Since I haven't had the time to blog within the last week, I am here presenting yet another essay for you to read. Once again, I'll tell you that reading it will be interesting for you, but as it is long, I totally understand if you don't want to read the whole thing. I promise, I won't take it personally. I'll start off from where I left off.
Last Thursday when I woke up from my afternoon nap, I found out that a bomb scare had occured on base. The bomb squad had come after seeing a suspicious bag and done a thorough investigation. No one was allowed in or out of the building--because a bag of school books had been left around and was deemed suspicious. Security here is very tight, and Israelis view events like these as a joke. It was interesting to hear about it though, though a bit alarming to realize that something like that could happen right in our courtyard.
Last weekend was a closed weekend, meaning all of Nativ was on base for the entirety of Shabbat. I didn't realize just how incredible the weekend was going to be. On Friday morning, we went to a place called Neot Kedumim, which is a Biblical Land Reserve in Modiin (between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv). While we all expected to be going to a place to take a hike or something of that nature, we were in no way prepared for the activities that the morning would contain. We had some bonding time for the Kibbutz groups doing some activities that ancient people did.
We herded sheep and learned how to grab life by the horns.
We learned how to hunt like true hunters.
We made fresh pita over a fire (I only have pictures of the fire making crew unfortunately)
When we got back to base Friday afternoon, it was almost time for the beginning of Shabbat (as it begins at roughy 4:30 in the afternoon). We had Kabbalat Shabbat services with all of Nativ, and I must say that even with all of the years of Camp Ramah, Jewish School, Synagogue Involvement, BBYO, and other Jewish groups, I have experienced few services as moving and exciting as this one. There were over 100 people in a room together singing beautiful Shabbat melodies and welcoming in the Shabbat day. It was truly awe inspiring.
Shabbat was a very low key day. We had some seminars on the ideology of the Conservative movement and on the Torah portion of the week (for those of you who haven't read Vayera, it's a really epic (yet sort of gross) portion), then we did Havdallah and the beautiful Shabbat was over. I spent the majority of my day napping and spending time just talking with people. It was nice to have a low key day in the schedule.
On Sunday, legitimately nothing exciting happened until the end of the day. I was sitting in my room talking to my roommates when we hear someone outside yelling "bomb scare!" Naturally, we ran outside to the balcony to see what was going on. We got to the balcony and saw that the busy intersection that usually has the sounds of honking and cars running more loudly than any non-New-Yorker can imagine was silent. Police cars were blocking traffic, and sure enough, outside of the great synagogue (where I went for Kol Nidre) the bomb squad was doing some work. We heard three mini explosions of the detonator robot as it blew up the suspicious bag (we still don't know what was in it) and that was it. The most interesting part of this scare was that as soon as the police cars left, the cars started honking again, the noise continued, and life went on as though nothing had ever happened. A few friends and I went to check out the scene after the scare was over, and sure enough, everything was cleared out within the 5 minutes it took us to get down there. It was so bizarre.
Monday had a very cool treat for us, because MASA put on a concert for participants in their programs with Idan Raichel, a very well known Israeli artist. Right after school, we took the bus to a convention center, and after listening to a bunch of boring speakers talk about the importance of Israel (preaching to the choir), Idan came on and wowed the crowd. It was really fun to be at a concert, but also, since people were there from so many different programs, I got to see a lot of friends who are in Israel on other programs which was really nice. I haven't uploaded my pictures from the concert yet. Sorry.
Tuesday was an average school day, but Tuesday night was the Kibbutz group lip sync competition. Each room of the kibbutz group (4 girls rooms and 7 boys rooms) had to create a lip sync that represented their room. Rooms went all out with costumes, roses, food, and epic mashups. My room did a mashup of a few Avenue Q songs and had a jolly old time with it. The night as a whole was absolutely hysterical, as nothing is as entertaining as watching boys dancing to boy bands and 30 people doing cheesy choreography. After the contest, one of the staff members and I had a guitar jam session for a good hour or two. He played me some Israeli music and I showed him some of my stuff. It was really interesting to see the way that English language is used in Hebrew music, as all of the songs which he had printed out chords to used English chord names.
Wednesday was a great day as I had my two favorite classes with a two hour nap in between, but when I came back to base, sure enough, there was yet another bomb scare. I was on the phone when the scare happened, and when I told him that I'd call him back after finding out what was going on, he was legitimately shocked that Israeli society treated bomb scares so nonchalantly. I won't say that I'll ever be completely immune to them, but after having 3 in a week, I will say that bomb scares are neither scary nor exciting anymore. At least for now.
Today after school, A few friends and I stopped by at the end of the Jerusalem Race for the Cure. Because of school, we couldn't actually walk in it, but we did get to see the festivities at the end. We all got water bottles and we heard a few speakers talk about the importance of the Susan G Komen foundation and breast cancer awareness. It was really cool to see the huge amounts of people supporting the cause. The most exciting part, though, was the fact that the race ended in this park somewhere near the old city that we had never been to before, and we were able to use landmarks to find our way home in the quickest way possible.
Now It's the weekend, and I'm not sure if I'm going to wind up in Tel Aviv for Yitzchak Rabin's 15 year Memorial Ceremony or not, but I'm sure that I'll keep you posted on whatever I do.
Until than, thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
Becca
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