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.)

Music

Music has been a HUGE part of my life. A day without music is impossible for me. Every night I go to sleep listening to Panic! At The Disco or Paramore on repeat.

But ever since I was introduced to Israeli music, my love of just music in general has been totally changed. I am so thankful that I was able to go to Chalutzim at OSRUI (a seven week Hebrew immersion program that I highly recommend to anyone) and learn from my two very musical Hebrew teachers all about music. Our class names were even Israeli bands. Mine was Hatikvah 6 (shesh) and now one of my favorite songs is one of theirs called Kol Yom M'Hadash. Its truly a beautiful song about how every day is a new day. It always puts me in the best mood after listening to it because it brings back memories and has such a meaningful message.

Another song I REALLY love that has helped me get through so many tough times is called Yihye Tov (Things Will Get Better). It's a beautiful song by David Broza, probably the one of the most talented guitarists in the world. If you don't know any of his songs I strongly suggest looking him up because he's got a beautiful voice and even more beautiful words.

So to get to the point, music has a huge influence on my life, but now knowing these Hebrew songs my library and taste in music has been changed and improved because of this wonderful piece of Israeli culture.

If you ever want any good Hebrew songs I have plenty and I'm willing to share. :)

Why Minecraft is Better than the Peace Talks.

As you might know, recently there have been some serious peace talks about whether or not there should be a two state solution. One state being Palestine and the other, of course, being Israel. Well, those peace talks haven't been going so well. Not much has been done to improve the relationships between Israeli's and Palestinians.

Until now.

Uri Mishol has been working on a project called Games For Peace where he connects students from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other Arab countries over Minecraft, a game that in my opinion is well worth spending hours playing. (If you don't know what Minecraft is heres a link to the wiki page: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki )

The idea has been very successful in connecting teenagers to each other and getting them to talk to each other about kid stuff and nothing very political. 

It's truthfully a wonderful creation because you really must put into consideration that in around ten years, these kids and young adults could be running these countries and the peace agreements will be in their hands. Teaching them that their countries enemies are not every single Palestinian or Arab or Israeli can help the future relationships in the middle east. We may not reach peace today or tomorrow, but with this new generation it's all very possible to happen in the near future.

If you're interested in the article: http://www.timesofisrael.com/can-games-succeed-where-diplomacy-fails/

Who Loves Matzah?

After five days of eating practically only matzah and shachar (chocolate spread) I can definitely tell you that it is NOT me. 

Pesach is difficult enough as it is, not eating any chametz for eight days but not being able to eat chametz while on a five day hike from the Kinneret to the Mediterranean Sea is even worse. You are forced to get as creative as possible when making your meals. Every lunch we would have to make our own food which included corn, salami, rice, tuna, cucumbers, tomatoes, and bell peppers. It was nearly impossible to enjoy a meal until we figured out that we can cook things together and make some decent meals. I was still always left hungry at the end of lunch but proud that our group of high schoolers could make something that didn't taste disgusting. It was truly a struggle to not eat any bread.

The whole idea of keeping Pesach while on a difficult hike got me thinking, this is what Israelis do every year. They take time off after the army or from work or whatever and hike from sea to sea without eating any chametz. At home I will see people eating matzah during lunch at school with PB&J on it or a matzah pizza and I will see people that don't even know what matzah is or why its the tradition, but in Israel, just about everyone will be eating matzah at every meal. Its not only a tradition among the Jews but its part of the culture here. Restaurants change their menus, stores cover up anything chametz, every Jewish household and synagogue burns their chametz in a big fire. Its practically impossible to find bread during Pesach. You'd have to search in the Arab quarter or in the Christian quarter. And I'm pretty sure even there it's difficult as well. The culture in Israel is so Jewish that you'd have to put in a LOT of effort to not keep kosher or observe the holidays. It's the kind of place that a person who grew up in a fairly Jewish community filled with "Jews" (people that call themselves Jewish without observing any holiday or high holiday) can fall in love with and potentially see Israel as their future home.

I can see myself living here in the near future. Deerfield is Jewish, yes I will admit it, we have three synagogues in our small little town, but the culture there is not Jewish. We celebrate Halloween and other Pagan holidays and I don't find them appealing or necessary. Yes Halloween is fun but it has no meaning for me as opposed to Pesach where we are celebrating yitziat Mitzrayim or the exit from Egypt while remembering the hard times our people went through to finally be free in Israel, the very place I am in right now. That is what a holiday should feel like. You should feel a connection to it and to your ancestors that you are remembering while celebrating or mourning. 

That's what's truly important.

One Year Ago

It's crazy to think that this time last year I began my fundraising for my four month semester trip to Israel. One year ago I was told it was not possible to get to Israel. 365 days or so later I am sitting at Kfar Tavor in the Galil writing about last years struggle. After a year of being optimistic and working my butt off to get here, it finally happened. I made my dream come true. My longtime dream of coming to Israel has been fulfilled because of my determination and my ability to convince my mother that I could do it. Despite her doubts, she was more supportive than I have ever seen a single person ever be to help someone achieve their goal. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful woman in my life and I would not be here without her. Both on earth and in Israel.

Thank you Mommy. <3