My Life

Hey Everyone!

It has been an insane couple of days. I’ll leave off from where I left off the last post and warn you that this is a long one, so take a seat and get comfortable. Or just don’t read it. Take your pick.

Israeli soccer is not that tight. At all. The game was against Malta, which is a tiny island nation somewhere in the Mediterranean, and they are terrible at soccer. Therefore, no one came to see the game even though it was the first qualifying match. The stands were pretty much empty. Having said that, our group had a great time in the front row yelling various profanities at the referees and watching the Israelis win 3-1. There were a few really interesting things that I learned.

1) They don’t sell any alcohol at Israeli soccer games since the fans get too crazy
2) Israeli kids are downright rude, and Israelis don’t believe in standing in lines for anything. People push others around to get up or down the stairs, people shove to the front of the lines to order food, and people don’t wait in anything resembling a line in order to go to the bathrooms.
3) It’s really fun to join in on the Israeli culture and be rude.

Friday morning, we took a hike in the hills surrounding Jerusalem. It was mostly uneventful, but there were some pretty things to see. The most interesting thing for me was the large quantity of sabra plants, a cactus that grows (as far as I know) only in Israel. It is said that Sabra represents Israelis, because the outside is spiny and rough, but the inside is sweet. It’s shockingly accurate. Here's a picture I took.

When we got back from the hike, we had some time to prepare for Shabbat, and then we went to do Kaballat Shabbat services. The kibbutz group (30 kids and 2 staff members) went to this awesome terrace area in a neighborhood with a name that I don’t remember. We were looking directly at the southern wall of the old city and a large church. It was BEAUTIFUL. At one point, we began singing and dancing in a circle and a few random Israelis joined us. It was really exciting.

On Saturday morning, we woke up to go to services at various shuls in Jerusalem. I went to a small orthodox congregation called “Kol Rina” which is in a bomb shelter. I was shocked at how normal the members of the congregation felt it was. Having said that, after a while, the fact that we were in a bomb shelter didn’t even affect me. We davened with an Art Scroll siddur, and it was interesting for me to read through translations that are completely different than those that I am used to in the Sim Shalom. On the way back, a bunch of us had a very intense conversation about the role of women in Orthodox Judaism. It was war. I think I won.

That night, I went to Slichot services at a Carlebach style shul off of Ben Yehuda street. Services started at 11:30 pm, and it was PACKED. We got there on the earlier end so we had seats, but a large number of people weren’t so lucky. Turns out that punctuality pays off. The service was beautiful. There were two guitarists and a piano player and the harmonies that were being used were absolutely incredible. As much as I wanted to stay forever, I had to leave at 12:15 since school started today and I wanted to be at least semi well rested.

If you’ve read this far, nice job. I’m proud of you, but do something more useful with your time…

Last day…I swear.

Today was our first day of classes at the Hebrew U. Not that much happened that was exciting, but there were a few things.

1) I remember a very large percentage of my Hebrew. Tehiyah, thank you.

2) We went to a viewpoint at Mount Scopus to talk about some of the history of Jerusalem, and as we were there staring at the old city and talking about King David, we heard the Muslim call to prayer coming from speakers at various mosques. It was a pretty big reminder of the religious diversity within Israel.

3) School supplies in Israel are absurdly expensive.

Actually, I lied. One other SUPER cool thing. While we were on Mount Scopus, we saw a site that held graves from the time of the first temple. Our professor told us about an incredible archeological find that happened 20ish years ago. They discovered a silver locket that was 2,700 years old. This locket took them 6 months to open, but when they finally opened it, they found a piece of paper with the priestly blessings (as in what parents use on Friday nights to bless their kids). This is proof that this blessing is nearly 3,000 years old. Awesome.

That’s all for now. I’m going to stop procrastinating and do some work. See you later!

Becca