weekend #9: lighting up a city

Happy Hannukkah! Hope this winter season finds you well, whether you are snuggled by the fireplace watching the snow through the window, or whether you are walking around in a light sweater in the sun by the sea, as I have done lately.

The past two weeks have been the hardest and most stressful I've had yet in the Mechina. I mentioned last post that my committee has been in charge for the last month of putting together a huge event called "Lighting up Jaffa." We received the skeleton of the day from how it has been in past years: go to all of the places where we volunteer and do an activity, and then end with some kind of "peak event." The rest was up to us.

We started planning. We divided ourselves into teams - I was one of two on the main team for the evening event, and also one of the two main managers of the whole project. We started having meetings, figuring out how the event would look, where we would have it, how much funding we were receiving from the reform movement and the branch of the municipality of Tel Aviv that deals specifically with Jaffa. We had started working on the event before the army week, but we really entered crazy time afterwards. Every day I was in and out of meetings, and in between lessons and volunteering (and at crisis points during lessons) I was on the phone with supply companies, transportation companies, the municipality, the scouts, flyer companies, etc. I learned so many important things, like how money and payments work on the corporate level, how to make orders and fix them - not without some major hiccups along the way. One was that I placed an order for flyers without realizing that the company only takes direct payment - cash, check, credit card, or bank transfer, while our funders can only pay with delayed payments. We ended up having to have every person in the Mechina donate 3 dollars to pay for it on the spot, and then the municipality of Tel Aviv will fund something for us and hopefully give us the money back. We also had our budget for supplies slashed after we already made our lists, so I had to take a bus to Holon (about 25 minutes away) to the supply center and spend five hours hand picking our supplies to match our new budget. Then we still didn't have enough so we had to recruit 600 shekels from a different funder to make up the missing items. But we managed to pass over those speed bumps - with a lot of stress and make everything work.

The most interesting and frustrating speed bump on the way was actually a political one. Early on in the event planning process we decided to cooperate with the scouts and do the evening event with them in their space. The Mechina has really good connections with the scouts - they did the Spring Purim event with them last year and this year opened up an afterschool activities center as one of our volunteer opportunities - once a week many Mechina members lead art classes, cooking classes, soccer clubs, etc. for scouts members for free. So the scouts like our organization and were really happy to work with us for the event. My team was in contact with the Yaffo scouts sector's two main coordinators and everything was going swimmingly.

Then we wanted to make a flyer for the evening, and we had to make it fast so we could print it in time to hand out to all of the kids we volunteer with, as well as all of the scouts. I sat down with a friend of mine in the Mechina to make the flyer, and then we sent it to the scouts to approve and attach their logo. They replied that evening saying that though they truly appreciate how reliable and efficient we are, the flyer was all wrong. They said the background was not related to the event, and they wanted a more Hannukah-y background (though we had decided to make the event as neutral as possible and base it on light and darkness instead of specifically about the holiday so non-Jews would feel welcome). But the most surprising and irritating thing was that they said that since they are a Jewish youth movement, they cannot have their logo on a flyer with Arabic on it.

This infuriated me and the rest of our committee. First of all, there was the practical reason we put Arabic on the poster and toned down the Hannukah aspect - we work with Arab kids whose families don't always read Hebrew and we wanted them to feel just as welcome. But beyond that was the ideological question. So what if they are a Jewish movement? There are many Arabs who live in Israel and we can't ignore them just because we are a Jewish state - and there are actually a few Arab members in their branch! And Arabic is not "Muslim" - it's just another language. Especially in a place as complicated as Yaffo we can't ignore the racial complications, even if it is a Jewish youth movement.

I consulted with our volunteer work coordinator who said that though she is so happy we are outraged by this, there are a lot of political battles that we can't change, and further we shouldn't get involved on that level. But she told me to try to fight for what we believe in a cooperative way to come to a compromise. So I called the scouts back and said that we have to have the Arabic writing so that we can invite all of the people we work with. We ended up printing two flyers - one for the scouts that was more Hannukah-y and one that was more general and had both languages (image above). It was an interesting conflict and I hope that at some point the scouts get approached about this policy - maybe we'll send them a letter now that the event is over.

But, after all of the stress the event came, after many points along the way where we were sure we'd have to cancel. We had recruited outside volunteers, built a schedule for the whole day for every participant. The moment of truth finally arrived.

And it was amazing!!

Seriously, it was such a meaningful day for all of us. I personally started off in an old people's home that is neglected by the municipality of Tel Aviv, where we decorated the place to bring it some light and cheer. Afterwards we went to the nursery school where I work and made crowns with candles on them for all of the kids. Then we went to an Arab elementary school that we don't work with directly (though some of the kids I think belong to after school clubs where other Mechina members volunteer) to do art projects with the whole school, grade by grade. It was so fun to work with the kids and teach them about the three different holidays - Christmas, Hannukah, and the Muslim holiday Idal Adkha (the Sacrifice Holiday). The kids were so sweet and we all really enjoyed ourselves. Sadly I am legally bound not to upload any photos of the kids, but the second photo above is of me and my two friends Michal and Dana, waiting for the fifth graders to arrive.

After we worked at the school I went to the Scouts building and started setting up for the evening event. We worked really hard, and then the kids arrived between 5:00 and 5:30. The event went so smoothly. We had different stations with games and art projects, including an obstacle course in a dark room and twister/ring toss with glow sticks, cotton candy, a fortune teller, and more. We also had shows - an interactive theater performance, a fire circus, and a magician. Most of these kids are from very poor economic backgrounds, and seeing people of all religions and ethnicities (Jews, Arabs, Ethiopians, refugees and kids of immigrant workers, and more) come together and see things and do things that they don't have the opportunity to? So moving.

At the end of the event we lit the first Hannukah candle, and the scouts thanked us publicly (the Mechina, my committee, and specifically my team by our names). There ended up being about 350 kids plus some of their families, which was more than we expected, and we had so many good reactions. Our committee was extremely proud of the whole day, especially since our counselors and the head of the Mechina told us this was the best event of its kind that the Mechina has ever put together.

I'm exhausted, and I'm totally hoarse from the work, but it was worth it. We definitely lit up Jaffa, face by face, kid by kid.

weekend #8: remember remember the month of november?

Ok, ok, I've been skipping weekends again... actually months. The month of November has been super hectic for us, and I was sick in the weekend that we had off in between (as well as during a lot of Mechina time where I had to rest at home, which was a real bummer), so I haven't been able to write about my latest experiences. But this has been the craziest month yet!

The Mechina's regular routine is challenging, jam-packed, frustrating, unpredictable, and amazing all at once. We started having our three regular classes a day. The classes we've attended are Talmudic Literature, Spinoza (a fascinating philosophy class about Baruch Spinoza), Society in Israel, Islam/Spoken Arabic (each group got to attend one class and now my group is in Spoken Arabic for the rest of the semester - we'll learn about Islam next semester, which is perfect for me because I need to learn basic spoken Arabic now for my volunteer work position), "The Conflict" (about Israeli-Arab relations), "Silhouette," which teaches about trends in culture through art and music, Dilemmas, which is with Arale, the head of the Mechina, and is about current problems in Israeli/Jewish/International society, and Group Dynamics, which is a once a week meeting in our groups (half of the Mechina) with a psychologist to talk about the social processes we are undergoing this year. All of the classes are really interesting, though so far my favorites are Society in Israel, Spoken Arabic, and The Conflict. Each class is about an hour and fifteen minutes long, and mostly in the discussion setting where we have a teacher who comes and we learn from him/her and share our opinions.

After classes (which we have Sunday through Wednesday) we go volunteer. On Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays I go to the center for 1-6 year olds. The center is a 7 minute walk away from the Mechina, which is really convenient. We arrived and introduced ourselves to the current staff, most of whom is Arab - the rest are Jewish. We spent the first two hours playing and meeting the older group (ages 3-6), and then the second half with the younger group (1-3). In theory the center is supposed to be half Arab half Jewish, but in reality this year Tel Aviv-Yafo's welfare system found more Arab children at risk, who are one step away from being removed from their homes, so the majority of the kids are Arabs. They all speak Hebrew but sometimes they speak Arabic with us without realizing - the staff also often speaks Arabic with the kids, so I've already learned a few words, like "hon" (here), "dir-ballack" (be careful), and "mamnoah" (not allowed!). Also in my second and third weeks working there I started using the Arabic I've been learning, which has come in really useful (one of the teachers even thought I spoke Arabic just because I knew how to say here, this one, you, me, and where). All of the kids are really sweet, though some have behavioral issues and don't follow directions or act out hyperactively. Both age groups are wonderful, though I think currently I'm leaning towards working "full time" with the younger group. Already many of the kids remember us and are excited to see us, greeting us with big hugs and bigger smiles. It will be a trying year working with the kiddos, because they require constant attention, both positive and loving yet also disciplinary, but I know that it will be extremely meaningful - though these kids may forget our names and faces a week after we leave, we can help them developmentally and show them love and affection and how adults can be positive figures in their lives. We've already had a birthday party for a really cute girl named Yahli, and I've managed to play with two girls named Jihanna and Alise who were very closed before and are smiling more and opening up more - the main caretaker Amineh says she sees what a good match Alise and I are!

Currently I have one free afternoon a week, which eventually I'll fill partly with being a big sister - it just hasn't been set up yet. However, the caretaker Amineh asked me if I would be interested in teaching her husband's 12 year old daughter English once a week as another volunteer position, because she knows I'm from the states and thinks that as people we'll get along really well!

We've started an ongoing political project about the question of the settlements and the territories, where we go and see the real deal and try to hear every opinion about the conflict that we can. So on two of the Thursdays we've had, which every two weeks is our travel/trip day, we went to Hebron with two different political groups. One is a leftist organization called Shovrim Shtika (Breaking the Silence), comprised of ex-soldiers who wanted to make what they saw and did during their service public in an attempt to alert Israeli society to what is going on in the settlements. The other is a right wing organization called Im Tirtzu which basically protects the Jewish/Israeli claim to the same territories.

So on the first Thursday we climbed on a bus and drove to Hebron, which is about an hour and a half from Jaffa.

Imagine a street, with some small stores at the head run by Palestinians, and then a 2 foot high cement barrier passing through the street. One on side, practically no one. On the other, a few Palestinians.
Then the barrier ends. And the streets are pretty much completely empty, except for Israeli soldiers and the occasional Israeli settler, kippa (yarmulke) on his head and prayer shawl under his clothes.
Pretty eery, huh?

Hebron was always a Jewish city with great importance because of the Caves of the Patriarchs (where by tradition all of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs are buried), until 1929, when it was taken over violently by Palestinian extremists. It grew into one of the biggest Palestinian cities in the west bank. Then, c. 1968 a Rabbi decided to take a group of Jews there for a Passover seder, and pretty much they never left. The city worked in some kind of strange coexistence-resembling-balance until 1994 when a Jewish extremist named Goldstein went crazy and killed over 120 Palestinians. In light of the incident Israel closed down many of the main streets in the city, including a huge part of the market, which was the second largest Palestinian market in existence. Now, there are 700 Jews and 170,000 Palestinians, and the city is divided into two sections. So in half of the city only 1 of 250 citizens can walk freely.

And there are still many many Palestinians who live in apartment buildings that are on the Jewish-only streets. So every window of a Palestinian apartment is covered in an iron grille given by human rights organizations so that Jews won't throw rocks at them. And behind some of the grilles are signs that say "rule of apartheid" or "you are now entering apartheid street." And these Palestinians can't even leave their houses through the front door because they're not allowed on the street, so most of them climb up to the roof and jump along other roof tops until they reach the Palestinian side (where Israelis are not allowed). And then there are some families that have permission to page Israeli soldiers below and exit their houses on the Jewish side of the street, provided they quickly pass through the barriers to the Palestinian side. And of course, no guests can ever visit them.

(You can see all of this in the photos on the left. Top: sign on one of the grilles that says 'Arabs are prohibited. This is Apartheid. Second: Palestinian apartments on the main street with protective iron grilles. Middle: The barrier between the two parts of Hebron. Second from below: the main street in Hebron, completely empty save people from the Mechina, showing how much Hebron has turned into a ghost town... that still has a population of 170,000. Bottom: The Israeli army's barrier between the two parts of Hebron.)

We also visited other settlements in South Mount Hebron (south of the city), which have non-coexistence stories that are just as crazy. And that's where we started the next week when we went to hear the other side. We talked to a lot of different settlers that are all along the political extremity spectrum. It was really interesting to put faces to the ideology that we hear so often. The question of the settlements, especially in the west bank, is really complicated and I could write five whole blog posts about the issue but I won't - I just wanted to share the horrifying image of what we saw in Hebron. This political project will continue throughout the year, so hopefully I'll understand the issue further as time goes on.

Sounds like enough for November, no? Three weeks of volunteering, countless activities, a walking tour of Jerusalem our trip committee put together... but we still had time for two different week long activities. One was a work week to fund many of our Mechina activities, where we went to two different Reform Kibbutzes in the Negev (the southern desert) and worked for minimum wage all week. My group was in Kibbutz Lotan, and we worked in bell pepper greenhouses all week: picking up the rotten ones, reenforcing the bushes, and other upkeep duties. I unfortunately had to leave the week in the middle because I got a fever and was really sick. But the parts I was there for were really fun, and my group that worked together got a lot closer that week.

And then, this past week, we had.... army week! The whole mechina went with a really respected unit of the Combat Engineering Force for a week to try out basic training in a combat unit. I'll be honest - I was really dreading being in uniform, carrying a gun (an M-16), running and doing pushups, sleeping in a tent, doing navigation exercises and the like. Frankly it was a hard week with a lot of trials and tribulations, but I learned a lot and enjoyed the new experiences - the whole mechina also got a lot closer as a consequence.

On the first day we arrived at the army base, we received our uniforms, guns, vests, army coats, and sleeping bags. We went through a few lessons about gun security and how to hit targets during shooting practice, as well as how to navigate new territory. Mostly on the first day we practiced army discipline - how to arrange ourselves properly and on time, how to address the commanders, and so on.
The next morning we took a bus to the Ben Shemen Forest and set up at the army site there. We made tents there and got settled. That night I participated in two shooting exercises, one during twilight and one at night - I failed miserably at both and didn't hit my target at all.

The next day we did a day shooting exercise in the morning, and I managed to hit 4 out of 5 bullets in my target, which was really exciting. After that we had a short lesson in hand combat, where we learned to take apart someone's face with the ammunition holder in our gun. Then in the afternoon we went to do a navigation exercise in another part of the forest. By the time it was my turn with two others to lead the navigation it was nighttime, and I stepped into a chest high pit and sprained my ankle. I went to see the army medic and stayed on for the rest of the week to listen and learn, but I couldn't participate after that.

At the end of the week we returned to the base and gave back all of our equipment. Our last activity was what's called breaking the distance, where our commanders sat with us when we were already dressed as civilians and told us their names and about themselves, and we all laughed with them and broke our discipline. It was definitely a big treat after the strict week! (I didn't have a camera with me during the week but hopefully by the next time I post Arale will have sent me some of the photos the commanders took so I can share them with you all!)

And now we're back at the Mechina. Back to volunteering, learning, exploring... and working hard as ever. My committee, Yafo and the community, is putting together a huge event for the first night of Hanukkah called "Lighting up Yafo." We're going to go through all of the volunteer places we work in and do activities with the kids, and then in the evening put together a big carnival for the kids in the scouts building. I'm one of the main people in charge of the event, so I'm constantly on the phone and in and out of meetings.

So until next post, wish me luck on this crazy journey!

weekend #6: gallivanting in the north

Hello friends! I hope you all are well. I'm writing to you on Saturday night, 12 hours before I have to be back at the Mechina to start off our first day of normal routine. Tomorrow we'll attend some of our regular classes, then visit our volunteer work places for the first time! I've been placed in a center for 1-6 year olds, mixed Arab and Jewish population (though in reality they are mostly Arabs) where we'll be working 3 times a week for 4 hours each time. Then once a week I'll be a big sister through an organization that helps migrant workers and refugee families.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First of all, the photos, with better explanations throughout the post. Top: Me and a day year old calf in the cowshed in Kibbutz Hanaton. Second: The view from one of the trails we walked in the Galilee. Third: The Israeli border with Lebanon that we passed. Fourth: All of the Mechina at the starting point of Shvil Israel. Bottom: The view from the viewpoint in Camon, in the north of Israel.

On Tuesday night I returned to the Mechina after having a long and relaxing vacation with my family. I was still one of the people in charge of the week. On Wednesday morning we left for the north, stopping in a small village called Camon for an activity that I planned. We met up with a relative of mine who lives in the village, though we were all together at this beautiful viewpoint that overlooks most of the Galilee from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee and many of the mountains in between. She talked to us about what it's like to live in this Jewish village that is right next to a Bedouin village called Camaneh, and how coexistence feels to her, since the Galilee has a relatively large Arab population. After the stop we all got back on the bus and drove to Har Halutz, which is a small settlement also in the Galilee that was originally founded through the Reform Judaism movement. Every year the Mechina goes to Har Halutz for Simchat Torah, which is the last of the high holy days that celebrates Moses receiving the Torah, and there is a big happening where people from years past who were in the Mechina come and celebrate along with people from the community and this year's Mechina students. Though it was freezing, we all went outside and danced with the Torahs, and then we ate dinner with all of the past students from the Mechina (there were about 120 of them who came!). After dinner some of the people from the fourth year of the Mechina threw us a huge party in the woods behind the synagogue, where we all got to know each other and danced together to keep ourselves warm.

The next day we danced some more with the Torahs, and then went to eat lunch with different families from the community. They were very welcoming and cooked enough to feed the entire Israeli army. Afterwards we cleaned up the synagogue and took a bit of a walk around to see the sights of Har Halutz, and then returned home to Yafo.

On Friday the heads of the week got together, and we prepared the service for the Mechina for Shabbat. We decided the subject for the service would be beginnings, since we are about to start our regular routine that will take us through the year, so then we decided to hold it by the homework center that the Mechina totally runs for about 87 students from Yafo to symbolize that we are now taking charge of our year. The service was really fun to write, and I at least felt it was meaningful. Talya and I (another one of the people in charge) wanted to bring in some conservative melodies, since we both knew them from home and so far in our services at the Mechina we've only sung the reform melodies. It was a bit of a challenge but generally a success. We also brought a couple of poems (including Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" in Hebrew), an excerpt from Possession by A.S. Byatt, a story by Etgar Keret, and an Israeli song called "Something is Starting Within Me." After the service we ate a very tasty Shabbat dinner, and then some of my friends and I went to the beach to celebrate our good friend Daniel's 19th birthday.

On Saturday we mostly had a free day, but at four we had a lecture to attend. There's a committee that's in charge of bringing guest speakers, and they decided we will have two parents of people in the Mechina come every week to talk about their jobs. Well, someone's dad is a really famous director who makes documentary TV shows. The day before we watched two episodes of his newest show about 18 year olds all over the country, and then he talked about it with us. He was only scheduled to talk for an hour and a quarter, but his thoughts on human nature and what he learns about the human race from his job were so interesting that he stayed for two hours! After his talk we had our weekly summary of how things went, and then Havdalah to end the Sabbath - at that point my role as head of the week was officially over!

The next day we woke up at 4 in the morning to set off for our Seminar in the north. After making ourselves sandwiches to take with us, we got on the bus and went to the most northern tip of Shvil Israel (the Israel path), which is a hiking path that covers about 950 km and is supposed to represent Israel. We walked the first stretch of it (the Mechina's goal is to cover it in groups by the end of the year), which goes right by the border of Lebanon and through the Snir River - it was one of the more beautiful walks I've ever taken. We ate a late lunch and then went to Tel Hai, still in the North. At Tel Hai there was a very famous battle, so we visited the memorial there and then set up camp for the night.

After sleeping the best I've ever slept in a sleeping bag, we woke up and started our seminar on challenges, which was totally constructed by a committee of eight people in the Mechina. The first day was about personal challenges, so we started a hiking trail of about 8 km, but were instructed to take some rocks in our backpacks in order to create our own personal challenge. After the trail we ate lunch, and then drove to another Mechina in the north. We got to meet all of the people there and we hung out with them, and slept in their apartments. It was really cool to see how different their Mechina is - for example, they have an actual campus, with separate apartments, and a dining room with a hired chef, and their Mechina is not in a city but in nature in the middle of nowhere. Despite the differences we all got along really well, and we invited them to come stay with us in Yafo.

The second day of the seminar was about one man's challenges while in a group. We started with a non-traditional prayer service, which was comprised of a series of excerpts. We watched the running scene from Forrest Gump, read a kid's book about a grandfather's family who helps him pull out a stubborn carrot from the ground, and listened to an Israeli song called "Others' Dreams." Then we went to a forest (still in the North) and split up into our apartments. Each of us were asked to lead a 10 minute activity with the people in our apartment. It was super fun, because all of my roommates brought fun activities from games to meditation to theater activities to discussions about the trees around us. In the evening we went to a
Kibbutz in the north and did something called Outdoor Training (ODT) which is basically group building through outside games.

In the morning we woke up and ate pancakes, which was amaaaaazing, as usually we eat bread, cheese, and/or cornflakes for breakfast. (This was the third day of the seminar, which was about one man's challenges within his community.) Then for morning prayer we did yoga. After that we were given a tour of the Kibbutz's cowshed, which is its main source of income. A bunch of people from the Kibbutz itself came and talked to us about the community, and then my friend Michal's mom, who lives in the Kibbutz, talked to us about the Mikveh she runs. The Mikveh is a spiritual bath that many Jews use on certain occasions. After learning more about it we went to help revitalize it by painting the walls and working in the garden. After that we had an amazing dinner that someone from a neighboring Arab village catered for us, and then we went back to the Mechina!

All in all it was a really fun week, and very rejuvenating for the new hectic routine we're starting tomorrow! Wish me luck, and hope to talk soon!

weekend #5: on the cusp of the real beginning

You must be wondering why I skipped weekend #4 - and why I am calling this a weekend at all if I'm writing at midnight between Monday and Tuesday.

All of October (until Thursday night) Israel has been on a semi vacation because of the high holy days, a series of four holidays that bring in the Jewish new year. Thus in the past sixteen days I've been home for half of them, sleeping and vacationing with my family (and my mom who has been visiting from the states for three weeks). So my blogging calendar has been a bit thrown off, but the eight days I was at the Mechina were packed and very important.

(By the way, I'm going to try to explain the photos on the right time this time around. From top to bottom: General picture of the demonstration we held at the Clock Square. 2nd: Picture of me and my friend Lotem leading the march to the square with our sign. 3rd: My bed is on the right, with the blue sheets, and Anat's bed is the one on the left with the leopard print sheets. In the middle is our joint closet. 4th: Our kitchen! 5th: A fellow apartment mate adding to the decoration. 6th: The decoration my roommate Tal added to the wall in our living room. Bottom: Our joint shelves, and my bed again on the left.)

The first week after Rosh Hashanah was our intensive preparation for volunteer work. Every day we had three lectures in the morning, and then a tour in volunteer places, and then in the evenings we had some kind of planned activity or time to hang out in Yaffo. I loved a lot of the places we visited, and it may have been my favorite series of lectures we've had so far. We had experts on all of the different ages, from the "soft age" (birth to six years old), adolescence, and the elderly; an expert on how to work with kids/teenagers who have learning disabilities or attention problems, one of the social workers who represents the welfare organization in Tel Aviv-Yaffo, and other topics that directly tie into the people and populations we'll be working with. The next week we all had short interviews with Rotem, the head of volunteer work at the Mechina, and told her our four preferences for volunteer work three times a week, and then our preference for our once-a-week framework. We'll find out in the next week our placements, so I'll let you all know :). I'm hoping to either work with the soft age or with 1st-3rd graders, either with a mostly Arab population or with Ethiopian immigrants in the neighborhoods of Yaffo Daled, Lev Yaffo (heart of Yaffo), or Ajami. Then once a week I hope I'll either tutor Darfurian refugees in Hebrew and English, or be a big sister to some kid who needs it!

Every week we have four people called Matashim who are in charge of the week: making sure the schedule runs smoothly, as well as preparing an activity for each day, be it morning prayer or a Mechina-evening. We had amazing matashim that week, who gave us a karaoke night and a night where we all blindfolded ourselves and then were split up into pairs (which rotated ever so often) and talked about personal experiences. Then, on Wednesday night, they told us we all had to wake up at six the next morning because the head of the Mechina, Arale, had a morning activity. My roommate Anat and I decided to go to sleep early (midnight) so we could be awake for the morning. The matashim woke us up and as we got dressed I casually checked my phone and saw that it was actually 3:15 in the morning! The matashim had decided to do a night tour with us in Jaffa where we apologized for what we regretted this year and then sent it away from ourselves - this was all in preparation for Yom Kippur, which was the Saturday after, and is the Jewish day of atonement. We stopped at different places along the way, and atoned personally and in small groups, where we also told others what good qualities we see in them that we would like to adopt. After each reflection we took a bit of paint and smeared our legs. Then, with dawn's first light, we went down to the beach and washed away the paint. It was beautiful to be awake at sunrise, and was a really exciting bonding experience for all of us. We went back to sleep for another hour and a half, then woke up for three lectures in a row. Our personal goal was for everyone to stay awake, and to help those around us stay alert, and it... kind of worked. The lectures were very interesting: two were about the Yom Kippur war of 1973 from two people who received high medals of honor in combat. The third lecture was from Arale's brother about the nature of Jewish atonement.

At the end of the week we always do a summary of how everything has been, and I was dying to go home and sleep. But, as happens every week, at the very end of the summary the matashim for the upcoming week were announced, and I was one of them! So we stayed a bit after to plan some of he events for the following week, and then returned home for Yom Kippur.

When we came back Sunday, we met in a museum in Tel Aviv that chronicles the personal history of Yitzhak Rabin, one of Israel's prime ministers who was assassinated in 1995, and the history of Israeli society. Afterwards we returned to the Mechina, and in the evening us matashim had our first group night. We planned an activity based on the Israeli game show 1 against 100. We composed a survey about people and life at the Mechina and then earlier in the day had everyone answer anonymously. Then, in the evening, we used the most commonly picked answers for our "game show," where we gave everyone cereal, and told them they had to win their milk for it (milk is the most prized commodity in the whole Mechina, as it always runs out way before we go grocery shopping again). The event was definitely a success.

Not much happened on Monday, but Tuesday was a very frustrating and exciting day simultaneously. At eight in the morning (after a night where me and a bunch of my friends, as well as almost everyone else, went out to Tel Aviv's most southern district, Florentine, which is right next to the Mechina, and stayed up very late)we had a sports day with our army sports trainer, which was supposed to be a contest between all of the apartments. However, only half of the Mechina got up and came, which made us postpone and shorten the rest of the day's events, because we had to have a Mechina-wide discussion about appropriate behavior and decorum (it was unacceptable both to us and our mentors that only half of the Mechina showed up to a required activity). The whole debacle was not only frustrating because of the subject, but also because we practically had to cancel the Matashim's activity that we planned for the Jewish holiday Sukkot (which was last week and why we had vacation) - we shortened it to a short discussion instead of a full-blown interactive activity.

However, the last thing we did on Tuesday was really exciting, and mostly made us forget the rest of the day's events. Two weekends ago, a right wing extremist group broke into two Arab cemeteries in Yaffo (one Muslim, one Christian) and destroyed a bunch of headstones. My committee, Yaffo and the community, decided we wanted to respond to this despicable event, and decided to consult the Mechina and ask them if they were interested in organizing a small and impromptu protest. When we got positive feedback, on Tuesday we had everyone gather and make signs that showed that as a Jewish and pre-Israeli-army institution we were against what happened and we want to partake in Yaffo's coexistence. When we finished our signs we walked to Yaffo's Clock Square and stood on the side of the road, singing fun songs and holding our signs. The police was immediately alerted, but since there were less than 50 of us who ended up coming it was legal for us to hold a demonstration without asking permission, so there was no trouble. The police then sent a reporter from their news website to take photos of us and write a short story about who we are and why we decided to protest! It was really exciting to feel that we have a voice in Yaffo, and that now we have a connection in the city's communication scene! (The site is also in Arabic, which makes this connection all the more important for the Mechina.)

On the way back from the Clock Square I was holding one of the signs with my friends (you can see in the photos) when the owner of a falafel store asked me:
"What does your sign say?"
(I read it aloud for him.) "Price Tag [the name of the right wing extremist group]?! It costs less for us to live together!"
"Does that mean you're against what happened? And you're for living together?"
"Yes, definitely!"
"Marry me."
"Excuse me?"
"Marry me."
"Uhh... not today, I'm busy."
"Then tomorrow?"
"Um.. sure?" (I walked away.)

So I guess my political engagement has landed me a fiancee...

Tomorrow evening I go back, and then on Wednesday morning we set off for the North to celebrate the last of the high holy days, Simchat Torah. Then we have a weekend at the Mechina, and then a four day Seminar also in the North. After a weekend at home to rest, we start volunteering and taking our regular classes! I'll be a Matashit until the seminar, so I have an exciting, hectic, and tiring week-and-a-half ahead!

weekend #3: a happy new year to one and to all

Shana tova haverim! (Happy new year, friends!) I'm writing to you during my four day vacation for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

Though we were only at the Mechina for 9 and a half days, they were very packed indeed - so busy that sadly I can't include every activity we did here (so I'll try to talk about the most interesting ones). I started off last week being very sick so I had to stay in my room and sleep during Sunday's activities, which was frustrating, but it meant that I could go the next day to our seminar in the north by the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret) about group-building. The seminar took place in a museum/educational institution, so we slept in sleeping bags either in the basement or outside near the water. I really liked the seminar, which taught us to put our fellow Mechina participants first while still maintaining our personal needs. It also created some interesting historical connections between the idea/terminology of a group and the state of Israel (through kibbutzes, the independence day way, etc.) The seminar ended on Tuesday night, and then we slept for three hours in the museum basement.

Why only three hours you ask? We all woke up at one in the morning in the morning and got on the bus to go to Safed (Tsfat) for a tour. An ultra orthodox Jew (Chabad to be exact) who used to be secular led a discussion with us about spirituality, and then gave us a tour of Tsfat and explained why it's so holy - Jews often call it the city of wind because of its spirit. We also went into a synagogue before the sunrise to see the Jewish practice of "Slichot," or "apologies" for sins that takes place before Rosh Hashanah. Though we were all super tired it was an amazing and new experience.

When we got back we slept until two in the afternoon and then did a theater activity throughout Jaffa. In order to learn the city's rich history, we split into six groups, and each group got a period in Jaffa's history. Our assignment was to write a seven minute play about the period, and then perform it at a site in the city that corresponds with the time period. For example, my group got the Ottoman period, so we wrote a show for kids using popular Hebrew kids songs (and also Heigh Ho and Party Rock, which is NOT a kids song) and rewriting the words to explain what happened during the Ottoman rule in Jaffa. Then we performed in the Clock Square of Jaffa, and a bunch of Japanese tourists came to watch, as well as the rest of the people in the Mechina! It was a really fun activity, and all of the groups were really creative. (I've posted a couple of pictures from our show in particular.)

The next day we went on a guided tour in a museum about the most extreme underground Israeli movement that fought the British mandate before Israeli independence. The day after my committee (Jaffa and the Community) led an activity where we sent out small groups and asked them to talk to certain vendors and also random people in the area of Jaffa's flea market. They came back with amazing, funny, dramatic stories about the city - my favorite is an urban legend that says that there are four turtles and some rats that have all been mutated due to living in Jaffa's sewage system who thrive on pizza and burekas (a filled pastry) and protect the city. After that my dad and my sister Shani came and visited me, and then we got ready for Shabbat. We welcomed Shabbat with a student-written service by the sea, which was very moving and fun.

On Saturday we rested and slept a LOT as recuperation for the week. I walked along the boardwalk on the beach to Shani in Tel Aviv and ate frozen yogurt with her. When I got back we did our end of the week summary, then Havdalah (the ritual that separates Shabbat from the rest of the week).

The thing that excited me most this week was the beginning of our preparation for volunteer work! On Sunday we had a long lesson with Rotem, the coordinator of volunteer work for the Mechina, where we learned a little bit about all of the different institutions where we can volunteer. Then Sunday evening and Monday morning we had a series of really interesting lectures about different cultures in Jaffa, and how to bridge the gap between our culture and other extremely different cultures without offending or being overbearing. The first lecture about intercultural relations was given by a Russian Israeli who immigrated twenty years ago and now works with new immigrants. The second lecture about the Ethiopian population in Israel was given by an Ethiopian immigrant who writes for Israel's biggest newspaper. The third lecture was given by an expert on immigrant workers and refugees. After the lessons we took a tour of two institutions where we can possibly volunteer this year. One is a youth club for children in first grade to fifth grade who are children of migrant workers and refugees. Because of their "at risk" status these kids, who all come from the same school, go to this club every day where they do their homework, do fun activities, and eat lunch and dinner before going home. If we choose to work there, we will be assigned a specific child to work with and tutor, and will also lead a group activity twice a week.
The second institution we visited was called "Bnai Darfur," which is a support center for refugees from Darfur who have walked up from Sudan through Egypt and arrived in Israel. One of the first refugees to arrive in Israel spoke to us about his journey and the dangers that accompany most of the Sudanis who make the trip. If we choose to volunteer in this institution, we will mostly tutor both adults and children in Hebrew and English so they can start integrating into Israeli society.

Though this has been an amazing week and a half, it hasn't been without its trials and tribulations. We got back from the seminar to find that my apartment's bathroom was nonexistent - we didn't have a bathroom or a kitchen sink all week, which was very hard. The whole mechina had thought it was hard to have six showers for 52 people until one day two of the apartments had faulty pipes and one of the main room's bathroom was out of order, leaving all of us with a grand total of 2 showers/toilets. There were also confirmed rumors of a rat and a mouse walking around the building, so an exterminator came yesterday to fix that problem! It's been tough but we survived :)

I'll finish with a celebrity story - we said goodbye to our upstairs neighbor on Tuesday, who had to move out with her little scotty dog. Her name is Hili Yalon, and is fairly famous in Israel for being one of the stars on a popular teen show from a few years ago. On her last night I was sitting with two friends on one of their apartment's balconies when we hear a shout from above: "Need some onions?" and then thump, thump. Hili decided she did not need onions in her new apartment and threw them down to us/at us. So next time we'll make spaghetti sauce hopefully it will be famous!

weekend #1: out of the bubble

Well friends, we haven't spoken in two weeks, and a whole lot has happened since then! (I'm sure with you all too - I'd love to hear about it!)

We started with a four day nature/hiking trip. This was a very new experience for me - four days of walking about 10 km (6 miles) each day, not showering, sleeping outside in sleeping bags, etc. It was very different but fun as well - one night was great in particular, as I helped make about 200 kebabs (tasty meatballs) and a musician came and sang to us and gave us life advice. Also that night we were split into two main groups, aleph (A) and bet (B). I'm in bet, and I really like the people and our two designated counselors.

We returned to the Mechina on Wednesday night, and spent all of Thursday cleaning and making the place as spotless as it can be (which is still quite "spotty" when you are living with 51 other people). I, for example, helped clean a kitchen, some floors, and washed 500+ dishes so we could all eat! At the end of the day, within aleph and bet we were divided into two apartments - I'm in Gimmel (G though it's the third letter in the alphabet). In my personal room there are two other girls, Tal and Anat, and though they are both very different than me they are wonderful and we get along really well. In general I love the people in my apartment!

We've been very busy since then, though our totally regular schedule won't start until late October. Every day certain people are in charge of cooking dinner for everyone, or washing dishes (the chore I end up doing more often than not). On Friday night we welcomed Shabbat with an alternative service that dealt with making a home. I've gone to the beach several times, to a bar in Southern Tel Aviv with friends, to a cafe with my apartment's counselor for a meeting about life and the Mechina that we'll do every three weeks. One day we took a tour of Jaffa "in the footsteps of Herzl," with all kinds of questions about Zionism and how it can be witnessed (or not) in Jaffa. We went through the old city, a new very sterile and not so nice neighborhood for Jews only called Andromeda, and through the famous and very poor Arab neighborhood Ajami. Another day we did a navigation exercise, where we split up into teams of six and had to go to certain landmarks around Jaffa, asking natives questions. My group went to the police station, a modern dance studio, a cafe that doubles as an Arabic bookstore, the site of the old Mechina buildings (where the students lived in earlier years), a famous bakery called Piece of Cake that made our mouths water, and the French Embassy in the very southern tip of Ajami and thus Jaffa. We talked to people at every stop and learned a lot about the beautiful yet complicated city that is hosting us. We've also had a lot of really cool guest lecturers come, such as the leader of the Reform Judaism movement in Israel, and the head of the current boycott against Tenuva (a very large Israeli dairy company - think Kraft), and the head of the association of Jaffa that aims to improve the lives of the residents, and our future economy teacher who came to talk to us about social justice - all of the youth of Israel demanded social justice through protests and demonstrations this summer, and she wanted us to start thinking why that was so. We chose rules for the Mechina, such as which rooms keep kosher (only one of the apartments and the main kitchen), and which keep Shabbat (none, though we decided that no one should cook or work on the Sabbath if it can be helped to preserve it as a day of rest), and if visitors are allowed to come (they are and they do). We divided ourselves into committees -- I'm on the committee called Jaffa and the Community, and within it we are going to help educate the Mechina and ourselves on Jaffa, and then do volunteer work and other activities that engage ourselves and help those around us. One morning we woke up early and did an alternative service through poetry. Another two mornings we woke up and went to the beach to exercise with an army trainer.

Though I was very homesick the first two weeks, two events made me realize this world is too small for anyone to be allowed to be homesick. One was that my friend Michal was on the phone with a friend, who figured out that his friend in HIS volunteer work program was from Indianapolis. I was handed the phone, and she told me her name was also Maya, and there is going to be a reunion for all of the Hoosiers in Israel sometime this year! Who'd have thought it?! The second thing happened when I was walking through the old city - a couple asked in English to slip by our group, and one of the Mechinistim asked them where they were from. When they said "Indiana," I was shoved forward, and we found out we were both from Bloomington, though they live currently in Nashville! We hugged and talked a bit about Beth Shalom before everyone had to set on their way.

Every day brings something new: new friendships, new knowledge, new reasons to love the city, and I'm excited to see what the next two weeks will bring! Tomorrow morning we return, and on Monday we are headed to a Kibbutz in the north for a seminar on group-building, followed by a Jewish ritual called Slichot (asking forgiveness) in Safed (Tzfat). Then we'll return, and come home a bit earlier than usual because the Jewish New Year will begin in a week and a half - another new beginning.

PS - I'm attaching a few photos of Jaffa. Soon hopefully I'll have photos of my room, but it's not finished yet - we still have some decorating to do!

weekend #0: before the mechina

Greetings, friends! After a lot of debating, I HAVE decided to keep a blog recounting my gap year in Israel, my year at the Mechina.

Why did I finally decide this? After attending yesterday's orientation, I realized this program just offered too many amazing opportunities for me not to share them! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This week my dad and I went shopping for hiking and easy-camping gear, picked up bed linens for my bunk, and bought a new backpack in preparation for the program. Then, finally, yesterday we had parents' day, a two hour informational event. I got to meet everyone else who will participate this year - all fifty one people seem absolutely amazing! There are two other girls from the states, and one from Italy - all speak a little bit of Hebrew but are hoping to improve it greatly this year. The rest of the people are Israeli. We also saw the head of the Mechina who interviewed us for the program, and met our counselors -- all in their twenties, these four will basically help us in every way they can - and the head of volunteer work, who is going to place us and help us with that aspect of the program. We will be split into two groups in which we'll have our classes and other activities, and within each group there are two smaller groups, who are our roommates in the apartment.

At this point I can hold back no longer - I want to talk about the Mechina, both what I gathered about it from my visit in December and what I learned yesterday.

Mechina, a derivation of the word preparation in Hebrew, is a specific kind of program that was designed to prepare post-high school Israelis for their mandatory service in the Israeli army (after graduating from high school and before going to college). There are thirty eight Mechinot in Israel, and I'm pretty sure I've found the best one (I say this with the arrogant confidence of someone who has only visited two). The mission of the Mechina is to prepare these young adults not only for the army, but for adulthood; they want to ensure that these youngsters will become responsible adults of Israel and of the world. This particular Mechina is run by the Reform Judaism movement, which has a credo of adapting Judaism to modernization and progress. So, in accordance with that, students do the following things:

-volunteer four afternoons a week, three in one institutional framework, and one in another more individualized setting. As the mechina's head of volunteer work told us, we are not there to "save the world," but to help out in Jaffa in any small way that we can. Jaffa itself is a very interesting and complicated place - Jews, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims, Ethiopian immigrants, migrant workers, and others live together in a not-so-easy coexistence; Jaffa, as one of the Mechina's "graduates" put it, is also the home to all of Tel Aviv's criminals. A few of the existing programs that people volunteer in are afternoon youth clubs/hangouts, a center for children aged 3-6 who have been classified as "at risk" and are basically kept out of their homes from 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening for safety reasons, an educational center that the Mechina actually set up to help kids with their studies, and many, many others.
-study in casual and informal "class" settings, lectures, seminars, and discussions about Israeli history, different Israeli populations, Islam and other relevant topics. This learning is supposed to contribute to our volunteer work, so we can understand the people of Jaffa and Israel and learn how to help them and work with them.
-travel a LOT all over Israel in order to meet and see all different kinds of environments and people who live here. The Mechina basically wants us to encounter every kind of ethnic group and political or religious ideology present in this small yet tightly packed country that is a homeland to so many different people. We will be touring settlements beyond the "green line," ultra-orthodox neighborhoods, and so many other places...
-learn a way of life different than our own. Two mornings a week we will be required to get up earlier than usual and start our day in a different, special way, be it with prayer, or yoga, or a walk on the beach (which is quite and wonderfully close) or anything else. This mission of the Mechina culminates near the end of the year with a program called "Lech Lecha" (translated as go forth) where each student spends three days in a lifestyle they could never imagine. In the past, people have lived with ultra-orthodox families, Druze families (an ancient religion related to Islam that can be found only in northern Israel and the mountains of Syria and Lebanon), radical settler families - one guy last year even lived as a hobo in Tel Aviv just to experience it!
-learn how to look at our Judaism in a new way, especially since there are people of varying degrees of Judaism involved, from completely secular to seriously reform, etc. This mission is harder to explain, but one of our counselors said we would talk a lot about tefillah (prayer) and its significance to us and others. We will be required to separate Sabbath from the rest of the week, but we get to choose how, and it can always be different - it never has to be "conventional;" we can do tai chi to welcome the Sabbath if we so truly wish!
-learn to be adults and build a community. Each apartment (we have four, each with 13 people - they are coed but the rooms within are not) has a budget for food, for example, and if we excede it, noone will come pay the difference - noone will buy eggs for us if someone forgets to. When we go on hiking trips and we are in charge of navigation, as long as it's not dangerous, if we spend a day walking in the wrong direction, all that our counselors will do is call the bus driver and tell him to meet us wherever we end up.
Now of course, there are fifty two of us - we'll learn to work together, build our own environment and community. People who have been in this Mechina in the past (we are the 9th year) say their group holds their best friends, their new family, those they can count on always.

So tomorrow we begin, with a four day hiking trip in the Judaen Hills near Jerusalem, in which we will get to know each other, learn much more about the Mechina, etc. Then we will move straight into the apartments in Jaffa. Generally we come home every two weekends (Thursday night to Sunday morning) and many of the holidays - so expect the blog then, though I promise the posts won't always be as long as this one!

Until then!
Maya

PS - For any of you who read my Spain blog, you'll remember that by the end, my English was rusty and very comical. Though here I am not forbidden to speak or read English, I am absorbed so deeply in Hebrew here that my English will likely become EXTREMELY comical - so please bear with me!