Yedidya Ben Avie

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010

Thanksgiving Happiness

Before going to dinner, Yossi (head of Nativ) told us we were all getting surprises. Each of us had received letters from our parents specially written for the occasion. Now in the age of Facebook and e-mail this might not seem so interesting, but for Nativers in years passed, this must have been really special. One amazing dinner including 12 turkeys later, just Nativ 30 is sitting in the auditorium. Yossi explains that Thanksgiving is a time when people feel most homesick, which is one of the reasons why there is always such a big event. To finish off the night, we watched another movie made by Nativers with many laughs in it.

Another event of note, I went to an optional lecture today by Saul Singer, the co-author of the book Start Up Nation. The book is one of Israel’s best PR achievements. The book is about the disproportional amount of high-tech start up companies there are in Israel. The lecture was amazing, and was open to anyone in Hebrew University.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2010

Identity Crisis

On Tuesday, we were given a talk. It started with Yossi telling us whenever a plan has to change, it means new opportunities. This worried us. Turns out that instead of being in Beer Sheva for second semester, Kehilah 1 will be in Carmiel. This happened because the Jewish Agency closed the absorption center we were going to stay at, and a large influx of new immigrants (mostly from Ethiopia) has made many other centers too crowded for Nativ to use.

What this means: Unlike Beer Sheva, Yerucham, and Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, Carmiel is in the north. Instead of being in a desert, we will be in the hills where there are actually trees. Carmiel will mostly have the same volunteer opportunities. Most importantly for me, Magen David Adom will be the same and we will be volunteering both in Carmiel and Ako, a coastal city 20 minutes west of Carmiel. Carmiel is a relatively large city with 50,000 people. We will be living right next to a shopping mall and the central bus station.

As is normal for any change, many people are feeling disappointed right now. For me, and a lot of other people, this means it will be a lot harder to see the other groups. Beer Sheva is a short bus ride from both Yerucham and Kibbutz Ein Tzurim. Many of us already planned on meeting up pretty often with the other groups. While it is still very doable, it will now be a full day's trip to see the groups in the south. Besides that, some people are disappointed because they already knew people in the South. For the most part, I think people are just shocked by the change. Most distressing of course is that our group name has changed. I'm hopeful that the change wont affect how amazing our experience will be second semester.

On a funny note, my best friend Carmi is in my group. So in effect, it's like we're Carmi's group now.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2010

Shabbat in Maalot, Mid terms, and Harry Potter

The past few weeks have seen a rare occurrence: large groups of Nativers sitting around... studying. Unfortunately, Nativ students are the the midst of our Midterm exams. While I don't want to scare anyone, a lot of the us are feeling the back lash for not studying earlier and leaving it till the last few weeks. I've only had one of my mid terms so far, but compared to high school it really wasn't too hard. I think I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait for midterms to end.

Last week was a closed Shabbat, but this one was different than all other ones. Instead of all being on base, each track was hosted out by a different community. My group, Beer Shevah, went to Maalot where assistant director Elkana Cohen is from. There, groups of 2-4 Nativers were hosted by local families. We did have some programming, but a lot of time was spent with the families. We definitely all enjoyed the home cooked Shabbat dinners. It was the first taste of what second semester would feel like. Instead of a 92 Nativers on base at most times, only 32 Nativers are part of Beer Sheva. During our Tishe (Friday night singing) I looked around the circle, and all I could think about was how good friends the 32 of us will become.

There was a big stir this past week as the new Harry Potter movie came out. Large groups were seen leaving for the movie theater Thursday and Friday, some even dressed up for the event. The best part of course was that due to time zone differences, we were able to see the movie before it came out in America. going to an Israeli movie theater was an experience in of itself. Besides having to find the theater, a lot of Nativers that had never seen a movie outside of the States were surprised when the movie stopped for an intermission. All had a lot of fun, and can't wait for the next big movie to come out.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Idan Raichel, Rallies, and More

Hey all,

Yesterday night there was a big rally right outside our base. The new budget was revealed which gives a disproportionate amount of education money to the Charedi (Ultra-Orthodox). The rally was mostly university students arguing that they are also students, and that they were equal and deserved a fair amount of money in the budget. My favorite cheer was: ביבי ביבי בוקר טוב, הסטודנטים ברחובת which translates roughly to "good morning BeBe (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) the students are in the street"

The rally reinforces the fact that Beit Nativ is really in the middle of everything. The rally started close to the Prime Minister's residence and then headed towards Ben Yehuda St. The rally also exposes one of the most pressing issues in Israeli politics: the Ultra-Orthodox verses the Secular. In Israel, the Orthodox control all religious aspects of law and government, especially relating to marriage. These are only some of  the many issues relating to this topic.

Tonight we had one of our weekly Nativ programs called Erev Nativ (literally "Nativ night"). For this program, we were told that we were having an inter-room competition and the we should dress up as a room with points awarded for creativity. Originally, my room was going to go as the invisible room, but decided it probably wasn't a good idea. Instead we went in our pajamas and our pillows as a reference to our love of sleeping. While we didn't win the ensuing trivia game, nor did we win the costume competition, we had a lot of fun.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

(semi-)Regular Update

So it's been awhile, and fun things have happened.

For the most part, things have finally settled into a regular pattern. Our day to day schedule now makes sense and doesn't have too many exceptions. We have also finalized our classes at Hebrew University. This semester I am taking ten hours of intensive Hebrew at the "Bet" level, Belief and Ritual in Islam, Introduction to the Israeli Legal System, and Evolutionary Psychology. All fun courses. In addition,we're actually meeting other students who are not on Nativ. The first day of full semester was a shock when suddenly there were masses of students everywhere that weren't Nativers.

This week, we had two more major parts on our year goal of learning about Conservative Judaism. First on Tuesday night, Rabi Steven Wernick, Executive Director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, came to talk with Nativ. He talked about the business aspect of Conservative Judaism; the importance of the Synagogue and the Kehilah, which was a very interesting contrast to Rabbi Joel Roth, former Chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, who focused mainly on the ideology of the Conservative movement. Finally this entire weekend is devoted to a seminar on Conservative Judaism lead by Jules Gutin, Director of United Synagogue Youth. He focused on actually defining the Conservative movement,

Another part of this seminar was doing leadership games at a biblical nature reserve. We practiced being a leader and working together by herding sheep through a small obstacle course, a very important skill seeing as many important biblical characters where shepherds.

Long over due update

Hey all,

Sorry it's been a few weeks since the last post, Chaggim, Shabbat, and exams have been clogging up my time.

Before I start, I'm very interested to see who is following this. If you haven't already officially followed this blog, do so. Or at least send me a message via facebook or e-mail so I can get an idea who is reading these.

Anyways, for erev Simcha Torah I went to Shira Chadasha. It's a very interesting minyan. Very singy, and very egalitarian despite having a mechitza. Their tradition is to not start services till they have a full minyan of men and women. It was a lot of fun, and the Nativers, about six other guys, were a main part of the dancing and singing. On Simcha Torah day, I went back to Beit Knesset Yedidya where I once again had an amazing time. I was very impressed by the operation they had set up. They had about ten different simultaneous Torah readings, including two or three women's minyanim, and a constant stream of food. One of my friends and I were then hosted for lunch by a man originally from London, his wife, and his four children of varying ages.

Most exciting is that today ends mini-mester, which means that my life will more closely resemble that of a "real" college student. Instead of everyone at Hebrew University having the same schedule of four hours of Hebrew in the morning and three hours of Jerusalem history in the afternoon, we now have choices from about thirty courses. Right now, I'm signed up to take either Jewish Jesus to Christianity or Belief and Ritual in Islam (these two courses meet at the same time and I have to decide after visiting which one I want to take), Intro to the Israeli Legal System, and Evolutionary Psychology. After some serious haggling, I was able to get credit at Brandeis for the classes I'll be taking. Also, instead of having to eat meals solely on base, we will now be getting stipend.

Other big news is that Nativ is in the midst of a game of Assassins. While there are many versions of this game, in all versions each player is given a secret target that they must "kill". Once they "kill" this person, they get that person's target. If set up correctly, there will only be one person left who did not get "assassinated". In the version we are playing, we were all given clothes pins with our target's name on it. To assassinate someone, you had to take their clothes pin off of their clothes without any witness verbally stopping you. I had one easy kill, then a very difficult kill that took two days of sneaking and scheming. I did get the kill, but I was killed shortly afterward.

Finally, I had my Magen David Adom interview last night. I had especially worn my Wolcott Ambulance shirt to impress them, to much success. The interview started off with basic questions in Hebrew, where are you from, how old are you, what do you like to do and so forth. I don't think I did too poorly on that part; meaning I was able to answer, but probably not in the most correct Hebrew ever spoken. The interview then moved on to more basic things in English: why do you want to serve with MADA (Magen David Adom), what experience do you have, any medical history we should know about, and other basic information

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

HaChagim

So I feel like I should probably write about the chaggim, which was one of the things I was most looking forward to. I already wrote about Rosh hashanah, so I'll skip right to Yom Kippur.

Erev Yom Kippur was one of the first times I really realized that I wasn't home. It was weird that I didn't shammosh or volunteer at all during the holiday. In Israel there is pretty much no one driving, even on the main roads. Because of this, there is a Nativ tradition that we all sit in a circle in the middle of what is normally a very busy intersection and sing. Besides about one hundred Nativers in the middle, there were also close to one hundred fifty random people who stopped to either join in or watch. Safe to say, it was a very fun experience. For the end of the Chag, many Nativers walked to the Western Wall, which is about a fifteen-twenty minute walk. Once there, several of us jumped into a minyan, one of about twenty happening all at different parts of the service. Once the fast ended, especially early in Israel, cakes and juice were given out to everyone at the wall, a very chaotic experience if you know of Israelis' manners and lack-there-of.

For the first part of Sukkot, Carmi and I visited Matan Aviel, one of the Young Israeli Emissaries from last year. There we met his family and had a marvelous time. Highlights included: having real food and lots of it, being able to sleep in, watching disney movies, and going to the Tel Aviv port Motze Chag.

Other big news is that we're finally choosing our classes for the full semester of Hebrew University. Instead of twenty five hours of Hebrew every week, I'll actually get some options.