So much has happened since I last posted around Purim, and many apologies for the lack of updates.  This has definitely been the busiest time of the year for me, and when I explain all that I’ve been up to, hopefully you’ll understand why.  I am going to try and hit on most of the highlights.

After Purim and the MASA BFL, I spent my last bittersweet week in Haifa.  We said our goodbyes to the Boston-Haifa Connection and Young Leadership Division that took such great care of us during our time in Haifa.  Here I am with Liel, who spent a couple of years living in St. Louis :)

We also experienced the beautiful Haifa Zoo, where they have a cage for squirrels (a rarity in Israel):

I said my goodbyes at the women’s shelter and at my school, Beit Sefer Chofit:

After packing up and putting half of my belongings into storage, I spent several days with some of my friends from OTZMA in Eilat, the southernmost city and THE Pesach destination spot in Israel:

Then I headed back up North to Kibbutz Hazorea outside of Yokneam, where I enjoyed the Pesach seder with my wonderful host family:

Then, I went back down to the center to Tel Aviv, to see MY PARENTS!!!  While my mom was here with the Focus Israel trip last February, this was the first time my dad had been back to Israel in 32 years, since he did his externship at Hadassah.  We called Tel Aviv our home base for the week, rented a car and SuCo and DCo did Sarah’s abbreviated Birthright experience!  On day 1, we got stuck in 3 hours of Pesach vacation traffic on the way up to Tzfat, drove to Qatsrin to see the Golan Heights winery and Olive Oil Factory, drove around the Kinneret, and enjoyed dinner at Caesaria before heading back to Tel Aviv.

Day 2 was spent in Jerusalem, up and down Ben Yehuda and Yaffo, the shuk, and the Old City.  That evening, we enjoyed the Haifa group at the English Speaking Theater Festival, where my aunt Lisa’s cousin Laurie performed.

After an exhausting first two days in the car, we decided to sleep in and Dad and I enjoyed a nice Kosher for Pesach breakfast at Cafe Hillel.  I think the highlight for the trip for him was all of the yummy Kosher for Pesach food, with lachmania, a delicious potato bread.

Then we drove back up north and spent the morning in Zichron Yaachov, followed by the biggest and most delicious homemade lunch with my host family at Kibbutz Hazorea.  It was so great to see my two families meet, and see how excited my dad was to play with Bar and Segev.  After lunch, we toured Haifa as the sun was setting and enjoyed coffee with my aunt Lisa’s cousins Laurie and Miles.

The next day my parents got to experience the beautiful new Yad Vashem.  After that, we enjoyed lunch on Emek Rafaim and drove around Bet Shemesh to the JNF American Independence Park where my dad and uncles donated a memorial grove to their parents, so we found the plaque!

After four action packed days of driving, we spent the last two days together out of the car and around the streets of Tel Aviv, enjoying walks up and down the beach and even meeting up with some of my OTZMA friends.

I had the best time with my ema and aba!!

Since their departure, I enjoyed the OTZMA Link to the Future seminar, where we talked about part 3 in Tel Aviv and life after OTZMA.  I finally moved into my new Tel Aviv apartment on King George two blocks from Dizengoff (GREAT location!!), and headed up to Kibbutz Shefayim, where I spent a week at the Jewish Agency’s Summer Shlichim Seminar to train Israeli counselors working at Jewish American summer camps.  I was there representing Camp Henry Horner as the Israel educator.  After Shefayim, I came back to Tel Aviv to observe the sirens for Yom HaZicharon (Memorial Day) and celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day).  Today, I am starting my first day of work at my new school in South Tel Aviv!  I can’t believe in one short month I will be on my way back to STL…

Here’s the lip dub video that was made one night at the MASA Building Future Leadership Conference I attended last week in Jerusalem!  The BFL is “an intensive, 5 day learning and skill-building seminar for exceptional participants of MASA Israel programs from around the world.” (MASA website) It was an action-packed week, and some of the highlights included meeting President Shimon Perez and Chairman and Founder of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Natan Sharansky.  I was placed in the Midwest group, where I got to spend time getting to know other MASA participants near me, mostly from the Chicago area.  I also chose to participate in the Educating for Change track, where we spent a morning at the Har Herzl Education Center learning about zionism and Jewish education.  It was a great opportunity to get to meet participants from other MASA programs and hear from a lot of really interesting speakers.

Here’s a worthwhile article about the importance of Jewish summer camps.  How does this relate to my Israel experience?  I work at JCYS’ Camp Henry Horner in Ingleside, IL and because of that, I have participated in the Avi Chai Foundation’s B’yachad Fellowship here in Israel, training North American Jewish camp staff members who are on MASA programs in Israel for the year.  I am not only CHH’s junior village unit head this summer, but also the iCenter Goodman Fellow, a new position of Israel Educator, where I will have two upcoming trainings: one here in Israel in April and one in June in Illinois.

And, if you know anyone interested in sending their child to Jewish camp, check out the CHH website: www.jcys.org/chh and the camp blog (with my staff bio!): camphenryhorner.blogspot.com

Chag Purim Sameach!! (Belatedly)

As Purim approaches, I wanted to share some pictures from my Israeli Purim experience.  Even though it’s just one day, Purim turns into a week-long holiday, so I spent the majority of the week in Rehovot with my OTZMA friends, where we:

• had a Hamentaschen-making girls’ night (called Ozne Haman in hebrew for Haman’s ear)
• enjoyed a leisurely day in Rehovot
• celebrated with our Israeli friends from our mifgash at Flora Bar in Rehovot
• wandered the Rehovot street fair, and
• spent a day in Tel Aviv at the MASSIVE block party

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday!

Getting back into the swing of things post-Birthright has been tough as expected, but lucky for me, OTZMA keeps our schedules interesting.  The first weekend of March, OTZMA joined the Avi Chai Foundation’s Achva group of Israeli shlichim returning for their second summer at Jewish camps in the states for a mifgash, or meeting.  This is a mifgash I would have been at regardless of OTZMA, because this was also a seminar for my B’yachad group.  I have to confess I am glad I had the option to join my OTZMA peers instead, after experiencing some serious FOMO (fear of missing out) when they had a Negev Tiyul during my Birthright trip.

 The OTZMAnikim were paired with a group of Israelis returning to JCC camps this summer.   We were 19 strong on our end, and excited to add 15 new Israeli peers to the mix.  The first struggle was learning 15 new names, which we managed surprisingly quickly.  The second struggle was overcoming the language barrier, as these Israelis haven’t used this much English consistently since their stints last summer in America.  We spent the majority of the first day playing drama games of sorts, to balance the getting to know you comfort of the group along with the extra English practice.  We also had a great opportunity to have serious discussions within the groups.

 On our first night together, we split up into four smaller groups, where we were asked to discuss the age-old question, “What does being Jewish mean to me?”  This is something I have discussed more times than I can count in both formal and informal settings since my arrival to Israel in August.  Most recently, this was a discussion I facilitated with my Birthrighters.  During their discussion, they, like most diaspora Jews, focused almost solely on the religious aspects of Judaism with very little hesitation.   They talked about observing the Sabbath and the holidays, belief in G-d, etc.  As a devil’s advocate, I pointed out how different the discussion would be with Israeli peers.  Lucky for me, I now had a formal opportunity to have this same discussion with my Israeli peers.  Not to my surprise, the majority of the Israelis in my group would describe themselves as “hilonit” or non-religious/secular Jews, and identify with the cultural aspects of Judaism, rather than the religion.  This is something that I would have been shocked to hear back in August, but is a viewpoint I have grown accustomed to throughout my year here. 

 I have gotten to the point where before I can answer the question, “What does being Jewish mean to me?” I first have to ask the question, “What is Judaism?”  Is it a religion, a culture, a race…? I have spoken to many Israelis who without second thought would respond: a culture.  And the majority of the American Jews I know would respond: a religion.  Then, I have to wonder about the bloodline of these people who identify as Jewish, and the many who believe Judaism to be associated with a race.  If this is the case, where does that leave me, as the daughter of a convert?

 In the informal conversations I have had on this topic with my new Israeli friends, I have found myself a little more passive and hesitant to contribute my feelings as a diaspora Jew, mostly because this is something I am struggling with on a daily basis in my Jewish journey.  The highlight of this facilitated conversation in which I found myself a participant was the opportunity to hear the reactions from these Israelis when I tried to explain how I don’t think I really know any secular Jews in America.  One of my fellow OTZMAnikim told me he identifies as secular, but I pointed out how he also can lead an entire Kaballat Shabbat service, something I as a conservative Jew do not think I can do.  In Israel, it is so easy to be a secular Jew, because in this country, if you are not Arab, you are quick to identify with the Jews.  The Bible is taught in public schools here in the way we are taught history in the states.  Everyone speaks the language of the Torah.  The whole country is on holiday for Pesach and Sukkot and Purim.  In a Christian country like America, how can one identify as a non-religious Jew, if they don’t have the cultural surroundings to immerse themselves in the other aspects of Judaism?

 Since my arrival in Israel, I have begun to identify more with my cultural Judaism.  I have only attended synagogue a handful of times, but have celebrated every holiday and feel more connected with my Judaism than ever.  While I don’t enjoy a Shabbat dinner every Friday, it is impossible not to observe the Shabbos in a country where everything shuts down with the sunset this one day a week.  I have begun to think about how this addition on my Jewish journey will affect me when I return home.  In America, I connect with my religious Judaism by going to shul.  How can I connect with my cultural Judaism in America after this year in Israel?  It definitely won’t be as easy as it is here, but is something I plan to be more conscious of and want to incorporate into my life.

 Overall, the mifgash was a great weekend that I really enjoyed.  We got surprisingly close with our new Israeli friends and even spent last week in Rehovot celebrating Purim with many of them!  One of my new friends, Shani, is from Yokneam, the sister city of St. Louis, and I am going to meet up with her there tonight :)

The other major highlight of the mifgash: SNOW IN JERUSALEM!! (pictures to follow)

“I hope to see Israel through the eyes of those that are seeing it for the first time.”

This was the sentence I wrote fresh off of the bus ride to Caesaria, on the first day of our trip, when prompted what my expectations were for the next 10 days.  I without hesitation scribbled these 18 words on a scrap of notebook paper, and stuffed it into our empty wine bottle we had all just toasted from.  This is also the sentence one of my participants read aloud upon opening my damp piece of paper on our last night of the trip.  I am proud to say that my experience staffing this Israel Outdoors trip exceeded this expectation.

My journey to have the amazing opportunity to staff a Birthright trip wasn’t the easiest, as I was initially deemed ineligible to staff a trip for participants age 22-26 because of my tender age.  However, after my interview, the trip provider found me to be “mature,” and placed me with the February 12-22 trip.  I was a little more than intimidated when I received the roster, finding the majority of my participants to be on the higher range of the age spectrum.  I resolved to avoid the age conversation when prompted, and instead draw attention to the fact that I am currently living in Israel.

Nervous is also the emotion I felt as I first met our guide, Shabat, medic/security guard, Camila, and eight soldiers while waiting for my co-staff, Ari, and our 39 participants in Greeters’ Hall.   Of course once they arrived, I immediately snapped into responsible-mode, searching for one of our missing participants.  Once all 39 Americans were accounted for, stuffed their belongings under the bus and attempted to find enough seats on the bus, we were off.

I’ll share with you a brief outline of our week plus itinerary:

Day 1: Caesarea, Carmel National Forest hike, Kibbutz Manara

Day 2: Tzfat, Hike, Tiberias Hot Springs, Israeli peers’ activity

Day 3: Tel Dan, Golan Heights, Olive Press, Winery, Jerusalem, “Israel the Soundtrack”

Day 4: Yad Vashem, Mt. Herzl, Ben Yehuda, Seminar with Neil Lazarus

Day 5: Old City of Jerusalem, Mahane Yehuda, Shabbat

Day 6: Walking tour of Supreme Court, Knesset, Israel Museum, B’nai Mitzvot

Day 7: Masada, Dead Sea, Sde Boker, Bedouin Tent

Day 8: Camel trekking, Big Crater hike, Organic farm, Night out in Tel Aviv

Day 9: Rabin Square, Independence Hall, Shuk HaCarmel, Jaffa, Wrap Up

Day 10: Airport  L

Now for the mushy reflective stuff:

Listing the itinerary above doesn’t do the trip justice, because the programming our fabulous guide, Shabat, spearheaded along with the spontaneities of our eclectic group is what made this trip meaningful…We said the shechechiyanu on Mt. Scopus when we first arrived in Jerusalem…Five of my female participants were B’nai Mitzvahed for the first time…On our night in the Negev, we trekked without lights into the open desert, meditated while looking at the stars, and shared our reflections with one another..There was more singing and dancing in the aisles on our party bus than sleeping…We threw an impromptu Purim party on our last night together.. The list goes on and on.  I’ve been to almost all of the places listed in our itinerary, but being surrounded by my participants made it all feel new and exciting.

Somewhere in between this ridiculous schedule, I got to see the magic of Birthright unfold and watch this group of strangers become a family.  Before, I thought the magic behind Birthright was in the historic itinerary, but the magic is really in the ability to share this experience with peers and create a family out of a group of strangers.

I think it goes even further than just this, because I have participated in many organized peer trips or programs, where a family of sorts is formed in a short amount of time.  There is something about the combination of the traveling, shared uncertainty of a new place, interest in learning, and struggling to redefine our Jewish identities (or maybe just the fact that it’s a free trip!) that makes the bond of a Birthright “family” unique.  A group of people from all corners of the country and varying backgrounds and upbringings grow close, just from identifying as “Jewish,” be it culturally, religiously or biologically.  Now they will struggle to incorporate this experience into their “real world” lives (as I know I did), with this special support system beside them.

I want to share with you two conversations I had on the trip that really stood out for me.  The first was minutes into the bus ride from the airport to Caesaria.  I was sitting next to Brett, who pointed to the wall separating Israel Proper from the West Bank, and just started asking me questions about the conflict.  Fresh off OTZMA’s “Hope and Conflict” Seminar, I was excited to see someone so interested in something I knew nothing about when I was a participant.  The second conversation was on the third day after our guide had explained the Gilad Shalit story and the trade of the 1,000+ terrorists for his return.  Lena turned to me and just couldn’t understand why Israel would trade so many terrorists for just one soldier.  We had a nice long conversation about the IDF, which turned into a conversation about making aaliyah and my personal Israel experience.  Other than organizing room assignments and constantly counting to 38(!), these were both moments that really separated this opportunity from any of my other Israel experiences, because for once, I had some of the answers.  I couldn’t have been more excited to share all of the knowledge and experiences that I have gained in the short time since my arrival in August. 

Even though I am still in Israel, which I thought was the drive behind my passion for Judaism, something in me feels forever missing now that the trip has concluded.  A piece of me left with my Americans on that El Al flight last week, and my Israel experience has been indefinitely changed.  It excites me to know that this “trip of a lifetime” will lead many of them to further explore their Jewish identities and become ambassadors for (and maybe someday residents of) Israel, keeping the people they began this new chapter with close to them.

I am so lucky to have had this opportunity to staff, because I think I took the relationship aspect of my trip as a participant for granted.  I credit Taglit for an amazing trip (and even better pictures) with my best friend from high school and the newfound friendship with my older sister two years ago.  Because of these two (very important!) people, I didn’t make as much of an effort to cultivate and continue friendships with our fellow participants.

Now, I feel I have truly experienced all of the magic this opportunity has to offer, with new friends all over the world.  Maybe it is the progress of the digital age and social networking, but I still feel completely connected to my co-staff, participants and soldiers, through pictures, wall posts and texts.  Only time will tell if this continues, but I know the next trip I staff has a high standard to live up to.

PS- They were all SHOCKED when they found out I am just 22 J

A week after dropping my participants back off at Ben Gurion Airport, I am sitting in my room in Haifa attempting to find a way to share my recent Birthright experience with all of you.  The easy way out would be just through pictures—I do love the old Camp Kamaji song, “If A Picture Paints A Thousand Words…”—and my participants took more than enough.  However, while I struggle to recap this experience with words, I thought it would be nice to first revisit the speech I gave at “Birthright Shabbat,” just last May at BSKI, my synagogue in St. Louis.

It is so nice to be back in St. Louis to talk to you all about my experience with Birthright Israel.

Because of my mother’s volunteer participation at BSKI and in the St. Louis Jewish community, I too have always been involved.  I grew up here at BSKI, was Bat Mitzvahed on this Bimah, helped teach kindergarten at Shaare Shalom, and like my older sister, Rachel, got involved in the JCRC Student-to-Student program when I was in high school.  For those of you who are not familiar, Student-to-Student is a program where Jewish teenagers in the area give presentations at St. Louis schools that lack a Jewish presence. The presentations covers a variety of topics, ranging from Hebrew, to the rules of Kashrut , to Shabbat.  One part of the presentation that I never had much to contribute to was the part where we talked about Israel.  I remember saying something like, “I have never been, but I want to eventually.”  I remember the other members of my group who had been to Israel would talk about how connected they felt and how they wanted to go back.  I really didn’t understand how they could feel so connected to someplace halfway across the world.

Once I was in college and eligible, I didn’t even hesitate to apply for a Birthright trip.  My sister happened to be applying at the same time, and decided she would try to join the trip with me for ages 18-22, even though she was 25.  We were never close because of our age difference, and I didn’t really want her to go with me.  I pictured my older sister complaining about all of the 20-year-olds and how she had nothing in common with them.  However, that was not the case, and there were even other sets of siblings in our group.

Honestly, looking back on those 10 days in Israel, it’s almost a blur.  It was the most fast-paced and exhilarating trip, but I wasn’t the least bit anxious.  I just took it all in and lived in the moment.  Luckily, my group members took a million pictures, so I can look back on the highlight reel of our trip, where we experienced a New Years Eve impromptu sing along at the Bedouin Tent and subsequent morning camel ride in the desert.  We learned Israeli dancing on a Kibbutz, swam in the Dead Sea, and drank a lot of chocolate milk in bags.  I was moved to tears at Yad Vashem and at the Kotel. 

I think what is special about my Birthright story is the impact it had on me once I returned.  The immediate effect was the newfound friendship with my sister.  We started texting and calling more, and talking about how and when we were going to go back.  We both knew that it wouldn’t be our last time.  Rachel started getting involved more in the Jewish community in Chicago, and I bored my friends at Indiana to tears with story after story about my trip. 

As a second semester junior, many of my friends were beginning their own worldly adventures, studying abroad for the spring.  I think it was around that time that I got an email from MASA Israel.  I researched on the website, and decided that after I graduated, I wanted to participate on a program that led me back to Israel for an extended period of time.  I am currently in the process of applying to a 10-month service trip through MASA Israel called OTZMA, and I couldn’t be more excited.  I can honestly say that without my Birthright experience I would never even consider spending a year in Israel.  Though I can’t really explain it, I now feel connected to a country halfway across the world.

My sister is going back to Israel this June and July to study at the Pardes Institute.  Her Birthright experience has also led to a career change for her, where she just accepted the position of Director of Engagement at the University of Chicago Hillel.  I know that she will agree when I say that Birthright has hugely impacted our lives and we encourage everyone who has the opportunity to go on a trip to Israel to take it.

As fate would have it, I am now a participant on OTZMA, my sister did study at Pardes, loves her new job at Hillel, and even staffed an Israel Outdoors trip in December, where I was lucky enough to meet up with her and her group.  And of course, my sentiments about the impact Birthright has had on both of our lives is still the same.

Next up: The real deal, with my experience staffing an Israel Outdoors trip