More Than Being in Jerusalem

Last Friday, I woke up early in the morning to get to breakfast right when it opened with Mia, Maddy, and Deena.  Why would we do such a thing on the one day we can sleep late?  To catch an early bus to Tel Aviv, of course!  We went to Tel Aviv, staying at the apartment of Maddy’s friend from home, and had an incredible weekend.  On Friday, we decided to forget our plan of going to museums to instead walk around.  We found ourselves walking to Yaffo (we were in the south end of Tel Aviv anyway), stopping to appreciate street art along the way.  We gazed at the Mediterranean Sea, ate at a restaurant where all of the waiters were deaf (great food and a lot of fun because we had dry erase boards at the table; a couple days a week they have a blind restaurant open where you eat in pitch black; they also have a theatre group of the deaf and blind), and wandered into an art gallery.  For Shabbat, we did Kab Shab and maariv together at the beach, then ate the food we brought- challah, peanut butter, cheese, and a chocolate croissant.  We had a sang a little before birkat, and we did post-birkat singing (yai-da-dai…what do horses eat? HAY! Yai-da-dai…, David Melech Yisrael + abba/ima, kein/lo, etc.)  It wasn’t our plan, but we were asleep around 10 pm.  In the morning we went to The Great Synagogue of Tel Aviv, but we left after Torah reading because we felt very disconnected at this shul.  Then we went to the beach, where we played in the waves and read in the sun.

I did not go to Tel Aviv for this purpose, but when there I found myself learning about who I am and what I want in life.  I don’t know if it was because I felt more independent than when in Jerusalem where I have school and Nativ programs or if it was because I was in the edgy, artsy south Tel Aviv, but this weekend meant a lot to me.  I realized, I do like cities, just not “downtowns”; I now don’t think I’ll mind being in Boston for 4 years.  I don’t like being a tourist, and while I want to go back to see museums, I think I get a better sense of where I am and enjoy traveling more by just walking around.

 
So what are the implications of this?  I don’t know what I want to do during winter break.  The independence in traveling was so great that I feel I should take advantage of my opportunity to go to Spain or Italy for a relatively cheap price.  But could I have a comparably good experience traveling around cities in Israel?  And I know I want to go hiking for at least a few days.  What to do?  I should be able to do any two things with my 12-day break.  Help me decide!
Sunday was my birthday, and it was possibly my best birthday yet.  First of all, I got my Nativ 31 shirt that day (as did everyone else).  2nd, I got a letter from my parents full of balloons in the mail.  3rd, I received literally a million hugs (yes, Julia, literally).  4th, Masa (an organization that has over 200 programs (including Nativ) for spending a significant amount of time in Israel) chose this day to have an Idan Raichel concert for all of their programs.  Even though I feel like I have permanent ear damage, the concert was a lot of fun (but I don’t see myself going to another concert of music I don’t really like being played too loudly to appreciate it…probably ever).

On Tuesday, Erev Nativ was Steve Wernick, CEO of USCJ, speaking to us about the trends in the Jewish community and his goals.  There is a shift from synagogues to kehillot (communities).  We discussed what this means, and what should be done about it.  
Wednesday was a lot of fun.  After classes, I went for a run.  Then I went to the shuk and did some other shopping on Yaffo (the street, not the city by Tel Aviv) with Zach and Julia.  Then that night I just hung out in my room, laughing a lot, with a bunch of friends.  My final activity for the evening was looking at snorgtees.com and thinkgeek.com with Sarah, indulging our nerdiness with ideas like watches in binary, duct tape as a toolkit, and a wide array of science puns.

Thursday was the beginning of our Conservative Judaism Seminar.  Jules Gutin, the head of USY, came and talked to us, mostly looking at the results of a Nativ survey which asked questions about our formal Jewish education and Jewish youth groups.  Today and tomorrow he’s leading discussions with us by track.  It’s really cool how most USYers know Jules personally.  He comes to visit regions and summer programs to get to know the participants.  It’s not like this in BBYO, but this is sort of what international presidents do.
Just before getting on my computer to finish typing this, I came into my room after being out for a couple hours to find my bed covered in the balloons my parents had sent.  Apparently today is my birthday, too.
Trivia: Sigmund Freud and Theodore Herzl lived on the same street in Vienna [thank you for the correction, Mom], but at different times.
Shabbat Shalom!

Sunday, October 2, 2011
 My 1 3-Day Chag 

The year 5772 has begun.  With it, I have heard the shofar, davened at 4 synagogues plus with Kehilat Nativ, slept too little, and eaten excessive pastries.  I think this is a good start to the year.
In Israel, Rosh Hashana is the only 2-day chag, and with Shabbat right after, it’s essentially a 3-day chag.  Outside Israel, there will be 2 more 3-day chags for the beginning and end of Sukkot.  As much fun as a 3-day chag is, it’s a lot of work and we eat too much food.

So how was Rosh Hashana?  Pretty amazing.  To begin, we davened as Nativ (plus a few guests like our director Yossi’s family), with Yossi leading maariv.  Then we had a dinner of not great food, making me miss home a bit.  Also, for some reason, half of the fish heads we had at the table (a symbol to be a head, not a tail) congregated near me…that was fun.  But after dinner, I stayed up late hanging out with people around Beit Nativ, what I have found to be one of my favorite things to do hear at any time.  (Also noteworthy: this night we established that many of us were Harry Potter characters [I’m Hermione!] and we made plans to watch AVPS.  Never have I disliked the lack of electricity during chag and Shabbat more because we knew we’d have to wait 3 days!)

Thursday morning, I had a fairly long walk to Mayanot (a Conservative synagogue in Talpiot), but with a group of friends, it was not bad at all.  I loved the service at Mayanot- it was very similar to home, but shorter (as all Israeli services are when you don’t bother with things like calling page numbers) and with a few new tunes (many of which I liked, but I do greatly prefer our tunes at home for “Hayom harat olam” and “Areshet sifateinu”).  There were a lot of really cute kids running and crawling around.  Also, the best thing, something I we all decided we should bring back to our shuls at the U.S., was that after Torah service we went outside for a Kiddush, which meant a lot of delicious food and just a nice break to move around and talk for a little before the dvar (sermon).

After services, we (Julia, Mia, and me) went to Marne’s apartment to get food to take to her friend Suzanna’s house.  Well, first we stuck around for a while as Marne was a baal tekiah (shofar blower) and let anyone who wanted to blow her shofar.  We then walked to Suzanna’s for lunch with a total of 14 people.  There we had a lot of great vegetarian food!  After this, I decided to eat as few Shabbat and chag meals at Beit Nativ as possible.  It was a lot of fun talking with everyone and playing with Marne and Suzanna’s 6 year old daughters.  We Nativers would have loved to stay longer, but we left around 4:45 to get back to Beit Nativ at a reasonable time.

At Beit Nativ, we davened mincha at Moreshet Yisrael.  I then left to go to Barbara’s (a yeshiva student) home for dinner.  This meal included me, Barbara, her husband, her son and daughter (both in their early twenties), and her daughter’s friend.  Her daughter is also a vegetarian, so again I had really great food.

I came back to Beit Nativ and again stayed up later than I should have for the time I had to wake up for services in the morning.  I ended up going to Shira Chadasha, which was great!  Much better than the last time I was there.  I love their way of being orthodox and egalitarian.  This service included more new tunes and a lot of singing in general.  We also had kiddush after Torah service here, which not only led to me finding Marzipan rugelach, but I talked with a fellow yeshiva student who happened to be there and we found we were going to the same place for lunch!  We may have arrived late because Shira Chadasha services go later than most other places, but there was no way we could have willingly left this service early.  Lunch at Vered’s was great and, thankfully, light (at least as vegetarian).  I could not eat another big meal.

Again, I stayed well into the afternoon, with little time to rest before Shabbat.  We had mincha and maariv at Moreshet Yisrael, and then I went with 2 Nativers (a different Julia and Aliya) and some others to Rabbi Epstein of the yeshiva’s home for dinner.  This was also a lot of fun, and of course we had great food.  Because a couple people were tired, we did only a little singing before benching and returning to Beit Nativ, but when we got back Julia and I had our own little tisch because we needed to sing more.  Once again, I stayed up late talking with different people.

Shabbos morning I went to Yakar, which was great.  It remains one of my favorite shuls.  We had a kiddush and shiurim before Torah reading.  I went to the English shiur about “Do you pray guilty?”  In the afternoon, I found myself able to nap for a little, but not as much as needed.  Overall it was a relaxing Shabbos.  It was great to be back for more than sleeping and time when I should have been sleeping.

There are still quite a few shuls that I want to attend at least once, plus I want to see some Sephardi services.  I keep on thinking I should do that next week, but that’ll be Yom Kippur.  I’m not sure where I want to go for Yom Kippur, but I think I want to go somewhere I know I like, so it will probably be Shira Chadasha or Yakar, as Mayanot is a bit far of a walk for fasting.

Trivia: What is the translation of kaparah? Atonement.  What is the origin of this English word?  At one, from the days when “one” was pronounced as it is spelled.

Sunday, September 25, 2011
Jerusalem: What a Place!

We Ulpan and Yeshiva students had our 7th and final Jerusalem Course meeting this past week.  We’re full of new knowledge of the city and happy that we’ll have a little more free time now, but sad to say goodbye to JJ (even though we’ll still see him occasionally), the best tour guide I’ve ever had.

What we did/saw (To keep this brief, I’m not going to tell what I learned.  Everything we did was incredibly interesting and worth researching and, if possible, visiting. Hopefully I’ll get around to posting pics soon.):

•         Ir (City of) David- Hezakaya’s Tunnel and 2nd Temple period sewage system.
•         Old City- virtual tour of 2nd Temple (learned structure and purpose of different aspects), Kotel
•         Christianity-Day- Mount of Olives, Via Delerosa, Cardo, Church of the Holy Sepulcher
•         Moslem Quarter- Temple Mount (we were told by JJ where we can go as Jews) and a less known section of the Kotel.  This day was incredible, but weird.  We learned about Moslem history and theology and the Dome of the Rock.  We were just outside where the Temple once stood, but the guys had to cover their kipot with other hats.
•         Jewish Quarter- saw a lot of old, interesting shuls.
•         Outside city walls- Yemin Moshe, Nachalat Shiva, Nachlaot.  
•         After War of Independence (1948)- old border issues with Jordan, Goldman Promenade.

I think we all feel even more connected to the city’s history now.  

You may already be aware, but in case you are not, Jerusalem is full of synagogues.  I love going to different shuls every week, and I’m already picking favorites to which I’d like to return often.  Just this weekend, I went to four shuls.  Friday night, I went to Yakar, which I loved!  It’s small and had very few chairs, but it was a very spirited service during which children were permitted to make as much noise as they wanted.  Saturday morning, I went to the Ashkenazi shul in Yemin Moshe, which had an amazing kiddush.  After Shabbat, everyone on Nativ went to S’lichot.  First I went to the Great Synagogue, which is a beautiful building and had beautiful choir singing, but I felt very disconnected from the service.  I left early to join a few other people to go to Kol Rina, which was great.  Unfortunately, a friend was feeling sick so I left early to walk back with her and couldn’t stay for the whole service.

There are still quite a few synagogues I want to visit but have not yet had the chance to, but I know I want to go to Yakar and Shira Chadasha again for Shabbat mornings and Kol Rina for Kab Shab, and probably return to these shuls frequently over the next few months.  (Although, I’m also eager to get hosted for Shabbatot, in and out of Jerusalem.  My madrich is going to help me set up some weekends.)  I’ve realized that the synagogues I’ve enjoyed the most are the smallest, plainest, least distinct places.  Kol Rina is an old bomb shelter and has stackable plastic chairs, and Yakar is in an easily unnoticed building where you walk into the building and you are already in the room of davenners. But participants at these places don’t need a huge gold chandelier (like at the Great Synagogue) or paintings on walls or extra space in any way to put their neshamos into davenning.

Another thing I love about Jerusalem- at least where we live- is that often when we go out to do anything, we find some cool event just happening on the street.  In the past few days, this included a protest, a wedding party that we thought was too loud to just be for a wedding, and a fashion show to publicize a group of volunteer artists.  I really should take my camera with me wherever I go.

On a next-to-final note, it is currently raining, and it has been raining on and off since Shabbos.  This is incredible for September, as it typically doesn’t rain until winter.  

My only complaint about Jerusalem is that there is too much to do to get sufficient sleep.