Young Judaea / FZY Year Course Blog

            A hundred and fifty years ago Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Now, the only Jews in Poland are the ones who leave Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and a handful of other nations to go on a journey for a week or so, all asking the same question: What happened here? These Jews wish to understand what Jewish life was like in Poland and how that life was destroyed in the Holocaust. A few weeks ago, I was one of those Jews.

            In an eight-day trip we managed to visit at least twenty-five distinct sites. We learned about how developed the Jewish community was in Poland, all the way back in the nineteenth century. There were more Jewish newspapers in print then there are now in Israel. There were Jewish governing bodies in Poland. It is almost impossible to count how many schools, synagogues, youth clubs, homes for the elderly, hospitals and other institutions the Jewish community built in various cities and towns of Poland.

We went to the Okopowa Street Cemetery in Warsaw, which somehow still stands. It is a huge graveyard that was used by the Jewish community for years before the war. We saw the graves of Jews who were influential in the arts, government, linguistics and religious studies, all given dignified burials.

We went to Tykochin, a shtetl (small town), which had a four hundred year old synagogue. It was one of the biggest and most beautiful shuls I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few.

We went to Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, the first campus-style yeshiva (religious school) where people lived together in addition to learning together. This concept, which is so popular today in Israel and in some places in the U.S. was started in the building in which I stood in Poland.

We went to Lazjansk and saw a mikvah (water basin for ritual purification) used by Chassidic men before Shabbat each week. We learned about how all Chassidim around the world have Poland to thank for the origin of their movement.

We went to a kibbutz, yes a kibbutz, in the middle of nowhere in Poland. It was set up by Zionist youth groups to train people for life in Palestine. We learned about the plethora of Zionists and socialists in Poland. We learned just how active the Jews of Poland were.

And then we learned about how that beautiful burning flame, that was the Jewish community of Poland, was extinguished so quickly and without hesitation. We went to Treblinka, the most efficient death camp of its kind in history. 800,000 Jews were killed there in just a few years. The entire Jewish community of Warsaw, as big and strong as that of many major U.S. cities, was brought to Treblinka and killed, just like that. We went to Majdanek, where you can still see and even go inside the gas chambers and crematoria. 90,000 Jews were killed there. We went to Auschwitz and Birkenau. One and a half million Jews were killed there. The place was the size of a small town. A small town where trains rolled in, Jews got off, about three quarters were sent right to their deaths and the other quarter were chosen to work, a much slower death. We saw ghettoes and mass graves in forests.

We went to Poland and saw that Polish Jewry no longer exists. Right now, more Jews live in Israel than in any other place in the world. I have been living in Israel for over six months now. It is hard to know what to say about the Holocaust, but spend just a week in Poland learning about that darkest of moments in Jewish history and it is easy to love the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai.

My introduction to my volunteer placement could not have been better.

For my Israeli experience, I am living in Kfar Saba and working at the Kadima after-school youth center there. My very first day on the job, I had the exciting pleasure of joining the children in their Purim celebration. Everybody dressed up in colorful and creative costumes (we had a cowboy, a flowerpot, a baby, a cross-dressed boy, and more) and up to a kibbutz just north of the city for a day of activities and performances with the rest of the Kadima centers in the Tel-Aviv area.

The place was swarming with frolicking children, and though it was a little overwhelming, it was also awesome. Simply gathering so many people together in one place for a Holiday celebration seemed like an enormous accomplishment. But there was also a lot in store for us that day.

When we first got there, the kids broke into groups and enjoyed a series of small little stands and games set up all around the kibbutz in a carnival-like fashion. There was bowling, Bozo Buckets, fishing, pin the tail on the donkey, potato sack races, and many other fun activities to chose from.

Afterwards, everyone gathered in the front for a lunch of hotdogs, juice boxes, and popsicles. I had the interesting experience of eating my hotdog with olives, hummus, and egg salad. I guess there aren't standard protocols in Israel for what you can and can't put on a hotdog.

After lunch, we received the real treat of the day: a performance by Kokhav Nolad (Israeli American Idol) contestant Hen Aharoni. He sang a variety of hit songs and got everybody on their feet. Then, we all got to stay on our feet for a little bit of organized dancing. There was some Electric Slide, some Bomba, some Funky Chicken, and some Hora.

Finally, it was time for everyone to return home. The day was a great success, and an amazing way for me to celebrate my Purim and be welcomed into the Kadima family.

Turkey, until February 24, 2009, was simply my favorite deli meat. Now, it is one of the most interesting and unique places I have ever been.

            My Olami group, Sephardic Judaism and Zionism embarked on a journey to study Jewish history and explore modern Jewish life in the bi-continental country. There we visited beautiful synagogues, Jewish schools, and mingled with Turkish Jews of all ages.

            The Jewish community in Turkey is not like that of America or Israel at all. Turkey is a country that has been in the news a lot lately, and to put it lightly, is not known for its country's love of Zionism or Israel. The situation in Gaza triggered a wave of anti-Israel sentiments throughout Turkey, and because of that, security has to be extra tight. When our group visited Jewish youth clubs or synagogues at night, we had to be careful and not draw attention to ourselves. The Jews we met with told us stories about how they would not feel comfortable outwardly supporting Israel or wearing a Star of David around their neck. However, despite these uncomfortable situations, the Jewish  community thrives in Turkey. Jews are proud and happy to be Jewish, they just need to express it in a different way that I have ever seen before.

            The best example of this is when our group visited a youth club in the Asian side of Istanbul. We had to walk in a silent straight line in order to get in, then walked through security, but once the security check was completed, we entered a different world. We were greeted by the sounds of booming Israeli music, and teenagers practicing dances as a part of their Israeli dance group. It was so exciting to see that the political situation of Turkey cannot keep Jewish teenagers from loving and being active in their religion; that Judaism still matters to them even if the homeland they associate with is not beloved by the people of their country.

            This Olami trip was packed not only with Jewish sights and attractions, but also Turkish palaces, vacation islands, and a relaxing trip to the Hama'am, the traditional Turkish bath.

            The trip to Turkey, more than anything, got me so excited to come back to Israel, where there is not only an enormous amount of freedom for the Jews, but there is a national love and identity with the Jewish religion. Israel is a haven for Jews everywhere; it is the one place where the Jewish people will always be able to call home.

            I find elections exciting. That probably makes me a dork, but whatever.

I was really excited when I had the chance to vote for the first time last spring, in the Democratic primaries. Then, I was able to vote in some local elections and primaries. (I promise that was more exciting than it sounds.) Finally, I voted in the presidential election last fall. Even though, I had to do it through the mail from Israel and did not go into that exciting booth, I still found choosing the next leader of the free world pretty exciting.

Just recently, Israel had national elections. Young people my age were able vote across the country. I, of course, was unable because I am not a citizen of Israel. I had thought about how I would feel about being unable to vote in the place where I was living and I knew it would not just be unexciting, but downright frustrating. Turned out, excitement still ensued.

            We had spent a fair amount of time learning about Israeli politics from our teachers and madrichim (counselors). We learned that Israel has a multi-party system. We learned that these parties have to build coalitions to form a government. We learned how Knesset (Israeli Parliament) functions.

Above all, we learned that Israel's political system is complicated. It makes democracy in the United States look like an exercise in simplicity. If you think a game of basketball is exciting when it is five players against five others (like the two-party system in U.S. elections), then imagine a game of basketball with ten players all on their own team. That's an Israeli election. Is it hectic? Yes. Is it exciting? Definitely.

On Election Day, I went with a madrich (counselor) of mine to a polling place to watch him vote. When I asked Dan whom would be getting his vote, he shrugged his shoulders. He had not decided yet, he explained.

When we arrived, there were representatives of different parties outside the building trying to convince voters how to cast their ballot. Yes, in Israel they are allowed to do this right outside of a polling place. In the U.S. we have laws against this but Israelis are too confrontational to consider this out of the ordinary. (Just an interesting side note to articulate how all-encompassing Israel's national elections are: The parties running for office buy up every, and I mean every, billboard in Jerusalem. Picture those giant billboards in Times Square that usually advertise movies and soda brands with huge images of Obama and McCain and you have the idea.) They allowed Dan the madrich to go into the polling area with 25 Year Coursers following him. Again, I could never see this permitted in America. Finally, Dan filled out his ballot (on paper in Israel) and started to walk to the officials, only to turn back and change his mind. With so many choices, who could blame him?

Now it has all ended and the details are being worked out to see who will control the Knesset. One thing is for certain though: An election with so many options where you could change your mind at the last second like that is an exciting thing indeed.

This past weekend I had one of those typical teenage experiences. You know the ones where you pick up spontaneously and embark upon some epic trip without a true idea of what you're doing or how you're going to do it.

In this instance, the destination that my friend and I had in mind was Mt. Hermon with the objective of going skiing. On Wednesday, after deciding (rather unreasonably) that there was surely enough snow on the mountain, we got a hotel recommendation, booked a room for two nights, packed up our things, and headed off the next morning for Neve Ativ.

It was a long day of travelling on Thursday, but we somehow managed to make it to Neve Ativ. We found the hotel, checked into our room, dropped off our stuff, and headed to the ski shop to rent our equipment.

The ski shop was a funny place, with absolutely none of the paperwork you have to fill out at an American rental store. We just gave them our money, and they handed us a pair of boots, skis, and poles.

The next morning we woke up pretty early in an attempt to get to the slopes right when they opened at 8. As often happens with these things, we got out the door a little late. Still, we made it to the slopes in time to experience the joy of the first (and very icy) run of the day, and were confident that we were going to have a good day of skiing ahead of us.

The conditions on the mountain definitely weren't ideal. The amount of snow was minimal and icy in the morning. That is, until the sun warmed it up and it just became really wet and started to melt, exposing rocks and some large patches of dirt. But, it was awesome to be out there. Mt. Hermon is a very cute ski mountain and we had a good time fantasizing about how much fun it would be to hit the slopes on a day when there was a couple more feet of snow and even (because you can be picky in your imagination) six inches of fresh powder.

At the end of the day we were exhausted but content, and definitely ready for an après-ski hot tub session. We ended our day with a late dinner and a movie on our hotel room TV.

The next day was a bit more relaxing. Convinced that the way the mountain looked at the end of the day Friday would make it un-skiable on Saturday, we decided to pack a picnic lunch and go for a hike. We really only "hiked" for 20 minutes before we found the perfect grassy knoll to take a nap on. The day was beautiful, and we had an amazing view down into the Golan.

Eventually we had to make it back into Neve Ativ to catch our bus to Qiryat Shemona and begin the long journey back to Jerusalem. Like all great things, our wonderful weekend vacation came to an end. It was amazingly fun, and to say that I just took off for a ski vacation in the Hermon really makes my year here that much more rewarding.

Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people, that much we know. However, what that means is that this beautiful country of ours is home to Jews of every shape and size, from all over the world. Even though I am from a predominantly Jewish community, I have met Jews who live lifestyles so different from my own this year, and basically the only thing we have in common is our love for our homeland and our religion. A perfect example of this was our Shalem Shabbat Beyachad in Tzfat.

            Tzfat is known for its spiritual atmosphere and the birth of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. Upon our arrival in Tzfat, we were greeted with singing and guitar playing. We were told what a holy city Tzfat is,and were given an opportunity to walk around. The boys all went to a mikvah, a spiritual bath, to cleanse themselves before the holy hours of Shabbat. Then, we started Shabbat with a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat service, and then the real adventure began. We were set up into pairs, and went to different homes for Shabbat dinner. We walked together as a group, dropping pairs off as we went. My friend Brooke and I were the last pair to be dropped off. When we arrived at our house, even before entering, I knew it was going to be like nothing I ever experienced. From outside their home, we could hear the sounds of many rambunctious young children, and saw their front door was covered with a picture of the Lubovitch Rebbe. When we came inside and introduced ourselves, we realized the parents spoke very little English, and none of their eight children spoke any English whatsoever, so it was up to our Hebrew skills and us for the evening. We learned that they were from a traditional Yemenite family, and enjoyed delicious Yemenite cuisine for dinner as opposed to our usual Mazal Ball soup and  plain Chicken. It was so awesome getting to be apart of a culture so diffeent from my own for Shabbat. Year Course is all about not being tourists in Israel, but really seeing what it is like to live here, and meeting all sorts of people that call this beautiful country home.

  

            I have had so many other experiences where I have gotten to interact with Israelis from all different cultures and backgrounds in the last six months, and as I go on to my Israel Experience portion of the year, I hope to do this even more. I will be participating in Dakar, the Naval experience program which takes place at an Israeli Naval boarding High School, so I will certainly get to meet kids from all over Israel and brush up my Hebrew while learning to sail and participating in other cool Naval activities.

Three months ago, Capt. Yoni Netanel had a baby daughter named Maayan. On Monday, January 5 Yoni was killed in Gaza. The next day I got a call at around 6:30 PM from my friend Avital Greenfest. I was in the cafeteria having dinner and she was just upstairs. Why was she calling when she could just come talk, I thought to myself. I answered the phone regardless.

"The funeral for one of the soldiers who died yesterday is in a half hour on Har Herzl. It's open to the public and we can make it there if we leave right now."

She didn't have to say any more. In two minutes we were walking out the front entrance of the Judean Youth Hostel along with another friend of ours, Adin Pearl. In five minutes we were at our bus stop and it was another two minutes before we boarded the number 13. Fifteen minutes passed and we were stepping off it. We found large groups of people walking from different directions toward one entrance to the burial grounds. They were all heading towards an even larger group.

Once we converged with the tremendous crowd, we saw that they were gathering around a military jeep. We had arrived just in time to find six soldiers standing at the rear entrance to the vehicle. Another minute passed and two of them entered to retrieve something.

Yoni's coffin came out draped in an Israeli flag. I had only seen one other coffin in my life-- my grandfather's when I was eleven. Needless to say I felt a huge lump in my throat which I had difficulty swallowing. Goosebumps formed on my arms. I watched with hesitation as the six soldiers somberly carried the casket. The now gigantic group of civilians followed them.

We arrived at the burial site after another minute or two. The whole ceremony was in Hebrew and I had difficulty understanding it entirely. I understood the basics, though. Yoni was an Israeli soldier who was fighting against Hamas in Gaza. He was from a religious family. He had a wife and had just had his first child. Numerous friends and family members spoke, all praising his kindness, integrity, and morality.

The funeral was an important, although very heavy, experience for me. Afterwards, I went back to my everyday life here. Right now I am taking classes with other Americans in Jerusalem, far away from the war. This distance is both physical and mental. I am forced to accept the reality that there are kids my age risking their lives in this country. Every day when they get out of bed, they do not know if they will return to it that night. That is their reality.

Mine is that I went out for dinner with my friends a few nights ago. We had Chinese.

I go on living my life but Yoni's wife cannot. And his daughter, Maayan, will never have a normal life. That is Israel's reality, and Yoni's funeral made me realize that it is true every minute of every day here.

When the war between Israel and Gaza broke out, I was enjoying a Shabbat bike tour with my family through the mostly deserted Saturday morning streets of Jerusalem. Though our tour guide got a phone call informing him that something was up in Gaza and we needed to be careful, it wouldn't be until later that night that we learned anything about the air strikes. Of course, the conflict didn't really impact our ride, except for a barricade between East and West Jerusalem on the top of Mount Scopus that forced us and a tour bus to turn around (you should have seen the U-Turn).

Anyway, the bike ride stands as one of the only moments in the past couple of weeks in which the invasion of Gaza hasn't had a direct impact on my life. Between heated conversations, activities with our madrichim, lectures and talks from guest speakers, and discussions in the classroom, the conflict has had a large presence.

On top of all of that, today I had the pleasure of working with Sar-El, the volunteer program in Israel that is currently spearheading the war effort and using hundreds of volunteers on army bases around the country. Many chanichim from other sections are currently living on these bases and have been for the past few weeks. But, because my section has classes that we can't miss, we haven't been able to volunteer with Sar-El. However, on a one-day basis, about 30 of us were allowed to miss school, travel to the food-packaging army base about an hour north of Jerusalem, and help out.

When we arrived at the packaging warehouse we were thrown into positions on an assembly line and quickly shown what to do. Such jobs are never very hard, but that didn't stop the first few minutes from being very chaotic indeed. I was kept busy folding down the flaps of the boxed lunches and swiping them through the automatic inker that stamped on the date. Eventually we found our groove, just in time for lunch.

After lunch we traded in our boxed lunches for snack bags, spending the last three hours packing chips and chocolate bars.

The experience was really important to me. I've been struggling with the invasion of Gaza, especially after facing heavy criticism of Israel from friends back home, and have been searching for some sort of answer to what I think about all of this and how I believe it should turn out. Of course, I didn't necessarily find that answer by spending hours packing food in boxes. But I did see a cohesive group of American teenagers united at least by their support for the Israelis their age who are currently on the front lines. Supporting your troops is something you can always and should always do, no matter how you feel about the war they are fighting.

Never did I think folding cardboard could be so powerful. Yesterday, myself and 39 other Shalem participants volunteered at the Israeli Defense Force's central food storage warehouse, as a part of Sar El. We spent the day packaging food for soldiers, as part of an assembly line. While this may seem a little tedious, what we were doing came with such a sense of importance. We were volunteering along with a group of French adults, who barely spoke any English or Hebrew, but were there for the same reason we were: to help out their homeland during this important time.

 

Israel is currently fighting a war, where thousands of soldiers are risking their lives daily to defend our homeland. Living in Israel during a time of war is an incredibly unique experience, and displays nationalism like I have never seen before. The entire country bands together to support soldiers and victims of terror--hotels and hostels, including our very own Judaean Youth Hostel, offer free night stays to those who have had to leave their homes for security reasons, rallies and signs supporting the troops can be seen in almost every city, and the list goes on.

In America, hearing about a war 10,000 miles away in the Jewish homeland always seems so much scarier. You see the news and they're trying to scare you and shock you as much as possible, that's how they sell newspapers and get higher television ratings. Here, we are getting to see the war from an Israeli perspective, and feel like there are actually things we can do to help the war effort, and stand in solidarity with Israel during this trying time. While war does unfortunately cause a lot of stress and tragedy, the soldiers and the residents of the South have support nationwide.

Having attended a Jewish Zionist day school for my entire life, Israel has always been something I have learned about and supported in and out of the country. I have taken Israel History classes and gone to rallies to support Israel in Los Angeles, my hometown, but nothing compares to being here, learning about and witnessing Israeli politics and history. I am taking both Zionism and Israeli Political Culture classes, as well as hearing many guest lecturers speak about the current situation, which have all taught me so much about everything that is going on, and have helped keep me informed and knowledgeable.

John F. Kennedy's famous words "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" are incredibly applicable to Israel's attitude during difficult times such as these. I am so proud to be able to help Israel by living here and supporting the country and its soldiers and residents in numerous ways.

This cat wasn't just cute-- she was pristine. She had golden brown hair and long whiskers. She stood at quite an impressive height and even purred beautifully. Also, she was begging me for food (and may not have been female; I didn't check). I was feasting on a pita filled with shwarma in a little, hole-in-the-wall, food establishment near my youth hostel in Eilat. Some of my Year Course friends and I had decided to go down to Eilat to spend the few days between our volunteering trimester in Bat Yam and our learning trimester in Jerusalem. Eilat is Israel's premier tourist city and is basically one huge resort.

            Now, the fact that this cat was so pretty and yet was begging me for food is an interesting dichotomy. But that was not what interested me. What I found surprising was simply that the cat was pretty. If you've been to Israel, then you know that stray cats here are like Walmarts in the United States: They're everywhere and they're ugly. The story goes that when the British ruled Palestine they were bothered by an overabundance of rats. They solved this problem by bringing in tons of cats. Fast-forward to today and Israel has tons and tons of stray cats, as a result.

            Most of these cats are diseased, dirty and resemble the rats they were intended to chase away. Especially in the less-than-wealthy neighborhood of Bat Yam, where we had been living for three months, the cats were a pity to look at. But there I stood, in Eilat, with this gorgeous cat staring up at me.

            What I'm trying to get at is that Eilat is different than the rest of Israel, in more ways than just their stray cat population. Their beaches were cleaner. The people were friendlier. The air even smelt better.

            This fact about Eilat, that it was kind of just nicer than other cities in Israel, was the overarching theme of our trip. We all implicitly understood it in all of our activities. We understood it when we were being dragged at rapid pace on an inflatable tube behind a motorboat, screaming at the top of our lungs. We understood it when we took a paddleboat out onto the Red Sea and wondered at the hills of Jordan before watching the sun set over Egypt. We understood it when we went snorkeling and saw dozens of gorgeous species of fish in the unbelievable coral reef. We understood it when we got dressed up in our Sunday's best (Shabbat's best, here in Israel) to go out for a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant, just to treat ourselves. We understood it when we lied on the beach, getting a tan at the end of November.

            We really understood the majestic nature of Eilat and I think that pristine cat did too.