October Seminar: Tel Aviv, Netanya, and Jerusalem

One of the major aspects of my program is the monthly seminars. I have already commented on my blog about the first seminar up North to Lake Kinneret, but since then I have been on three other seminars.

The second seminar of the program was back in October in Tel Aviv, Netanya, and Jerusalem. On Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early and headed to a kibbutz where we learned about the interactions between Jews and Arabs in Israel. It was an interesting lecture, and they discussed programs where Jewish and Arab children switch lives for a week so that they can see that they are really just the same. Apparently there are a lot of pro-peace programs like this that are currently taking place in Israel. While many of them have their flaws, at least there are people out there trying to make a difference. After the lecture, we made our way down to Tel Aviv where we visited the Yitzhak Rabin Center. Yitzhak Rabin was the prime minister of Israel who was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist. We had a tour of the museum and then afterwards our group held a small ceremony to celebrate his life. I was asked to read a speech at the ceremony. It turned out to be the eulogy given by his granddaughter, or as I am now calling it: the most depressing speech in the world. After the ceremony, we went back to Netanya where we stayed the night in a hotel not too far from where we live. I thought this was silly, but it is what it is, I guess. At the hotel we had a mock traditional Yemenite wedding henna party. If you are confused at to what this is or why it happened, that makes two of us. It was fun though! We put on traditional Yemenite clothing and danced around for a few hours. The henna part, which I passed on, consisted of having a scoop of henna put in your hand, leaving an awkward looking brown stain for a few days. No thank you!

The next morning we left for Jerusalem. We had lunch at the overlook of the city. I remember it being the first place I visited on my birthright trip two and a half years ago, so that was pretty interesting. We also hiked through through a small tunnel nearby that used to be an aqueduct. This was one of those occasions where I was thankful to only be five feet tall, as I was the only one in my group who did not have to bend over at all or worry about hitting my head in the darkness. This was easily my favorite activity of the weekend. It is always exciting to go on a pseudo-adventure! After this, we had some free time to explore the Machane Yehuda shuk. I have always loved Machane Yehuda, and it was a great opportunity to further enable my gummy candy addiction.

The main reason we were in Jerusalem for the seminar was to attend the MASA opening ceremony. With about 3,000 people in attendance, our program was lucky to be given seats that were in the fourth and fifth rows of the huge theater. While the ceremony was definitely entertaining, as it was full of performances and interesting speakers, it felt a little bit like what I would imagine joining a mega-cult would be like. Some of the dances involved lots of Hebrew chanting, mysterious lighting and costumes, and an overall eerie atmosphere. The event was very impressive and well put together, but I was slightly disturbed nonetheless. After the ceremony, we spent the night at the wonderful Crowne Plaza hotel. Because of the ceremony, all the other hotels in the area were booked so MASA decided to splurge for our group. It was awesome to stay there, and the food was amazing. The next day, we went on a hike. We were told it would be more of a stroll and were very surprised to find that it was an actual full-fledged hike. Besides being unprepared in the footwear department, it was a pleasant hike, and had some very nice views of Jerusalem. Following the hike we had a short tour of the Old City which was pretty standard. We ended the seminar at the Western Wall, before heading on our three hour bus ride back to Netanya.

That's all for now,
Melanie

At the henna party. We were making "M"s because we all have "M" names.

View of Jerusalem from the overlook.

Gummy candies at Machane Yehuda market.

The Kotel.

Oy, Jesus!

Never in my life have I had such a meaningful Christmas. As someone who considers myself Jewish through and through, Christmas has always meant escaping holiday cheer by going on vacation somewhere like Las Vegas or Palm Desert with my family. This year I did some traveling as well, except it was unlike any other Christmas vacation I have taken before. This year, I decided to go to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus himself. Located in the West Bank, Bethlehem was a bit more difficult to get to than the usual trip within Israel.

We left early in the morning on a bus to Jerusalem. From Jerusalem we had to take another smaller, Palestinian operated, bus into Bethlehem. Everything we read online to prepare for our trip cautioned against using Hebrew in the West Bank. From the get-go this proved tricky and it became apparent to me that certain Hebrew words have infiltrated my English vocabulary.

When we got to Bethlehem, the bus stopped somewhere in the middle of the city and the driver instructed everyone to get off. We didn't know quite where to go to get to Manger Square, but seeing as it was Christmas, the city's busiest tourism day of the year, people were more than happy to point us in the right direction. Well, at least they thought it was the right direction. It turned out that the direction they told us to go ended up being very much the opposite of where we needed. Everything happens for a reason though, because we ended up at the wall that divides the West Bank from the rest of Israel. The infamous wall looked just as it did in pictures. An enormous cement wall, covered in graffitied messages calling for peace and justice for Palestine, it was actually a lot bigger than I imagined. This was arguably my favorite site of the day. The wall is a symbol of the conflict in the Middle East, and to see it in person was mind-blowing. After we gawked at it and took pictures with it, we moved on and found our way to Manger Square.

Though it was a bit longer of a walk to Manger Square than we had anticipated, it was amusing to see the stores with Arabic writing on the signs and Christmas decorations and lights in the windows. On one end of Manger Square stood a huge Christmas tree (it reminded me of the one Disneyland has during the holidays) with a nativity scene in front, and directly across the square from it stood a mosque. The square was packed with tourists, so we found our way to The Church of the Nativity. The church was old and beautiful, but nothing like the more striking ones I've seen in Italy. We entered on the wrong side and ended up cutting the long line of people who were waiting to go downstairs to see the star that marks the place where Jesus was born. So instead of waiting the two hours like everyone else, our wait was only about twenty minutes. Oops?

I thought the star marking the birthplace of Jesus was a bit underwhelming, which was not so surprising since I don't have any sort of emotional attachment to it. It was probably also because each person gets literally two seconds to look at it before an angry monk makes you leave so the next person can get a turn. Looking back, I'm not sure if I even looked at it or if I just had time to take a picture, see that the picture was blurry, take another picture, and get told by the monk that my time was up.

After "seeing" the star, we were ushered up a tiny staircase that spilled out into a beautiful big church. I heard a familiar sound...Christmas carols! One of the worst parts of the holidays in the US, are the constant bombardment with Christmas songs even before Thanksgiving, all the way up until the start of the new year. Not only is there a wonderful lack of Christmas songs in Israel, I even heard a few sporadic Chanukah songs playing in stores! So when I entered the church and heard Christmas songs playing, it was actually kind of nice to hear.

After the church, we enjoyed our lunches that we were smart enough to bring from home. We ate in Manger Square, observing the tourists and vendors. Mostly the tourists were taking pictures with the tree and buying corn on the cob from the vendors. One particularly funny site was that of a man selling cotton candy out of his trunk. After lunch, we explored the Arab market a bit. My favorite part was seeing all of the ridiculous mannequins. Apparently, any mannequin is acceptable to display clothing on, even if the face has been scratched off or it is missing a limb or two. It was cool seeing how similar the market was to the Israeli ones.

After the market, we made our way to yet another church. On the way we were harassed by a taxi driver who wanted to take us to Shepherd's Field, and wouldn't take no for an answer. He ended up walking us all the way to the church trying to convince us. Along the way, he showed us where a beautiful lookout was. We were able to see most of the rooftops in Bethlehem, and it was absolutely stunning even though it was a bit cloudy out. Despite this, we still did not end up going with him, mostly because it was getting late and we wanted to be able to spend some time in Jerusalem before heading back to Netanya, but it was interesting to see the lengths he would go just to make 20 shekels (about $5).

We made our way back to Jerusalem without a problem, although soldiers did enter the bus when we crossed the border to check passports. In Jerusalem, we walked to the old city and Mamilla mall. We had a lovely Christmas dinner at an Italian restaurant before heading back home. Even though I was exhausted, and it was difficult to wake up early for work the next morning, the trip was definitely worth it. It was an amazing experience and I am really glad I had the opportunity.

As some of you have noticed, it has been a while since I have posted anything. For this, I apologize. It is my New Year's resolution to post more often. Yeah, yeah, I know resolutions don't have the best reputation for sticking, but I really do enjoy writing about my experiences. I have a few posts in the works, so stay tuned. I hope everyone at home had a great holiday season and that 2013 is off to a good start!

Melanie

Manger Square: Christmas tree on the left, mosque on the right.

Entering the church from the wrong side.

Blurry picture of where Jesus was born.

The definition of sketchiness: selling cotton candy out of a trunk.

Potentially diseased mannequin.

The Bethlehem side of the infamous wall.

Feeling tiny in front of the enormous wall.