A Great Week!

I sit here In a laundromat doing my laundry, reflecting on the past week. Tuesday was fun. I was able to relax the whole day, and then we had an enrichment program at night. Everyone in the Master's program and in the internship program walked over to the Devorah Hotel on Rehov (street) Ben Yehuda. We heard Avraham Infeld, President of Israel Way/Oranim and former President of Hillel International, speak. He Is known as one of the leading Jewish educators in the world because of what he has done for Jewish history, Jewish identity, and young Jews. He spoke about his childhood and how his father declared, "Judaism is NOT a religion!". He spoke about how he was sent by his father to live in Israel at age 16. He said he discussed with a non religious Jew whether Judaism is a religion. he then mentioned that there are 5 legs of Judaism: memory, family, the Covenant, Israel, and the Hebrew language. Each explanation was fascinating and touched me (I heard this speech once before on Birthright 3 years ago). At this time in my life, I feel I possess memory of the Jewish people, my family identifying as Jewish, and living in Israel. I have previously had the Covenant when I gave back to my Jewish community in college when I worked for Hillel both as a student board member and an intern. But everything has been about Israel. I want to learn Hebrew to complete the table. Check out the website: http://5leggedtable.org/en

Wednesday was classes, HR Management and Staffing Organizations. I will be learning a lot in those classes. Thursday was awesome. We went to the Carmel area, somewhere I had never been before. First we went to Caesarea, the first place I had gone on Birthright. It rained and wasn't as nice as had been on Birthright. Nothing new to me. We got lunch at Daliyat al Carmel, a small Druze village. I learned that the Druze took beliefs from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They are a people that keep to themselves. One of the only ways to be a Druze is to be born into it; the don't accept converts. You can't convert. Lastly, we went on a hike in the woods near the area that had a big publicized fire last year. During the trip, I made some friends who are in Oranim's new Israel Teaching Fellows program. They're some really cool people. I talked with a girl named Julia for a long time and she invited me to a Halloween party her group was having on Saturday at a restaurant on where the program is stationed, in Ramla, a low class Arab and Israeli town about half an hour from where I live in Tel Aviv.

Friday was fun. I went to the beach with Mairin and Emma from the internship program. We relaxed for a bit. At night, the programs went to a local Reform synagogue for Kabbalat Shabbat (the beginning service of Shabbat).

On Saturday, I ran a couple errands then spent too much time working on my costume. I was Clark Kent in the midst of becoming Superman. Pretty cool, huh? Thanks to Shoshana for the brilliant idea and helping me put the costume together. She gets all the credit, rightfully. With a great costume, I took a cab to the Tel Aviv University train station, tool a train to Lod, then met Alex to take a Sherut (shared taxi) to Ramla. We drank, had fun, and met more people.

My new friend, Caroline, and I

On Sunday, I started Ulpan (Hebrew study). We learned for 3 hours. All I remember from Solomon Schechter is the alphabet, how to read and write, and a small select number of words. It'll take me a while to become fluent, but hopefully not too long. I then went to a job interview. I met this guy who wants me to work as an intern for him, selling a product he is developing. I can't tell you more than that for now. More to be updated about that later. Afterwards, I went to the Idan Raichel concert, a special presentation put on by MASA Israel, the organization which is giving me a generous grant for studying in my program. It was a pretty cool concert. Good music, but not typically of my taste. It was nice to get a taste of real Israeli music, though. I ran into both my friend, Patrick, from Birthright, and Miriam, from home. I didn't know that my childhood friend, Simon Lichter, is/was in Israel on a MASA program, too. What are the odds?! He was featured in a MASA promotional video during the concert. I got a chance to know more of my new Ramla friends, including Rachel, Zack, and Caroline.

The Idan Raichel concert, sponsored by MASA Israel

Last day in this long post. Today, was just classes. I decided to drop Marketing because I've taken enough classes and worked enough internships in marketing that it should be second-hand nature to me. I unfortunately probably wouldn't have learned anything new in that class. Instead, Alex and I will spend 4 hours in the middle of Mondays just hanging out and watching movies or something.

Anyway, I gotta go; my laundry's done and I'm going to sleep soon. I will begin posting shorter posts more frequently. Once a week is not good. L'hitraot!