Firsts and lasts

I write a sentence, and delete it, write and delete. How can one sum up these 10 days of emotional roller coaster? How can I convey all that I experienced, everything that I tried to teach and everything that I learned myself during this Birthright trip?!

Firsts and lasts
Suddenly everything seems so far away. Meeting everybody at JFK for the first time, giving you the count-off numbers, forgetting my coat on the plane  (btw, it is now located in the Alitalia warehouse in Rome. Probably forever..), first and last pictures with LeoLion, the icebreakers..

I heard that one of the parents was saying that I have bad grammar after the first blog post. (You know who you are!) So I will do a short introduction.

My name is Yaron Fishelson and I was born and raised in Israel. I Work at Hillel at Stanford University and this was the first Birthright trip that I staffed.

Going to your home country with 40 bright students and trying to explain all there is to know about it in 10 days is an impossible mission. But if there is something that we, Israelis, have been taught in the IDF is that “Hard parts there are only in bread, and you eat them as well” (A Hebrew army saying – don’t feel bad if you don’t understand). Or in other words, you don’t give up in the face of a challenge, but face it!

I remember Walking with you from the Bedouin camp, passing the sleeping camels on our left, towards the nothingness of the desert. I remember being a bit concerned that you won’t be able to take it seriously. That you will be cynical about it or think it is a childish game. 
We slowly walked away from the last traces of light and humanity. Except from the occasional sound of someone bumping into a random bush, everything was utterly silent. 

They say that sometimes you have to take a step back, away from the constant white noise and day-to-day distractions, in order to think clearly. That sometimes only when you’re furthest away from home you can see things straight. This is exactly how it was for me: During my first 10 months in the army, all our training occurred in the desert. During these times, I had mainly negative feelings towards the desert. As young soldiers, we weren't treated very politely (to say the least) and all my fear of the unknown and loneliness was portrayed in this deserted place. Only a few years later, when I got to go back as a traveler and as a veteran soldier on reserves, did I really get to appreciate its vastness and spiritual powers.
A few years later, I found myself walking the same desert with a group of students not that much older than when I experienced the desert for the first time. We walked in the same terrain where our Hebrew forefathers walked while looking for a place to become people and that was also the perfect place to do some mid-trip meditation.
The only scenery was the black silhouette of the mountains in the distance and the endless shiny stars above us. The only sound was the frosty wind gently patting my face and making a whooshing sound in my ears. 

I left Israel to work as an Israel fellow at Stanford 4 months ago but only on this 8th night back home, did I feel like I've finally got back. Only then did I understand how much I've missed this country.
I have no idea what you guys were thinking about, but this was the first time since we've landed when I saw each and every one of you totally there. Being in the moment. No jokes, no Wi-Fi hunting and no camel searching. Just us sharing an inexplicable feeling..

So what have we been up to? We went south and said goodbye to the 8 amazing Israelis who became a part of our new family.
We went to the desert and rode camels, we played gladiators at the coliseum, reconquered Masada and had a discussion about life in an ancient tomb.
We rubbed mud all over ourselves and floated in the Dead Sea. We drove to Tel Aviv (the best city in the universe) and experienced the nightlife of the flea market in Jaffa. Some of us spent a night at a hospital with pinky issues.
We bought Halva and other gifts in the Carmel Market and walked through Historical Tel Aviv.
We Took a stroll in the old Jaffa port through ancient alleys and ate warm Sahleb  on a cool Telavivian night.
We packed our bags and drove back to Ben-Gurion airport on our bus for the last time.

(Photo montage break)

How do you say goodbye to people that you just learned to love?
Last Camel remark, Last Jerusalem Gold joke. Too many hugs and kisses, too little time to say everythinh that is on your mind and do a proper goodbye.
Everything feels so abrupt – So quick.

I hope you guys will take with you the lessons of the desert: 
New experiences and personal reflections can be meaningful even if we are not spiritual people.
Looking for meaning while strolling in an uncertain path is something that applies to us all. No matter where we come from or how old we are.  
The next adventure is always out there, lurking behind the next turn..

Firsts and lasts.. We've been through so much in such a short amount of time.  
I hope that, like me, this trip was a wonderful eye opening experience that you will cherish forever.

Thank you for everything - I've learned so much from you guys!


Yaron Fishelson
The Jewish agency emissary (Israel fellow) at Hillel at Stanford University. 

From Holocaust to Revival by Jen Pereles of Purdue university (Days 5 and 6)

12/23/2013 - Day 6

Today we left the Jerusalem Gold and headed to the kibbutz however on our way we made a few stops. First we went to Yvel the jewelry store and school. I never thought that I would find a jewelry store inspirational but this one changed that. The founder ,Isaac, is originally from Argentina so is an immigrant himself and started an amazing opportunity for the Ethiopian Jews that have started moving/ fleeing to Israel. The school teaches them how to made jewelry from being a gold smith to setting the stones and as their “final project” they started their very one line called Magemeria and at the store 100% of the proceeds from selling those pieces go back to the school. Not only do the students receive this education but they also get a monthly allowance to help pay for housing, food, etc. so that they don’t have to look for another job and can focus on their schooling that also involves learning Hebrew as well as personal finances. After they graduate they are encouraged to find jobs elsewhere but if they don’t they have the comfort of knowing that they will be given a job at Yvel. It was so amazing to hear about this man who started a company and almost left Israel but saw the opportunity to change people’s lives and do mitzvah and decided to stay. While walking around we saw some incredible pieces! The most awe inspiring piece that I was a necklace that had pearls the size of small gold balls and then on the front was a broach, of sorts. The broach was made of a giant emerald embedded in a bed of diamonds. I cannot even begin to explain how shocking this necklace was! I asked a woman who worked there how much it was just out of curiosity, the necklace in total (since both pieces were priced separately) was $1.7 million! That was one expensive necklace. 

After Yvel we went to an ancient Hellenic city where we saw an ancient olive press as well as a tomb. As I was looking out over the hill I would see huge piles of rock and tried to picture how the view would have looked two thousand years ago, the houses all made of stone with the neighboring businesses nearby, maybe a river flowing through the town providing water to all of the plants and agriculture. While in the tomb we had an interesting conversation about the thought of forced religion and what happened and if it is still happening today. After the tomb we went a little forward in time to the Roman era and went to see an Amphitheater . It was so beautiful and then incredibly sad to think about how this beautiful ruin used to be a place where people were entertained by the death of either other people or animals and we were all posing for pictures, it was definitely something to think about. 

After the ruins we arrived at the kibbutz where we got our rooms, had dinner, then after dinner we had an activity lead by the soldiers. For the activity we were all split up into four groups that we went to different stations with. First I went and made Turkish coffee with Yaron and it was super strong that the soldiers all said they practically lived off of. Next we went to the uniform station, the group was split again into two teams that went against each other in a competition of who could get dressed in the IDF uniform first and most correct (for the record my team won). Next was the mud station, we went outside where Chiam, one of the soldiers, taught us about camouflage and we then proceeded to paint our faces with mud, it was actually a lot of fun. The last station was a quiz station where we were asked different questions on Israeli history and the IDF and it was really fun to see how much all of us knew. They did an amazing job!

12/22/2013 - Day 5

  Today was a day that will stay with most of us for a very long time, personally I don’t think I will ever be able to forget the things I saw. We woke up and had a normal breakfast at the hotel and then we started off the day quickly. We drove to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. For me this was my first Holocaust Museum that I had visited so I didn’t really know what to expect except for what I had heard from friends talking about their experience. We started off the museum visit by having a Holocaust survivor come and speak to us and a few other birthright groups. The man was incredible, he spoke with ease as he recalled the horrific beginnings of his life, I was amazed how much he remembered! The man was 11 when he started going through the early stages of the Holocaust such as going to the ghettos and he remembered it all so clearly, then again I’m sure he couldn’t forget this even if he wanted to. The most amazing and touching thing that he said was the he is not a religious man but he thanks God for how lucky he was. Some of the things he said truly made you stop and think of how lucky of a man he was, on two separate occasions he was one of two people to survive a mass killing based on little things such as height the first time. After the speaker we started to make our way to the museum.

              

The first thing you notice when you enter is the amount of light in the halls, it’s a triangular building and the rooms go off on the side in a weaving motion and you go through the center aisle that is flooded with light as you go from room to room, I think this is so you can always have a glimmer of light between so much of the darkness. Some things that most stuck out to me were a couple of videos. In one I saw a comparison I have never seen before, a woman talks about her experience and how she carried her sister when she could no longer walk so she wouldn’t be trampled or left behind and, when they were liberated and in the hospital, how much her sister screamed her name the night before she died then they showed the surviving sisters picture that was taken when she was in a camp. It was insane to see the juxtaposition between this beautiful healthy woman and a human being that I could not even tell was a woman. The second video that really stood out to me was a woman who was an artist and this video was reading a letter. The letter was a written will that she sent to her friend, the will was saying how she knew that they were coming for her soon and if she died she wanted all of her paintings and art to be donated to the museums that would be created because of these horrific times, she said if she did survive it would be for her daughter who she also wanted to be remembered for her beautiful art. The unfinished grave at the end was daunting. There was a stone pit with water on the bottom and as you looked in you could see the cone of all the pictures above you finally being put to rest in the respectful way they deserved but never received. 

Once we left the museum we went to the children’s memorial still on the grounds. You walk into a black room surrounded by candles behind a glass door as the names of the children are being continuously read off. Before we went in we were asked to remember one name that is how their memory and lives live on, through the people who remember him. I remember Shoshana Stein, age 6, from Germany. When we left we were told that there were only five candles in the memorial that used mirrors to make it look like there was one for each of the 1.2 million children that died. After the museum we had a box lunch on the grounds and headed to Ammunition Hill where we held a memorial ceremony. The soldiers as well as a few of the members of our trip held a ceremony that will stay with me forever. The soldiers told personal stories about some of the horrors or hardships they had seen and then the stories, as well as the tears, started. There was a story told about an American man who joined the IDF and, to save his men, jumped on a grenade that had been thrown into the room where they were, the man died but save his men in an amazing last act of valor. We also heard about a mother who had her oldest son die in the IDF then had to lose another son twelve years later and we heard a heart wrenching poem that she had written to the first son that she had lost. A song was sung that written by a sister as a last good bye she never had a chance to say to her brother. The ceremony was intense, beautiful, and impossible to forget as we all tried to imagine what it would like to have a child and know in eighteen years they would have to serve in the army and face the same things we were hearing about.

We then had a night out in Jerusalem that helped us all unwind and relax. I personally went to an AMAZING steak restaurant with Phil, one of the chaperons, where it was definitely nice to go out and have a normal dinner. Afterwards I walked around the town a bit, in a group as always, and even saw a friend that I had met a few years ago at a leadership camp that studied in Tel Aviv and my boyfriend saw a man that had recognized his high school sweatshirt because he went there and we even had a mutual family friend. Running into those people was a huge reminder of how close the Jewish community really is, everywhere you go there seems to be someone you know or you have a mutual acquaintance. I finished the night in a bar with a few members of the group and we all had an amazing time and it was a great way to end our visit to the amazingly beautiful and stunning city of Jerusalem.

Nuts for nuts - by Arbel Kodesh Alumni

Today we woke up early and met our Israeli friends. They were introduced and brought into the room as if it was some game show that we won. Or lost… Just kidding – we won.

After we were given our new friends, we took them to the Western Wall and showed them what it was all about. 5,000 years ago, that’s where it all happened. We were assigned to walk around and find an assigned partner a 10 Sheckel gift. That’s when we bumped into a guy selling nuts. Here were some of his finest quotes:

“Are you nuts for nuts?”

“We love south Korea!” (To a random Asian lady)

“Finest nuts in Israel!”

“Are you laughing at me? You should be ashamed.”

Later in the evening we returned to the Kotel for some old-fashioned praying. We met a Rabbi named Simcha, who explained that the Western Wall is the gate to heaven. He said this is where all the prayers from the world go and it’s the best place to be to be closest to God:

“Normally I wouldn’t do this but I drank a little too much so I’m going to talk to you guys. (To Shauli) Are you in charge? Is it Okay if I take over? I’m going to just take over.”

At night we returned to the hotel and everyone exchanged gifts. It was a great time and everyone enjoyed their gift and bonded… Except for Arbel… He got no gift…

Yaron?

Arbel Kodesh
Stanford University

Yaron's response - Geeeeee, I was sick.. I will buy you a gift in Tel Aviv, OK? 

Breathe in the beauty in Tzfat - written by Debra Linfield of Stanford university

12/19/13

Today we visited the northern city of Tzfat. My friend, who attended Stanford’s Birthright trip last June, said to me before this trip, “Make sure you breathe in the beauty in Tzfat.” Tzfat is the center of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism.

We had a fun-filled day in Tzfat, starting with Tzfat Candles, which had everything ranging from havdalah candles to a cute wax turtle that my friend bought.

Afterwards, we went to the Ari Synagogue, which is a homey synagogue initially built in the mid-16^th century and rebuilt in 1837. There is a bullet hole on the side of the bimah. During the War of Independence, a bullet was shot into the synagogue and missed everyone because it was at the exact moment the congregation was bowing, and the bullet lodged into the side of the bimah. No one was hurt. It is stories like this one that illuminate the beauty and miraculous nature of the city.

We visited the Kabbalah Art Gallery, which had incredible paintings inspired by Kabbalistic ideas. Many of the paintings incorporated the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life, according to Kabbalah, is representative of the soul. The soul is eternal and we must embrace both body and soul, making ourselves comfortable with the eternity.

It was really amazing to go around the city during lunch. We had lunch at a Yemenite place that asked if we wanted our sandwiches with “American spicey or Yemenite spicey”. Additionally, we explored 16^th century caves that contained a mikveh, a ritual bathtub. It is very inspirational to think that customs today have been present throughout many generations.

After getting a taste of Tzfat, we headed (in a lot of traffic) to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, we were blindfolded as we got off the bus, and taken to a viewpoint that overlooks the Old City. I can’t even describe the warm feeling I felt in my heart when I opened my eyes and saw all of the Old City.

I can’t wait for the rest of the trip and to explore Jerusalem!    

Debra Leinfield

Stanford University