Pieces of advice I wish I had before leaving for EIE

It's almost impossible to believe that two years ago today that I left for the Holy Land. So in honor of the two year anniversary of me moving to Israel for four months, I have decided to make a list of pieces of advice I wish I had been given before leaving for EIE.

1. Do not feel obligated to be best friends with every single person on your trip. Find your group of people that you get along well with. No matter how close you are with someone on the trip, they will always be there for you as a support system. You're all family on EIE and family is always there for each other, but that does not mean in any way that you have to hang out and absolutely love everyone.

2. Stay on top of your schoolwork. No matter how tempting it is to just hang out with your friends or to take a trip up to the tel (with a madrich) take the short amount of time it takes to do the work and just get it over with. Your workload should not be overwhelming to the point where you feel like you have no free time.

3. Use your free time wisely. As much fun as it is to stay in and watch Netflix (which just came to Israel, I'm incredibly jealous) go for a walk around the kibbutz, do your homework on the basketball court or on the balcony, have a conversation with the people on the kibbutz or the nice people working in the markolit. There is so much to do on the kibbutz. Don't just sit inside and do work like you would at home.

4. Call your family every week. I know this seems kind of obvious, but you will occasionally feel like calling your family is a chore rather than something you want to do. That's because it is. You are thousands of miles away from your family on an amazing adventure and they want to hear from you how it's going rather than from your Facebook posts or blog. Sometimes it can be good to get an outside view on how to deal with certain things as well.

5. Journal or blog about your experiences. Yes, this seems like I'm giving you homework, but believe me when I say if you do not write about what you saw, when you saw it, how it made you feel, what you learned about it, you will forget it. You can take as many pictures as you want of where you are but writing about it really solidifies the experience. This is crucial for when you are in Poland. Unfortunately, I lost all my notes from the five day trip and I can just remember the sites we saw and not how I felt or what I learned from them. I don't remember the fun things we did during the days to lighten the mood and it's very upsetting to think about. Your journal entries don't need to be extensive. Maybe four or five sentences about your day. Just, please, try to remember to do it.

6. You don't need hundreds of pictures of everything you see. Pictures are nice to look back at but if you are spending your whole trip behind a camera you are not truly experiencing the incredible land of Israel. I am not saying you shouldn't take a lot of pictures because you most definitely should, but during significant tiyulim take less pictures of what you are learning about and experience the small moments you and your friends will have. Not only do you want to remember where you were but you want to remember who you were with and the silly/stupid jokes you guys made. It's the little moments when you're not learning about something from your JHist teacher that you will bond you to those around you.

7. Take notes on paper not on your computer. I was able to absorb so much more information from my Jewish History class when I switched from taking notes on my computer to taking notes in my notebook (which I still have with me at college). It makes studying for tests easier and it makes learning easier when you are not distracted by whatever is going on on Twitter or Facebook. As much as you think typing notes in class will make life easier, it really doesn't. If you REALLY need to type your notes, do it after writing them in your notebook. The 4000 years of Jewish History you learn about is honestly so interesting and is the whole reason you are in Israel on EIE right now. Don't take advantage of how truly amazing our history is by just scrolling through social media during class.

8. Speak Hebrew as often as you can. Practice what you learn! Even if its stupid little sentences like "may I use the bathroom?". Talk to your teachers in Hebrew. It doesn't necessarily have to be your Hebrew teacher, talk to any teacher in Hebrew. They all live there, they all know Hebrew. Practice makes perfect.

9. Cova v'mayim. For the love of Hashem, make your hat and water bottle your best friends. Your madrichim will nag you to no end about making sure you have them at all times on your tiyulim.

9. Thank your parents and everyone that helped get you to Israel. I know this is incredible cliche, but many people forget to do it. Your friends and family are the reason you are in Israel right now. Without their support this trip would not have happened. If anyone donated money, be sure to thank them as well!

NFTY-EIE is the most transformative four months of your life. You will create the most amazing memories in the next four months and hopefully those memories will stay with you for a lifetime. The friendships you make at Tzuba will be some of the strongest friendships you will ever have because the people on this trip with you will be your family by the end of these four months.

High Expectations Need to Go

            I left the North Shore because I hated just about everything. The girls I didn’t know glaring at me in the hallways, the way guys expected to be loved by everyone, the number of people believing that they were entitled to everything around them. But mostly the high expectations. I left feeling unappreciated, insignificant and like I was just another outlier for the school statistics for the test scores. I can be a good student if I tried the only problem is I don’t. I don’t see the benefits in staying up until three in the morning trying to finish all my homework for the next day. I don’t see how being involved in three clubs, two sports and getting on the honor roll every year can be beneficial. We as students are told to be well rounded, to get perfect scores on everything, join a sport and as many clubs as we can, but the only thing that does for us is puts us in the hospital for mental breakdowns from the overwhelming amount of work we are expected to do in one night. We are only teenagers. No, college will be nothing like this because we will have more freedom to do what we please. All these extra activities are so our college applications look good. Not because we want to. Yes, there are a few cases in which we do the clubs and activities because we enjoy them, but to be expected to get all A’s in every class, on every test is too much.

            We as students do not get a break. Going from event to event. The madness needs to stop. These ridiculously high expectations need to end. School should not be so stressful that mental breakdowns are a normal occurrence. School would be less dreadful with lower standards. Of course we would still hate the early and long hours. These are the exact reasons I do not care much for grades. They do not define who I am. The standards of Deerfield High School are nothing but nonsense to me. I refuse to push myself over the edge mentally to get a perfect score on anything because it’s not worth it. My mental health is more important to me than a grade. I am perfectly content with a B because I still did a great job. Sure an A would be nice but not if I spend hours crying over the stress of the assignment. 

A Few Interesting Things You Should Probably See

Thank you Michael Oren

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/21/opinion/oren-hamas-media-strategy/index.html?c=&page=1

Even Hamas thinks Hamas is wrong. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153371313967316

World support. 

https://graph.facebook.com/StandWithUs/photos/a.350931762688.151625.19459912688/10152252423072689/?type=1

Dear Hamas

Dear Hamas,

I hate you. Your ability to turn Jewish people against their own state is repulsive. The images you show of Palestinian women and children severly injured or murdered just as an attempt to get sympathy and corrupt the minds of people all over the world is disgusting. You make it seem like its not your fault these innocent human beings are targeted when in reality, you use them to protect the bomb and missiles meant for populated areas in Israel, yet we're the ones to blame for retaliation and for trying to protect the land we love. Have you ever warned the citizens of Gaza about a possible missle or bomb landing in their area? No. Have you ever let called YOUR citizens warning them to leave so they may protect themselves and their families? No. Have you ever taken in a wounded Israeli soldier to your hospitals to help him survive his injuries? No. Yet why is Israel getting all the heat for protecting its citizens? We warn Israeli's with a siren to give them time to get to a bomb shelter, we've called your people, the Palestinian Citizens of Gaza, warning them of future attacks near them and we have suggested they flee, we have taken in YOUR people, Hamas terrorists, into our hospitals to be under our care yet Israel is still the bad guy. Throughout Operation Protective edge, you have sent out tons of propoganda saying that your citizens are dying, showing videos and pictures, some of which aren't even from this year or from the middle east. You use clips from movies as a disgusting act to gain not only support but attention. I am sick and tired of people defending you, a terrorist organization that has been in power way too long, instead of Israel, a country dedicated to making inside its boreders the safest place for Jews who seek shelter from opression and anti-semitism.
Palestinians can complain all they want about you, but one thing people have to remember is that they elected you into power in 2006. It is not our fault you were given a position in government and the power to do whatever the hell you want with your people. None of this is Israel's fault. Its all on you.

Sincerely,
Not your biggest fan.

What to Bring Home....

My prompt this week for my blog is "What role, if any do you want Israel to play in your life when you go home?" Now that is a fully loaded question that take a lot of thinking. Truthfully, I still do not believe that I'm going home in two weeks and I refuse to think that I am ever leaving this unbelievable country. 

I would really like Israel to still be a huge part of my life when I get home. How I plan to make that is a totally different story. I hope to keep speaking as much Hebrew with my friends as much as I can in Hebrew class and to some of my Israeli friends who live on the North Shore. I'm hoping to also be elected onto my temple youth group board for the third year in a row and I wan't to bring over current events from Israel to our weekly meetings or plan programs based on those current events. I'm so interested in learning more about the peace process and what the outcome might be. I'm taking an International Relations course next year at school and I hope that I can contribute as much as possible because of my experience here.

66 Israeli Women That You Should Know: Ester Rada

Recently, Haaretz put out an article of 66 influential Israeli women that everyone should know. One of them in singer and actress Ester Rada, whose music has a different style but very appealing. Life Happens, is one of her newer songs and personally I think its a really good song. 

I really like the influence that she has on Israeli youth especially for Ethiopian children. She's someone to look up to. I find her such a beautiful human being inside and out with an incredible voice and her drive to make bring her to where she is now is amazing.

I have already downloaded Life Happens on to my phone and I look up to her for her determination and successful rise from where she was to where she is now.

Suffering is Not a Competition

Recently, I was on the phone with my friend Evan and believe it or not we had a pretty intelligent conversation that stuck with me and kept me thinking. We started talking about how it has become a competition to see what people have gone through more suffering. When people begin talking about how terrible their life is, another person has to jump in and add their terrible news and try to make their news seem even more terrible. 

The point of this whole "competition" is to be the center of attention. To prove that you're suffering more. But its not about who's gone through more hardships or who's been hurt worse, its about getting the most attention. It's something that I personally find disgusting and I'm definitely guilty of doing it. 

The real reason we got on this topic was because of the talk of religion. How the Jews have been persecuted so many time throughout history but the only persecution and mass murder of Jews that anyone ever remembers is the Holocaust. The numerous other terrible times for the Jews are always forgotten because they're not as recent. 
You can't rely on one piece information to back up your argument and the Holocaust should not be a reason for you to be the center of attention. 

(I know this was a little all over the place but I feel like I covered what I wanted to and that's all that matters.)