because Roi was home that night.  We called him to make sure he was ok, which he was, but later we found out that his family had definately been affected by the rockets.  Apparently the windows in his family car had been blown out, and later that week, his brother was 15 meters away from a rocket when it landed.  He also said that when he got home, there were rocket sirens going off, but because he had just arrived he didn't have time to go into the bomb shelter with his family.  Basically, we got really scared, and this sparked a whole range of debates in our apartment for the next week or so.  It was interesting to hear everyone's opinions, especially Guy and Roi's perspectives as Israelis (and even more so because they had just recently served in the army), and to hear Jessica's perspective from an economic view. 

 

Since then, Israel has gone into Gaza, and after being condemned by the US and the UN Security Council, they went out, under the assurance from Hamas that rockets would stop.  While for a while they stopped shooting at Ashkelon, rockets continued to be fired into Sderot, and last night, they started again in Ashkelon.

Anyway, on to happier things.  That Friday, since we weren't going anywhere for the weekend, I finally got to sleep in which was very nice.  After that, Jordana, Amanda, and I went to the Shuk to get produce and wine and dessert for our shabbos dinner.  It was lots of fun as always, and it's amazing how good the produce is for so cheap!  I got a bunch of vegetables to make salad as my portion of the potluck dinner we were having later, and they were really really good and really cheap, which was nice.  Probably the highlight of that trip to the Shuk though was the really cool cab driver we had on the way back to the Student Village.  We were driving and I saw a really cool looking building, and I asked if he knew what it was.  He started going into this whole historical discussion of all the buildings in the area, who used to own them, which ones were Russian Christian Monasteries, etc.  It was really interesting, and we all agreed after that he was way too knowledgeable to be driving a cab.  It was really cool though, and a very enjoyable ride.

Dinner on Friday was a lot of fun!  Both Guy and Roi were also staying for the weekend, which is rare because apparently Israelis go home every weekend.  We had a potluck dinner in our apartment, with me, Amanda, Jordana, Guy, Roi, and a bunch of Guy and Roi's friends.  It was a LOT of fun, and it was cool that we got to sit around and listen to everyone speaking Hebrew.  Often when a few Israelis are over they will speak English for our benefit, but when there were a dozen Israelis and three Americans, they obviously were going to speak mostly in Hebrew.  After dinner, a few of the guys took out guitars and had a little jam session, which was also really fun.

Saturday was a nice relaxing day.  Amanda and I had considering walking pretty far to go see some sights on the other side of Jerusalem, but in the end decided that it was better that we relax.  It was supposedly beautiful outside, as it had been for the day or two before, so we were planning on going to lay out and read outside in the Student Village.  Well, by the time we went out, it was pretty cold and windy, so we ended up just reading and hanging out inside until the evening.  After Shabbos was over, we went out to dinner at Luigis (again, the amazing Italian restaurant downtown) and then went out for a little while before heading home.

Sunday was my first day spent in the library, which was not so fun.  Classes here have readers instead of books, which are basically coursepacks composed of photocopied articles.  Well, for some reason, one of my readers didn't actually include the reading for the first week of class in it, so we had to go to the library to take the books out there.  After the library (during which I greatly missed my GW library group) I had class in the evening, and then I quiet night at home. 

Sunday was also when I finally had my class schedule totally figured out, so I guess it's time I discuss my classes a little bit.  I have Hebrew for 6 hours a week, for an hour and a half in the mornings Monday-Thursday.  We have two different teachers, and while they are in some ways better than my Ulpan teachers, they have their faults too.  We had our first quiz earlier this week, and as my roommate who had my teacher during Ulpan had warned me, the quiz didn't really test what she claimed it was going to test.  We had been given a list of verbs in a certain form to learn their meaning and everything, and then she threw in a LOT of words that weren't on the list, which was weird since she had told us to learn that list.  It is nice to only have an hour and a half day of Hebrew class though, rather than the five hours we had during Ulpan.

My first honors class is the Arab-Israeli Conflict, which is called "The Middle East: Rapprochement and Coexistence."  It's a really interesting class, taught by Dr. Meron Medzini, who apparently has been teaching here since when my friend Amanda's mom was abroad at Hebrew U.  Every so often in class he'll throw in random statements explaining what it was like when he was there for EVERYTHING, except that he won't directly come out and say why.  For example, yesterday in class he was talking about the 1977 election, and how he was in line for the polls behind his neighbor, current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who his daughter used to babysit for.  Another day he was talking about a hostage situation by the PLO in which over two dozen students were killed, and then will randomly say "I've never seen so much blood in my life."  Amanda and I look at each other and just wonder "HOW WAS HE THERE TOO??"  It's crazy!  So last night I finally found a bio of him, in which we found out that after working for a few years in the Israeli Embassy in DC, he served as the Head of the Government Press Office under Israeli Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin.  That helped explain a lot how he was everywhere - obviously Head of the Government Press Office would have to be everywhere.  Anyway, the class is really interesting, and I'm enjoying it.

My other honors class is on Modern Iran.  It's three hours on Wednesday nights, which makes it kind of difficult to concentrate.  Luckily though, Amanda and my roommate Jessica are both in the class, so between the three of us, I'm pretty sure there is someone paying attention at all points, so we should be ok later on.  What I can pay attention to is interesting, and I'm looking forward to getting to more current times like the Iranian Revolution (right now we are in the 1500s which can be a little dull at times).

The Honors program also requires us to go to a 1 credit honors critical reading group.  It's still kind of unclear what it's actually going to be, but it's definately not my favorite time of the week.

My last class is Israeli Legal System, which is interesting in theory and the readings are interesting, but the class moves at a pretty slow pace.  He tends to repeat himself a lot and go off track, but we do go over current events a decent amount which is kind of cool.

Anyway, Monday was the start of week two of classes.  It's also my earliest day besides Thursday, so I'm done at 2:30 which was nice.  After class I came home and rested until it was time to go back to campus to meet with my Chevruta at Hillel.  We had decided to try to actually go there this week since we had been meeting at my apartment mostly.  But when I was about to leave, my roommate Jessica had come back, and she was going to go straight from class to Hillel, but decided to come home instead because there had been a big protest outside the gate to campus earlier that day and there were still a lot of police cars.  Apparently the Israeli students had taken position on one side of the street while the Palestinians were on the other side.  Both Courtney and Jessica said it was really scary, where Guy came in to the apartment jokingly shouting things like "war!" which definately freaked us Americans out.  I'm pretty sure the protest was because that was the day that the Israeli army withdrew from Gaza after retaliating for a few days from the attacks on Sderot and Ashkelon.  Anyway, it was pretty scary to think about, and I'm glad I didn't go (though I did see pictures from my roommates).  So, I ended up meeting with my Chevruta here, which is always fun.

I don't have class until 10:30 on Tuesday, but I woke up early to go into the Jerusalem MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) office.  I interned for them in DC last semester, and I'm able to intern for the office here too which is a great way to make a little extra travel spending money.  So I went into their office to meet the President, and I'm actually really excited about it.  Because their office is downtown and I don't take busses, getting into their office every time I have 4 hours between classes isn't financially logical, so I'm doing most of my work from home and then going in about once a week.  What I'm working on right now is going through this whole list of journal articles related to the Middle East from various publications and summarizing them so that the President can read the summaries and doesn't have to spend hours reading through hundreds of pages of journal articles.  He also took me down to where they do the tv monitoring and translating of the clips, which was really cool to see because that's one of the major things that MEMRI does.  He told me that I'm going to help them with the translations, which I'm really excited about.  Basically, all the translators are Israelis who know English, but because they aren't native speakers they don't really know about the "flow" of the language, so I'm going to be helping to make sure that the translations work well.

After the meeting with MEMRI, I went to class, then went back to the shuk with Courtney and Jessica, and then had another class.  Overall the rest of the day was pretty uneventful, but I was really excited about the internship so it put me in a good mood.

Wednesday was a pretty long day of classes, but we had a fun night because we had a party in our apartment.  Basically between mine, Jessica, and Courtney's friends from the International School and Guy and Roi's Israeli friends, we constantly are having people over, so we figured it was about time we had an actual party.  It was a LOT of fun, and there were a ton of people there, many of whom have been here before but a lot of whom I didn't know too.  It was really cool, and it ended up being more Israelis than Americans (and more guys than girls) because a lot of Guy and Roi's friends came.  It was funny because I guess when we asked them about having the party Guy had misunderstood and thought we only wanted a small gathering of like 10 people, and we had been making fun of him because there are usually close to 10 people here anyway.  But there ended up being a lot more than that, obviously, and Guy and Roi both had a great time.  He's now asking us when we are going to have another party, so it's definitely going to have to happen again.

Thursday after Hebrew class, Jessica, Amanda, and I took a bus to Tiberias for the weekend.  Tiberias is up north, near the Golan Heights, along the Kinneret, or Sea of Gallillea.

After  we arrived, we dropped our stuff off that the Hostel, which had a gorgeous view of the Kinneret, and then rushed over to Pagoda, the best Chinese restaurant ever.  I went there with my dad four years ago, and still remembered it.  Plus, it was in both Jessica and Amanda's guide book, and Amanda's guidebook has kind of become the source for all things good.  Dinner was amazing!  We got rice, pad thai, sesame chicken, and beef with cashews and vegetables, and tea.  Everything was so yummy - just as I had remembered.  Also, it was really late, so we were really hungry, and therefore enjoyed the food that much more.  After dinner, we went for a walk, and then to dessert at a restaurant along Tiberias' Pedestrian walkway.

Jessica, Amanda, and I at Pagoda

Dinner would have been perfect, except that we found out some pretty terrible news at the beginning of dinner.  For those of you not up on world news, there was a shooting at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem called Merkaz HaRav Kook.  A Palestinian from East Jerusalem came in and shot hundreds of bullets into the main study room, killing 8 and injuring others.  The terrorist was later killed by an Israeli soldier who was living in the area, and it was later confirmed that there was no other accomplice on the loose.  We didn't get all the details very clearly at first, as it was still going on, but it was really scary.  We all immediately took out our phones and called our parents to make sure they knew were were okay, and far away from Jerusalem.  It was really scary because it was the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel in 2 years, and the first attack in Jerusalem in 4 years.  The first month or so that we were here, it was pretty easy to forget that there is conflict here, but between the rockets in Sderot and Ashkelon, and now this, we've begun to worry a bit, and realize what it's like to be in Israel in times like this.  Hopefully nothing else happens, and peace will come soon.  I later was told that the Yeshiva was very much connected with the settlement movement and religious Zionism that has been fighting to keep Israel as it is supposed to be according to the Biblical borders.  Because of this, there has been a lot of conflict between the people of the Yeshiva and the government, because the Yeshiva is telling the government not to come to the Yeshiva and the funerals of those killed because they feel as though they are fighting the battle to keep Israel together, and the government is willing to give land away.  I definitely understand both sides of the issue, but it still seems sad that there is conflict at a time like this among the Israelis, and they can't just all join together in times of tragedy.   I also later found out that it was the Yeshiva that my cousin Sarah's husband studies at, but luckily he wasn't there.

Anyway, Friday was a brand new day, and it was REALLY hot outside (in the mid-80s!).  On our way to being touristy, we stopped in some shops on the streets downtown, and I got my first pair of Naot sandals! (They are like Israeli Birkenstocks that mold to your feet, and they are really comfortable!)  After shopping around a bit, we went to Maimonidies' tomb, which was really cool, especially because his Yarzheit (Hebrew anniversary of his death) is the same as my Papa's.  There are also a few other graves in the area, like Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakai, who snuck out of Jerusalem when it was under siege by hiding in a coffin.  After that, we had lunch along the Pedestrian Walkway, then ice cream along the water.  Then we went to Hamat Tiberias, which is the location of natural hot springs (which weren't as impressive as we had hoped) and the ruins from a 3rd-5th century synagogue.  The synagogue was really cool, especially the mosaic floors.  They were gorgeous, and covered in various Jewish and pagan symbols.  It was interesting that there were pagan symbols, and it was explained that it was because Judaism was not threatened by Paganism at the time, so they felt it was ok to incorporate Pagan symbols into the synagogue artwork.

The view from our hostel of the Kinneret

The view from our hostel on the other side

Maimonidies tomb complex

The tomb of Yochanan Ben Zakai

Maimonidies Tomb

The Kinneret/Sea of Gallilee

The Kinneret/Sea of Gallilee

Amanda, Jessica, and I in front of the Kinneret

Mosaic on the floor of the Synagogue at Hamat Tiberias

Another part of the mosaic on the floor of the Synagogue at Hamat Tiberias

After that, we went back to the hostel to pick up our stuff, and then met up with Amanda's family friend who we were staying with for Shabbat.  The parents of the family had gone to college with her parents before they moved to Israel, and they have 6 kids of varying ages, only 3 of them were home for the weekend.  The father, Yossi, drove us up to the Moshav where they live, about 15 minutes outside of Tiberias.  We drove through the Swiss Forest, which is a forest on a hill that had an absolutely gorgeous view of the Kinneret.  I was really tired, but forced myself to stay awake so I wouldn't miss the view.  After arriving at their Moshav, Moshav Hazoreim, we got ready for shabbos, and then basically all passed out and took naps before shabbos.  We thought the hot sun had just warn us out, but I think the long week of classes and actually having to do homework might have had something to do with it as well since we pretty much slept all Saturday afternoon as well.  After dinner, which was really nice because we haven't had home-cooked food really the whole time we've been here (except for what we've made ourselves which isn't the same as what a family has for shabbos dinner), we all went to sleep and slept very well.

The front yard of the house we stayed at in the Moshav

More of the front yard

Birds of Paradise flowers plant in the front yard

The view from the backyard of their house

More view from the backyard

Saturday as I said we got LOTS of sleep!  We had lunch, and then Jessica, Amanda and I went for a walk around the Moshav which was really nice.  After that we had a loooong reading/nap time.  After shabbos, we had a light dinner, and then took the bus back to Jerusalem, which was much more crowded than the way to Tiberias has been followed, and for some reason the heat was on ridiculously high to the point that the side of the bus actually burned my foot when I touched it.  But we came home, watched the Project Runway finale on YouTube (how Christian won I don't know...) and had a nice relaxing evening at home.

Sunday we were going to go the Old City but decided to be more careful and wait because of the attack on Thursday.  So I basically relaxed until class my class at 4:30, then went to hear the former Chief of Staff of Israel speak at a lecture he was giving for the international students.  It was actually a lot more boring than I had anticipated, and was pretty disappointing.

Monday I had class, and then a two hour break during which I did work for my internship in the library.  It was really exciting, because one of the articles I was summarizing had a lot about an article I had read in one of my classes last semester, so it was cool because I felt as though what I am learning in classes at GW is actually worthwhile, which is always a good feeling.  After another class, I had lunch with Rabbi and Leah Fradkin, the Chabad Rabbi from San Diego who are good family friends.  They were in Israel for a few days, so went to this meat grill restaurant that was really good. They also brought a special present from my Nanny - every year for Purim she makes my family a cake in the shape of Haman (the villian from the Purim story), which is a German Jewish tradition that was passed on from my Great-Grandmother.  For the last few years she's been sending them to me at school, but I figured I wouldn't be able to get one here because shipping is really hard.  Well, she sent it with the Fradkins, which made me really happy and excited for Purim. Later that evening, I actually went to the place on campus for Beit Midrash to meet with my chevruta which was cool.

Yesterday and today were both pretty uneventful.  Basically it was just class with some breaks during which I did work.  Nothing too special, except we went to a lecture during my Iran class that was about Islam but didn't talk much about Iran so our teacher was kind of disappointed. 

Anyway, tomorrow after Hebrew I'm going with Courtney, Jessica, and Amanda to Tzfat for the weekend to stay at this mystical hostel.  They are having a special program that weekend, so that should be a good weekend.

Hopefully it won't take me so long to update again!  Love from Israel, and I promise I am staying safe!

<3 Leah