Summer Visits Come To An End

First off, there's a new post up at my other blog ariellerb.bogspot.com, which now has a title: If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say, Maybe You Should Still Say Something Where as this blog is a log of my journey to becoming a Jewish Educator, that blog is a place for discussing issues as they arise.

Now on to this post....WARNING: The following is mostly gratitude and a little insight into some of the details of my life this summer, to expect much thought provoking content.

I need to start by publicly thanking Jesse Paikin. Jesse is in charge of staffing Birthright trips for Kesher - the Reform movement's group for college and university age youths. By pure luck, many of my friends received staff positions this summer. Thus, THANK YOU JESSE for sending me my friends!

My first visitors this summer were Aron and Jenn Katz. I went to lead Havdallah for their trip at HUC - this became a bit of a trend - and then met up with them for an evening on Ben Yehuda St. We had a lovely dinner at Burger's Bar and it was great to see familiar faces from home so soon after arriving in Jerusalem.

Next came Shayna Goldberg. Shayna was not sent to me by Jesse, but rather Canada Israel Experience - thank you Barbara Reich??? :S After spending a month, post-Birthright,  touring India, Shayna stopped by my apartment for 4 nights. She helped me to decorate it and cleaned out some drawers, which was such a great help in making me feel more settled. She was also a trooper. She came with me to not one but 4 HUC events that weekend, although one was a party. Shayna was with me for services on Friday night and Saturday morning and then came to an intimate Seudah Shlishit/ Get To Know You/ Havdallah at Rabbi Naama Kelman's (the Dean of HUC in Israel) house.

August brought lots of quality time with Dave Vaisberg and Miriam Sherman-Palmer! First off, was the usual Havdallah, except we didn't do Havdallah together, followed by dinner on Ben Yehduda. This time we went to Tmol Shilshom and got to watch from above as the protestors marched to Kikar Zarfat to demonstrate for cheaper housing. After their trip, Dave came to stay with me for a night, he came with me for yoga and then showed me one of his favourite bars in Jerusalem. Dave went to his family for Shabbat, but returned on Sunday for more yoga and to take me to IKEA! This was not only fun but essential. By means of his rental car and previous experience setting up in Jerusalem, Dave was invaluable in helping me buy what I still needed for the apartment. Dave departed the next morning to pick up Miriam from the airport and travel for a few days. The following Friday, I hosted them for a lovely Shabbat dinner, complete with Schnitzel, at my friend Nicole's with a few of my friends from HUC and on Saturday I joined them for a lovely Shabbat lunch hosted by Nanacy, the Director of Student Life for us at HUC.

As my visit with Dave and Miriam ended, my visit with Jesse started. Later on Saturday, I went to HUC to host Havdallah for Jesse Paikin and Shelly Vaisberg's bus. It was one of the best Havdallah's thus far - there was great energy and lots of presence from the leadership perspective. I then walked with them to Ben Yehuda and got to hang out with everyone for a bit. On Sunday, I took a cab ride with Jesse from HUC out to Harel Mall in Mevasseret Zion where he was reconnecting with his bus after some meetings on campus. It was brief due to timing but a quality trip none-the-less. With that my stream of regular visitors ended.

I am expecting some family and more friends in the coming months, still not positive of any of these plans. In the meantime, I am so appreciative of the fact that I've had a regular stream of friends to help ease me in to life so far away. I am forming a great social group here, but it's always nice to see a face from home.

The End of Summer (School)

Allow me to backtrack for a moment. I thought I had written about the summer semester earlier, but I may not have been clear. So best to clarify things before talking about their conclusion.

On July 11 I started Orientation. We had a week of getting to know you activities, expectations discussions, and programming to help us begin to think of ourselves in our future roles as community leaders. On July 16 I started Summer Semester. This semester is best understood as a pre-school program and was often referred to as summer camp, without a lot of the essence of camp, by me and my peers. In this session we had Ulpan for most of the day, as well as Cantilation (learning to chant Torah) once a week, and a Biblical History lecture twice a week, along with a Study Tiyul (trip) on Thursdays. I was in the highest level Hebrew class, the beginner cantillation, and the Biblical History class for those with some background in the topics.

This summer I also started my Education Seminar which will continue through the whole year. I truly look forward to this class every week and the opportunity to start delving into Education Theory and really geek out as an educator. Sally, my teacher, is wonderful....I can actually say this about all of the faculty I've interacted with so far - but Sally's had us over for dinner and movie night :)

Thursday August 25th was our last day of summer session. I have since enjoyed a week long vacation, which I'll write about soon, and will be beginning Fall Semester on Sunday.

So Summer has come to an end, I came to Israel for 11 months, I only have 9 months left. I still don't feel settled...I am under the impression this is normal. I hate when everything is a blur, but I have been told that that is exactly what this year will be, I'm going to fight against this.

It has been a productive summer and I have definitely done a lot in the last 2 months. My Hebrew Grammar has improved immensely and I feel like I have a new understanding of the language. My teacher, Osnat, was AMAZING! She truly cared about each of us. She worked very hard to help us succeed and she will definitely be missed, as she is not going to be our teacher for the year. I've learned the Teamim (notes for singing Torah) and I've toured parts of Israel as an archaeologist. I've travelled to the Israel Museum for a night of culture, a study tiyul, and a wonderful wine festival. I've gone to Tel Aviv for a free day and a day of sailing. I've wandered in and out of the old city, hung out at Ben Yehuda St., shopped at Hadar Mall in Talpiot, walked to the end of Azza, eaten in Emek Refaim, and fought my way through Machne Yehuda many a time.

I've felt very busy and I have been, I've also felt very flustered and like time was moving faster than I want it to. It never seemed like there were enough hours in the day. I think the fact that I feel like I'm still settling into my apartment has contributed to this. My second roommate, Mike, arrived today and with his help I'm sure this place will feel settled soon. It will be nice to finally set up some routines and to get the place a bit more organized. Feeling like there's work to be done and being too tired to do it at the end of the day is very exhausting - this is probably why I have not been updating as often as I would like to. That and the fact that I had 6 blog ideas in mind by the time I got off the plane and I have not been as good at staying one step ahead since then. I am also trying very hard to make this blog thought provoking and not just a log of the events in my life.

Summer session was an interesting time for us. It was a time of adjustment and it was a time that was misunderstood by many. It was clearly set up - in my opinion - to be more of an ulpan than a start of my Masters. However, many felt that it was the start of their program and were frustrated by the lack of depth with regards to those programs thus far. I think everyone is definitely excited for this program to really get going. There have been a lot of sign ups in the past few weeks and thus signs of the approaching school year. We're going on a tiyul to the North next weekend and needed to sign up for rooms. We needed to sign up to lead services - I've shown great initiative and leadership and opted to go last :) We needed to sign up to give a 5 minute D'var Torah - stay tuned for Parsha Trumah at Kabbalat Shabbat Services at HUC on February 24th - in case you're planning a trip. Finally, we've needed to sign up to chant Torah twice. I will be reading Toldot on November 26th - this year is the Bar Mitzvah of my Bat Mitzvah and I will finally read a Torah portion that is considered obligatory as opposed to the Maftir. I'll also be reading some time in March - although I don't remember what and when at the moment. Yes, there IS a lot of preparation to do.

Thus my "summer" ends. Who's excited for Fall?

Of Things to Come...

It's been pointed out to me a few times in the past few days that I am not doing a great job updating my blog - it's not easy to be consistent!

I promise to write a few blogs in the next few days and make an effort to keep you all better updated. Here are some things to look forward to:

The End of Summer (School)

The Last of the Visitors

It's Good to Be 4.

That Time I DROVE in Israel!

HUC presents The Truman - errr - Trumah Project

In the meantime please enjoy my friend Kenny's picture tours of the Mamila neighbourhood and downtown:

It's Fun To Stay At  - a tour of Mamila

You Can Always Go...Downtown! - about Downtown Jerusalem

In the Wake of an Attack...

Disclaimer:

My description of my thoughts are simply that and in no way a judgement of other's decisions - I respect everyone's right to their own approach. 

I asked permission to use the statuses below, if anyone would like their status remove, please let me know and I will do so. 

In December 2009 I boarded a plane to Israel as a madricha with 25 Birthright participants for my 4th flight to Israel. This was during the time of Operation Cast Lead and many participants had cancelled their plans to come to Israel out of fear. I knew enough about being in Israel that I understand my safety was not at risk, but I wondered why my mother was not pleading with me not to go. She eventually informed me that by this time she trusted me to make my own decisions and would not question my decision. I do not regret a moment of the trip that followed, it was one of the most meaningful trips I've had to this country and the reality is that, while I was here, the only time I heard anything of the situation in Gaza was by way of the occasional news update, not the site/sounds of rockets in the distance. 

Yesterday, while on a bus with my class heading back to Jerusalem from Tel Moresha, we were informed of a 3 part terrorist attack that had just happened in Eilat - killing 7 people and leaving many wounded. Phones were immediately pulled out and phone calls made, I simply sent my parents text messages saying I was no where near Eilat. I did not think this was a necessary action, as my parents are very aware that Eilat is 5 hours south of Jerusalem, but I felt it better to reassure them as to not accidentally leave them in a panicked state. 

The next question on my mind was how to inform my friends over social media?

I have been to Israel 6 times, and during this time rockets have been fired into the country from the borders, but no incidents identified as terrorist attacks have taken place. I have never felt the need to reassure my network of my safety before. So I opened my facebook and contemplated what to write. I did not want to say "I'm safe" - that felt silly to me - Why wouldn't I be safe? I didn't want to say "there's been a terrorist attack" - my network is very on top of their Israel news, but also why alarm the people who don't know something has happened? Would that be alarming? I opted for a simple "I am far from Eilat" and a sharing of my sympathies for the loss in Eilat in "my thoughts and prayers" are there. I later looked at my newsfeed and was fascinated to see the variety of posts my classmates had made and to ponder how we and our networks relate to this news differently. Here are the screenshots of my newsfeed:

(I do not have great editing software on my laptop but I wanted to edit out pictures, last names, and comments so I apologize for all the wasted space in these images, I couldn't cut and paste.)

    

I realized that whereas I did not want to acknowledge my safety, my peers had no hesitation in doing so...perhaps my reason is not that it felt silly but that simply I couldn't bring myself to write the words. Needing to write on my facebook status that I was safe would mean admitting that I might not be and raises the questions "am I really? how do I know?" 

There are some topics that I personally struggle with writing about on facebook - most recent example would be how I was very vague in how I shared my Grandma's passing as opposed to simply saying so - there's something that feels tacky or like I'm lightening the issue when I write it on my facebook. As I believe that social networking devices are great tools and fully support using them, I don't know why I feel this way. 

More interesting than how I and my peers shared the news of these events, was to be in Jerusalem and see how life goes on. In North America, our worlds are shaken when a terrorist attack happens. Work might stop for the day, people might go home, even an attempt causes a lot of chatter. As we drove back in to Jerusalem it was like nothing happened. People were going on with their daily lives. After class, Rachel and I went for fro-yo on Yaffa Street and sat outside while empty light rail cars drove past (they're supposed to be empty, the light rail only officially opened today). As we discussed the days events and our feelings about the upcoming events at the UN in September and the political situation in the area in general, I was very aware of how normal everything around me was. I have heard that this is the way the world works here and that really we have no choice but to keep going, there's no productivity in simply shutting down every time something happens. It was soothing to know that I could keep living life normally and that there was no indication that I should change that. 

This is the second event of this nature since March and that is a lot for recent years. This is not insignificant and, as much as I am determined to continue living here and I mean living not just existing, it has definitely made me a little more aware that the situation may not be as calm here as I had hoped it would continue to be this year. I still feel safe as ever before. Just now, I feel a need to grapple with what it means to be living here a bit more. I invite your thoughts on these events and any of the topics I've mentioned in this post. I find talking to be therapeutic, I don't deal well with keeping things inside. I would like to make it known that I am willing and ready to talk about yesterday and the coming months, in circles if necessary, with anyone who wants to, for their own sake or mine. 

Oseh Shalom B'imromav, Who Ya'asseh Shalom Aleinu Ve Al Kol Yisrael V'Imru, Amen.

עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל ואמרו אמן

May He who makes peace in the Heavens above, grant peace to us and all of Israel, and let us say Amen.

If you've been curious to learn about where I go to school....

My friend Kenny (a cantorial student) has added a weekly feature to his blog photo journaling the city - I am most likely going to hijack these posts to share with you. Don't worry he knows!

Here's his post about HUC:

KennyinIsrael: There She Stands in All Her Beauty...: "As promised, albeit a little late, I will be introducing to my blog a weekly feature, 'Kenny's Travels in Jerusalem' highlighting a specific..."

The Shabbat Siren (and pictures!)

Every week at the start of Shabbat a siren blasts through Jerusalem. It is a long and consistent blast. I did not notice it my first week here. On my second Shabbat, it sounded at the exact perfect moment in our Kabbalat Shabbat service at HUC - it was a beautiful moment that we were able to adopt into our service while facing the old city. The following week I did not notice it - the trend at this point was if I was inside I didn't seem to hear it. Last week it blasted while I was at a service at the Tent City in Independence Park. On this my 5th Shabbat in Jerusalem, I have finally deciphered the siren from other noises. I have opted not to go to services this evening in exchange for a little more "me time" and I despite the traffic still rushing past my apartment and the sounds of "The Book of Mormon" soundtrack on my computer, my ears perked up to the sound of the siren.

The siren itself is not particularly pleasant, but it fills me with calmness. I hear it and acknowledge that Shabbat has come in, in Jerusalem, and the next 25 hours will be special. In Canada, in my family, Shabbat starts whenever we're ready to sit down to dinner. Here Shabbat starts for everyone at the same time, because the city tells us so. There's no requirement to start service or meals before or after the siren, but there will always be a siren to correct you.

Shabbat is special in this city and this country - it is special everywhere - it's different here. I will reflect more on Shabbat as I form more thoughts but for now think about the siren and the sense of everyone beginning their day at the same time, the feelings evoked from one monotonous sound can be so surprising.

Shabbat Shalom!

I finally took and uploaded some pictures of my neighbourhood and room, here they are:

Kikar Sarfat or Paris. At the intersection I cross everyday to get to school.

A view looking up my street from just beyond Kikar Paris.

Another pretty view walking up my street.

The walkway to my entrance.

The view of our balcony/apartment from the walkway.

My room.

From the other side.

My cupboards.

The wall beside my bed with the pretty tapestry Shayna bought me in India.

My window/exit to my balcony.

The mirror that faces my bed and the pretty lights I strung on it.

Israel: The Smells, The Joys, The Social Activist Rallies...

Finally an update from me! The title for this post is based on a discussion had a few weeks ago with my friend Adam about great titles for blog posts - I have taken the liberty of changing the last items in this list to apply to something relevant.


This post is mostly about my life recently in the context of the many rallies happening around me, however for the sake of the title. Did you know that this country smells? Sometimes it smells good, like the  bushes of rosemary growing all over the place, but often it just smells plain bad, like the cloud of garbage I had to walk through as I passed a garbage truck this morning. It's quite funny when you're walking and suddenly the air just stinks, at this point I laugh and sigh: oh Israel.


There is also a lot of joy here, and hopefully the joyous things will surface throughout this post as opposed to me singling them out in a tiny paragraph.


Now that that's clear on to the happenings of the past 2 weeks since I posted something of substance. A running joke here is that you will always be told that you've come to Jerusalem at a very interesting time. Well, I HAVE come to Jerusalem at a very interesting time. In the past 2 weeks I have seen the Jerusalem Pride Parade, multiple tent cities sprout in the middle of the city, and 2 HUGE demonstrations.


As school has become a regular part of my schedule, I have become very busy with homework and reading. We take three courses over the summer - Hebrew, Biblical History, and Cantilation - I also have my Education Seminar, which runs through the entire year. I will probably discuss these classes in future blogs, but all you need to know right now is that they are all interesting and I am enjoying attending them and adjusting back to a studious routine. However, it is definitely difficult. 


Amidst all this work, there has been some time for fun along with exciting happenings in the area. Last weekend my friend Shayna came to stay with me for four nights before returning back to Toronto. On the day Shayna arrived, I walked out my front door to find rainbow flags lining the street lamps as far as I could see. Apparently my street is a great parade route. By 5pm my street was closed to traffic and Shayna and I stepped outside to watch the Pride Parade. This parade was nothing like what you might expect, there is a parade in Tel Aviv that is more like that of Toronto's, but this was something unique and very special. Jerusalem is a holy city and, as such, there are a lot of feelings with regards to respect of the population and the place. This was more of a march than a parade. It was joyous and colourful and carried a message. Naturally there were religious protestors, with disgusting signs of opposition, but they were kept a safe distance away and out of sight. It was really cool to stand in the middle of Jerusalem and watch an event like this, that could not take place in any other country of this region, go past. 


In Hebrew class, we've been reading a lot of news about the protests revolving around the fight for affordable housing. As we're reading about this, literally 5 minutes away a tent city is being built. In many locations around this city and the country as a whole there are now tent cities filled with people who want the government to provide more affordable housing. The cost of rent and ownership in the cities is far more than what a student can afford and this is leading to major problems. The tent cities expanded to nightly protests - marches to the PM's house that I could hear from the window as I cooked dinner and grew in to full blown rallies. This past Saturday and last Saturday there have been huge demonstrations in the major cities, this week drawing crowds of 350,000 people - the biggest demonstrations Israel has ever seen. In Jerusalem, they start at Kikar Soos at the top of Ben Yehuda, and where do they go? To Kikar Sarfat and Azza St., less than 2 minutes away from my apartment. It's been fascinating to discover just how amazing my location is, I'm just around the corner from Bibi (Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and thus in a very exciting place. 


I'm definitely enjoying seeking out more information about these events as they unfold around me, I encourage all of you to search for and read articles about it too. So often we spend time focussing on the peace process and defending Israel, we rarely look at what else is affecting this country and discuss our opinions about domestic issues. What do you think the Israeli Government should do?


I'll try to get back in the routine of updating more regularly, I apologize for leaving you waiting so long, I hope it was worth it.

Lylah Tov!