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.

Sukkot!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the holiday of Sukkot, I shall attempt to explain it a bit. For those of you who are familiar with the holiday, I'm guessing some of you still don't know all that much about it because it is confusing and repetitive and even after having experienced it in Israel, I myself am still unclear about a few things. Basically Sukkot is a week long celebration of the harvest in which people sleep and eat outside for the duration of the week in a hut/fort structure called a sukkah (sort of like when the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years). I have enjoyed seeing the sukkahs crop up everywhere around Netanya--on street corners, front yards, roofs, and most commonly on apartment balconies. I don't know if people actually sleep in them, but I do know that they usually decorate them with (tacky) fake plastic fruit and paper chains, and that at a minimum the first meal welcoming the holiday is eaten in the sukkah.  To me, Sukkot does not have that much of a religious significance and I don't understand why it warrants the entire country taking off work for a week. While not everything was closed like during Yom Kippur, many things were. The school where I work, for instance, has a two week break for the holiday. Tragically, so does the 9 shekel felafel place down the street. Many of my fellow fellows (Sorry, I had to!) took this time to travel abroad, but I wanted to stay put and enjoy being in Israel exploring the country and Netanya a bit more.

For the first night of Sukkot, I went with Casey to another host family in Netanya. They lived in a beautiful, spacious, three story apartment with stunning beach views (I feel as if I am writing a real estate advertisement for their home, but really it was as amazing as it sounds). Their sukkah was on the roof of their apartment building, and since they are the only ones with access to the roof, eating outside overlooking the sea was an amazing experience. While the view was easily one of the best parts, they had no tacky sukkot decorations, and there was electricity and proper lighting throughout the whole meal (despite some rain), so that was all good as well. The family was extremely nice and the food was delicious. It was a Persian family (so the food was extra delicious), and the mom was American. She and her children are all native English speakers so it was nice to have Israelis who could communicate well with us. The extended family that showed up did not speak English so well, but were happy to meet us and talk to us a bit nonetheless.

During the rest of the break, I mostly lounged around and hung out with the people from my group who stayed in Netanya. I was able to catch up on my tv shows (finally) and unpack some more, so that was nice. Also, I loved going to sleep around 4am and waking up in the early afternoon, as this is the closest I will ever get to being nocturnal (which I totally would be if it were socially acceptable). While this probably sounds like profound levels of laziness to some of you at home, I actually did spend the holiday doing cool things. I spent one of the days in Tel Aviv where I went to Nachlat Binyamin, the open-air market where local artists come and sell their work (everything is hand made). It was exactly as I remember it from two years ago, and I saw much of the same artwork. I still enjoyed it very much, and was happy to be there. I also visited the Tel Aviv shuk, and it made me very thankful that the one in Netanya is much calmer. The vendors at the Tel Aviv shuk are so pushy and try to sell souvenirs a lot, as it is a pretty common tourist destination. The Netanya shuk, on the other hand, exists mainly to provide cheap fruit, veggies, meat, and nuts to the locals.

All in all, I enjoyed Sukkot, but thought it was much too long. By the time it was over I couldn't wait to start working and get into a routine.  My first day back was great and I loved that I was finally able to begin getting to know all my students!

Melanie

I have no pictures of Sukkot, please enjoy this picture of me feeding some goats instead.

I killed a mosquito with a squeegie.

It deserved it. I woke up yesterday morning with four mosquito bites on my arm. Unfortunately, mosquito bites here aren't like normal mosquito bites. They look like big ugly purple golf ball welts and they take a while to go away. Having four on the same arm makes me look diseased. So when I saw the mosquito buzzing around the bathroom that morning I knew I had to get my revenge. It landed on the ceiling so I grabbed the squeegie and acted fast. I guess its a good thing that the showers here are weird and flood the bathroom requiring one to squeegie the entire bathroom floor after each shower. If it weren't for the squeegie, who knows, I could still be falling victim to the vicious bug.

In all seriousness though, I actually have a lot of exciting real news for this blog post! The ceiling next door finally got fixed so on Monday I said adieu to my temporary roommates and welcomed Leah who I will be living with for the remaining nine months (I can't believe I've been here for a whole month already!). It is very exciting to finally have space to put things, but since I have already lived in the room for a while I am finding it hard to motivate myself to unpack everything. I have the next two weeks off for Sukkot though, so I will have plenty of time to do so soon.

Last week I got my school assignment. I will be working at the Rimalt school in Poleg, the wealthy southern part of Netanya. I was confused at first as to why I wasn't placed in a low-income school, but after working at Rimalt for a few days I realized that everyone needs help. Just because students go to a better school doesn't necessarily mean they are motivated and excited to learn English, and it doesn't mean that I won't make a difference at Rimalt. My teaching partner, Casey, and I will be working there with two of the English teachers and will be working with students in grades 4-6. Ester, the English teacher I will be working with has Tuesdays off so I will only have a four day work week (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday). We got really lucky with our placement, as the school is really nice and the people who work there all seem friendly.

The first day at the school we were welcomed with a small but nonetheless exciting concert. We walked into a classroom with a welcome sign all the students had autographed. The chairs had been placed in a circle around the room and we were told to sit in the middle. It was actually a bit nerve-racking to sit there with a bunch of Israeli children staring at you, but luckily the presentation was entertaining and I laughed through most of it. First the students sang a 10 minute rendition of Bob Marley's "Don't worry." Next, a few students read a speech in English welcoming us to the school. The final part of the show was my favorite. They had choreographed a hip hop routine just for us. It was to modern American hip-hop songs, and the students went all out for it. We have it on video but I'm having trouble uploading things at the moment. When I get everything sorted out with my camera I will post pictures and the video. After the big presentation, we were fed chocolatey goodies the parents had baked for us. Then we were taken on a tour of the school.

The second day at the school we observed in the classrooms. It was so great to finally be able to help out the students a bit and start getting to know them. We were told that for the first few months we will only be given the advanced students who are bored in class because their English is already pretty good for their age. During the observation, I was able to help a few students out during the lesson. I thought it was really cute that a few of them tried really hard to impress me with their English skills. I met a student who was born in America and speaks English with her parents at home. She is super advanced and I can't wait to work with her more, even though one of the other students felt the need to warn me that she was crazy.

Even with the students that speak English really well, there are also students on the opposite end of the spectrum who have no English skills whatsoever. In one of the classes I observed, there was a little boy who knows literally one word in English. What is that word? "Igloo," of course. I don't know where or why or how he learned that word, or why it is the only one he remembers, but he uses it to describe everything. If he wants to get my attention? "Igloo." If he wants to tell me to use Hebrew instead of English? "Igloo." To be quite honest, I'm not even sure he knows what it means, but the first time I heard him use it a bunch of students laughed so I thought it had another meaning in Hebrew and made sure not to repeat it until I checked with the teacher. Apparently it means the same thing here as it does in America, so I am still clueless as to the significance of "Igloo."

That's all for now, although it is important to note that this post was started about a week and a half ago so ignore the time frame I provided in the beginning. Also, I should say that I now have nine new mosquito bites on my legs from a different but equally evil mosquito who I expect to find and squeegie attack as soon as possible. I will post soon about my Sukkot holiday break.

Bye! Igloo!
Melanie

School interior. My classroom is upstairs to the right.

Partial view of my classroom before getting spruced up a bit.

Shana Tova!!

Happy new year everyone! May the year 5773 be filled with happiness, sweetness, and may it be like the head not the tail. (The head not the tail is a very common expression here, but to be honest I don't quite understand exactly what it means. All I know is that it has something to do with fish and that it means something good.)

For Rosh Hashana I had the wonderful opportunity to go to a host family for dinner with my friend Casey (another teaching fellow/one of my temporary roommates). The daughter of the family was in her early twenties and was high school friends with our madricha (counselor/guide). She came and picked us up from our apartment and walked us to her grandmother's house. We were welcomed with warm hugs, but only after an awkward elevator incident. We didn't realize the elevator would stop on every floor because of Shabbat and got yelled at by an orthodox man for pressing a button (oops!). After pressing the button we all stood in the cramped elevator for a few minutes only to realize that the elevator was not going to move at all, so we gave in and climbed the five flights of stairs. This is actually one of the things that puzzles me. Shabbat is all about being the day of rest and not doing any work, but in the end everyone goes out of their way to avoid work and ends up working more. I don't get it.

Anyway, the Rosh Hashana dinner was wonderful. It was different from the Rosh Hashana dinner I am used to though, as they bless each and every vegetable, meat, etc. present on the table. Each individual person (13 including Casey and myself) said each blessing which took a while. Thankfully I was just able to say "Amen" because it would have taken at least another hour if I had to say each blessing myself. After everything was blessed I was served chicken hearts without knowing what they were. A few people told me that they were delicious, but one of the cousins sitting across from me refused when her mom tried to give her one, so I was a bit scared. I decided to try it anyway, as I have been very "seize the moment" these days. It wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. It was just really tough and chewy but the flavor was okay. I only had one though and do not plan on having them again any time soon.

The majority of my dinner was actually just meat, couscous, and veggies. For dessert we had cookies with pomegranate and cactus. The cactus was surprisingly pretty good, but it had lots of seeds which were annoying to spit out. After dessert they brought out a variety of different nuts for snacking on. I found this to be very interesting because it seemed like some of them were eating more nuts than actual food. After talking to the others from my program, it seems that this habit of snacking on nuts after dinner was something unique to my host family.

My favorite part of the dinner was talking to everyone at the table. There was a twelve year old girl and a thirteen year old girl who were absolutely obsessed with us by the end of the night and were bummed when we declined their invitation to have a sleepover party. At the beginning of the night they barely spoke to us because they were shy, but once we mentioned something about Justin Bieber they started talking more. Their English wasn't perfect and they had to ask their cousin a few times to translate certain words. They were amazed that I knew the colors in Hebrew and loved asking questions about our lives. They have invited us back for Passover and I can't wait!

Happy New Year!
Melanie

September Seminar: Lake Kinneret

Two weekends ago Israel Pathways took us on a trip up north to Lake Kinneret (The Sea of Galilee) for our opening seminar. We were there with the Israel Teaching Fellows group from Be'er Sheva, the Zoom Israel group (a 5 month photography/graphic design program in Tel Aviv), and Israel Corps (a 5 month volunteer program in Kiriyat Shmona). We left straight from training in Holon on Thursday, but the drive up North ended up taking about four and a half hours because of traffic (lo tov). We ate dinner at the hotel and afterwards there was an Israel Pathways Opening Ceremony.

The next morning we woke up early for a short but scenic hike up Mount Arbel where we learned about the geography of Israel. After endless posing for pictures, we learned about the important role Lake Kinneret plays in politics, as it is the major source of fresh water for Israel. Basically if anything happens to Israel's control over Lake Kinneret they would be willing to go to war to get it back. After Mount Arbel, we went on a water hike through a river. While Jews are usually known for wandering through deserts, it was hilarious to see about 75 of us hiking through a river with water up past our knees. This was perhaps one of the highlights of my weekend, I felt so adventurous!

Following the water hike and lunch, we did the most natural thing possible...we went on a cruise! Well it wasn't so much a cruise as a daytime party boat on Lake Kinneret. Picture a bunch of 20-somethings dancing around ridiculously to a mix of upbeat Israeli and American music. It was a blast, and I had to pause for a moment as it took me by surprise how close I felt to all the people around me having known them for only two weeks. I honestly feel I have known some of them for years already, and I am so glad I chose to come to Israel.

After the hike, we made our way back to the hotel to clean up and prepare for Shabbat. We had a nice outdoor Shabbat service followed by dinner and staying up late with friends. The next day we were able to sleep in (Yay for the day of rest! Booo for my strange roommate who woke me up at 8:30!). In the afternoon we walked to a nearby kibbutz, called Degania. Degania is actually the first kibbutz ever in Israel and it was very interesting to hear about it's history from the grand-daughter of the founders. The purpose of going to the kibbutz, however, was to meet some Americans who moved to Israel to join the army. They are part of a program where young Americans come to Israel and live on the kibbutz so that they have a support system and family during their army service. We broke up into smaller groups to ask them questions about their decision to join the IDF. I enjoyed hearing their reasons for coming to Israel, what their roles were in the army, and how their family and friends from back home reacted. The ones I talked to said they have rough days here and there (one said his mom calls him once a week crying), but that they do not regret their decisions and love their lives in Israel in the army.

That evening after dinner we had a Havdalah service back at the hotel and made our way back to Netanya. It was a fun weekend but it felt nice to be back home. It is strange to think of my apartment here as home, especially considering the ceiling next door still hasn't been fixed, and I am still living out of a suitcase in a room with too many people. Basically the source of the water that caused the ceiling to fall is still unknown. With the holidays coming up it is impossible to say exactly when it will be fixed and habitable again. For now I am living in what is going to be my apartment my entire time in Israel, but I am living in it with the two girls who are supposed to live next door. My real roommate is temporarily living upstairs. It is strange to think we are roommates when we haven't even started living together. Oh well! My room has been dubbed the orphanage because the only way we fit is to have our three beds basically next to each other in a row. I love my temporary roommates but hope their room is done sometime soon.

I will try and post pictures of everything soon!
Yalla Bye,
Melanie

P.S. If you have any suggestions for a real title for my blog, feel free to comment on this post. I am leaning towards Melanya in Netanya, WTF ITF, or something to do with my chai (life) in Israel.

A terrifying moment in a beautiful place.

Hiking through the river, or in my case, walking on top of it.

View of the Kinneret from our hotel.

Training

Training started at Talpiot college in Holon (just south of Tel Aviv) last Sunday. It is a religious college so we have to dress conservatively on training days, which is a pain considering the heat. Also I am much too fidgety to wear a skirt on a bus ride for an hour and a half twice a day but I just keep telling myself that if the orthodox men who wear suits every day are able to survive that I should not be complaining. At training we started learning formal grammar (yay!) so that we aren't embarrassed when Israeli children know what the past progressive tense is and we don't. We also learned about different types of games and even created our own board games to help students with English. Mostly the lectures have either been about grammar none of us have ever learned (even as a linguistics major I am often clueless as to what they are talking about), or about making songs, games, chants, and other engaging activities for our students.

One of our training days involved a school observation. We went in groups of five or six to various schools in Netanya where we were all met with warm Israeli hospitality. The school I visited even had a sign welcoming us to their family, and the principal's daughter gave us a tour of the school! This was definitely my favorite day of training so far, as I learned more in a half hour there than at all of the other training days combined. It was very interesting to see the differences between the Israeli and American school systems. Besides the small differences (the students raise their pointer finger instead of raising their hand), there were some differences that were quite noticeable. In a fourth grade classroom two students broke out into a kicking fight in the middle of the lesson. In America both students would have been sent to the principal and their parents certainly would have been called. Instead the teacher simply moved one of them to her desk and went on with the lesson as if nothing had happened. I know that it is the Israeli way to just go on with life whenever things get tough, but it still took me by surprise.

Some highlights of the day came from talking to the Israeli children during their recess. The children were so happy to have us at the school and found us fascinating simply because we are Americans. They wanted to know everything about us--where we are from, what music we listen to, and how long is it going to take us to be able to speak to them in Hebrew. I can't wait to get my school assignment and meet the students I will be working with all year! None of the ones I met during observation could even come close to pronouncing my name though, so once I get my school assignment I might just say my name is Mel.

I have been a bit behind on my blog, and for that I apologize. Hopefully I will have time later today to write another post about my weekend seminar trip to the Sea of Galilee and update about everything else that has been going on here, but for now that's all!