Hazmanah LeChatunah

Last week was my cousin Ben's wedding to his new wife, Dana. It was a huge wedding--over 450 people!--in a gorgeous wedding garden on a kibbutz. I love Israeli weddings. They're much more informal than American weddings, and people show up dressed in all kinds of things: jeans, sandals, outfits of pure white. Ben wore all white, and Dana had on a beautiful white dress. It was really special to be there, because five years ago, the last time I was in Israel, my mom and I went to his brother Shai's wedding. Shai now has two kids, and the oldest brother, Nir, also has two kids. The ceremony was beautiful, the food was delicious, and the dancing was awesome (even though I mostly danced with my dad...)

From Even Yehuda where my cousins live, my dad and I traveled to Jerusalem on an EXTREMELY slow bus that took almost three hours. We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel, a haven for black-hat religious Jews. The place was teeming with men with long, curly payis (sidecurls), women pushing strollers and dragging along six or seven (or more!) kids besides. My aunt Harriet was there as well, and my cousin Barry (who is VERY religious) and his family joined us for shabbat.

My dad and I walked around Ben Yehuda Street, a popular and trendy street in Jerusalem, and also made our way to the German Colony, which is where my friend Scott from the Ulpan is now living. He has a tiny studio apartment that's in a great location.

On shabbat, my dad and I walked from our hotel to the Kotel, and around the old city a bit. It was really far--we probably walked about 8 miles!

He flew home Saturday night, and now I'm back at the University preparing for my Hebrew midterm and spending lots of hours at the Battered Women's Shelter where I'm doing my internship. It's lonely now that he's gone, but I'm looking forward to my whole family coming for Passover, and I'm slowly getting adjusted to being on my own again.

Pictures to come...

Abba Ba!

My dad is here!!!

He got in on Tuesday, so I've been spending time with him in Haifa, Hadera, and this past weekend we went to Tiberias. I've been eating out with him, passing out in his bed at the guesthouse, walking back to the University from Horev (a far and uphill walk!) after dinner, etc.

We attempted to go to a concert (Ha Yehudim--The Jews) but it didn't work out so well because I forgot my ID at home and they didn't believe I was over 18! Even though my dad vouched for me (which was a little embarrassing). The venue was at Yagur though, so I got to show him around the kibbutz.

Tiberias was really interesting. It's one of the four holy cities in Israel (along with Hebron, Tzfat, and of course Jerusalem) and so there are LOTS of SUPER religious people all around, and synagogues on every corner! The city is on the banks of the Yam HaKineret, or Sea of Galilee. On Shabbat we wanted to go to synagogue, but everybody around us was so frum with their black hats and sidecurls, and we wanted something a bit less intense. Finally, we saw a man walking toward us dressed in white pants and a white shirt, with a simple white yarmulke on his head and no sidecurls. My dad asked him where HE went to synagogue, and he told us how to get to the Kabbalah Center.

So we went to services at the Kabbalah Center. It was, if nothing else, a really interesting experience. There was a lot of loud singing, banging on the tables, clapping, noise, and joy! That was the good part. There was also lots of hugging, which I enjoyed but made my dad uncomfortable. And there was a lot of mysticism, and people telling you about kabbalah and trying to reel you in. A lot of people are really into this, and it's done great things for them. There were families there, and young children (there were childrens books there on kabbalah, written by Madonna and translated from English into Hebrew and Russian).

Anyway, it was a fascinating experience, and I'm glad I went and tried it out. And also, the synagogue had a GORGEOUS view of the Kineret and the mountains on the other side!

Israeli Hospitality, or: Why Israel is the Best Country Ever

We do Shabbat dinner at home, and it's nice. We'll have my grandparents over, and maybe some family friends, and all of us sit down to a big, relaxing meal and enjoy being with one another. I did Shabbat dinner at Vassar, and it was also nice. Golan and I would cook all day and listen to obnoxious pop music, we'd have a wonderful service, and treat ourselves to my challah and Golan's pad thai. Something like that.

But let me tell you something. Every shabbat dinner I've ever been to has paled in comparison to the one I had last shabbat. There's a program here that one of our madrichim ("social activities coordinator"), Levi, runs. If you let him know by Tuesday of the same week that you'd like to be put with a family for shabbat, he arranges it. That's how it happened that Levi, Jim, Dave, Caroline, Mike and I all hopped on the last bus out of the university before shabbat (at 3:50 PM) and rode down to the Gurshone home.

So not only is this family willing to have six guests from the university over their house (with very little notice--Jim and I both signed up completely last minute), but they also have five children (four older boys and an adorable 8-year-old girl named Adi), three guests who have made aliyah after graduating from MIT, one set of said students' parents, and several other guests. We arrived at their home, talked for a bit, and walked to beit kinesset, which was about three minutes away. It was an Orthodox service where the women sat way up in the balcony, but Caroline and I managed to enjoy the beautiful kabbalat shabbat service anyway.

When we got back, all 20 of us were seated in their dining room and served:

• two types of soup
• cooked vegetables
• cous cous
• rice
• two types of challah
• wine
• beer
• scotch
• chicken
• turkey
• beef
• pad thai (sorry Golan...it's true!)
• meatballs
• a delicious pepper dish
• personal apple pies
• sherbert
• cake
• two kinds of brownies

Aside from all the delicious food at this humongous feast, the other major reason I so thoroughly enjoyed myself was because Adi, the 8-year-old daughter, sat on my lap or Michael's lap the entire time and quizzed us on Hebrew. If we got a word right, we not only got "nekudot" (points), but kisses on the cheek, too. How's that for motivation to learn a new language?!

The Gurshons were one of the nicest, most hospitable family I've ever met. Every other shabbat they open their home like this to complete strangers, and serve them enough food and love to last way beyond the next shabbat. None of us could stop grinning on the 45-minute walk home (no buses run that route on shabbat). We were all tugging at our suddenly-too-tight pants, too.

*

Today I started my volunteer position at the community center. Although most of us are tutoring Ethiopian children in English, my student isn't Ethiopian, because I believe the center and its services are open to anyone in the area. She's 13, very sweet, but very insecure about her English. We spent an hour just talking--about what she likes to do, her favorite foods, her classes at school (which don't exist so much right now, because the high school teachers are still on strike). It was difficult, because a lot of the time she got frustrated when she didn't have the exact words in English for the answer she wanted to give, and she'd just give up and answer "Nothing" or "Everything" to my questions; and a lot of my questions turned out to be yes-or-no questions in the end, even if I didn't intend them to be. It's also difficult because she didn't have a book, or homework, or any assignments, since the high schools have been on strike for so long. Next week I'll have to bring her a book, or some kind of game. Mom, the ESL teacher, do you have any ideas?

Struck Out

the Negev...the desert can be beautiful!

me, Danielle, and Anna having girl talk in teh Bedouin Tent

Sam, Danny, me (short!), and Mike hiking in the Negev--Mitzpe Ramon

view from the University

at the beach, in love with the fact that I can hop off the bus and walk to the ocean

And the strike continues. I'm getting antsy and anxious, worrying about when this semester will finally start and whether it will be prolonged or, worst case scenario, cancelled. The courses I'm not taking right now because of the strike are two courses that I need for my major requirements in order to graduate Vassar on time. I'm also restless because this has been the longest summer of my life. I finished my sophomore year in May, and its now almost November, and I still haven't exactly begun. On the other hand, I feel completely relaxed. I remember what its like to have three papers and three hundred pages of reading due in one week, and I'm thankful that I haven't been that stressed out in half a year. My Hebrew class, although challenging, only meets eight hours a week, and my Talmud class (which is so amazing!) meets for three hours a week. Aside from that, I haven't been very bored: I'd like to find a job (hopefully tutoring English), and I've already started two volunteer positions!

The first is with an Organization called Tzeva, which stands for Tzeirim Bonim Atid, or Youth Build the Future. It's an after school program for "underprivileged" children in grades 3 and 4. They are children who come from single-parent families, or poor families, or families of immigrants (mostly from Russia/former Sovient Union and Ethiopia). They're also kids who have social or academic difficulties. The way it will work is this: there is an hour of one-on-one tutoring and helping the chilren with their homework, and then an hour of structured social activity/play. Then there is a half-our staff discussion about the day and how things went. The way its working right now, though, is that we're spending the entire two hours with the kids just getting to know them through loosely structured activities.

I am the only person, volunteer or student, who is not a fluent speaker of Hebrew. Most of the kids know another language (either Russian or Ahmaric) fluently, because either they or their parents were born there. When I get embarrassed to speak because I make mistakes and am slower in my Hebrew, Lian, the head of the program, tells me the kids are all used to this because most of the people at home are not fluent Hebrew speakers. The program is EXCELLENT for my Hebrew. When Lian talks to us volunteers, she speaks in rapid-fire Hebrew, and doesn't slow down or baby me (because I'm the only one and everybody else understands perfectly). It's difficult in the beginning, and I may miss a point or two (or ten), but my ear gets adjusted and its really great for me to be exposed to the language like this. Like working in the gan yeladim (preschool) on the kibbutz, working here means that I have to communicate in Hebrew with the children, and I can't fall back on my English--because they don't know any!

The kids are all really sweet, but you can tell that they're not used to so much positive attention. They are thrilled not to be yelled at or beaten for two hours. At the very beginning of the program, on the first day we met the kids, one of the cleaning staff came into the room with her mop and started shouting in Russian, pointing her mop, finger, and big red face at this little boy. This is the way these kids are treated most of the time. Lian ran in and interfered, and setteld the situation more quietly.

During hafsakah, the ten-minute break in the middle of the program, we all went outside to play in the yard. There were all these kids hanging out there, on the other side of the fence, who had no place to go and nobody to take care of them after school. A lot of them were too old or too young for Tzevah, but they wanted to participate in our game of tag, and they tried to hop the fence. A guard ran down and chased them away, but its so sad to see these kids who are so neglected that they are trying to break into an afterschool program. And some of them are so young!

The school is in a really bad neighborhood in Haifa. Its okay arriving there, because its still light out, but leaving at the end of the program is dangerous and we leave together as a big group. Its so interesting (and sad) to be doing a program like this abroad, where the issues are the same as inner-city or poor areas in the States, but the causes and details are different. Russian and Ethiopian immigrants to Israel face many of the same problems as Hispanic immigrants living in city slums in New York, for example.

Today I also had an orientation for the other program we're doing. The tutoring (7th grade Ethiopians) will be in the immigration absorption center, so they showed us around today. Next week we'll be meeting with our kids!

*

This weekend I went with ROSA (a friend of the family's from when we lived in Israel in 1989) to a "Shir BeTzibur," which is roughly translated as a sing-along. It was in memorium of Yitzchak Rabin, who was prime minister of Israel and assassinated in 1995. It was all in Hebrew, of course, so I didn't understand a lot of it, but there were speeches and stories about Rabin interspersed with songs sung by informal choirs and individuals. They had a screen where they displayed the words of the songs, and the audience sang along. At the end, Moti Caspi, a famous Israeli singer, performed, so that was pretty cool.

There's No Water in the Desert

This weekend was our first tiyul (trip), and we traveled to the Negev, which is, of course, really hot and dry! We left at 6am yesterday (Friday), and stopped at this historic center where we learned about an ancient people who developed a trade route from East Asia to Damascus, and had all these really impressive ways of surviving for months in the desert with perfumes and spices and a caravan of thousands of camels! We saw some of the ruins of a few of the centers they had built on the secret route that only they knew of.

The bus then took us to Mitzpe Ramon, which is a gorgeous view of the Machtesh Ramon, a kind of huge crater in the middle of the desert that was caused not by impact, but by erosion. We went on a short (3-hour) hike through the machtesh, and then headed to a bedouin campsite for the night. We cooked our own dinner, had a campfire, roasted marshmallows, and went to bed because today we had to wake up early four our intense 8-hour hike through a huge section of the machtesh! It was a difficult hike because hiking in Israel is nothing like hiking in the American northeast, which is what I'm used to. Everything is desert and sand, there are no tall trees or shade, and you're under the boiling sun the entire time (even in October!). But we were prepared with four liters of water each, and we took lots of water breaks and made sure we were hydrated. We climbed up and down two mountains, plus did a lot of trekking on jeep trails and water pipe trails and other random trails all throughout the machtesh, and there were lots of incredible views of huge sections of the "crater."

I'm back at school now (and really tired!), and tomorrow I'm supposed to begin my two linguistics classes within the regular English department at the University, but there is some question as to whether or not classes will take place tomorrow because of a strike. In Israel, somebody is always striking. Last year it was the students, who didn't come to class because they didn't want tuition prices to be raised. Right now, high school teachers have been on strike for a good few weeks, so there are no high school classes, because teachers want a pay raise (and they are paid terribly--about 5,000 shekels/month, or a little over $1,000). And university professors may be striking for the same reason. So I'm not entirely sure when my classes will be starting.

I did start my Hebrew class though. I'm in class 6, which is the highest, and I think it's difficult--a lot more difficult than the kibbutz ulpan. But I'm sure I'll learn a lot, and my teacher is this fabulous woman who likes to talk to us (in Hebrew, of course) about her alternative lifestyle.

Lila tov!

Haifa is my city

Aviva, Jess, and Lauren enjoy delicious falafel in the Wadi


Gillian and I pose in front of a beautiful view of the city


the Bahai Gardens, the city, and the ocean


Today was the first day of class!

In the morning, we took a Hebrew placement exam which included:

• an essay on whether we are for or against military service in Israel
• multiple choice grammar
• fill in the blank grammar
• readings
• speaking
• lots more difficult grammar

I like using those bullets. The end of the test was really difficult, but I'll find out tonight where I placed. My first Hebrew class is tomorrow morning, and I'll have it every morning from Monday-Thursday for two hours. The International School doesn't have class on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, which is a big change from the Ulpan, where we only had one day off a week (Shabbat). But I'm taking two linguistics classes in the University's English department, which meet on Sunday. They don't start for another week, because regular University students start a bit later than the International School.

Today I had my Introduction to Rabbinic Literature class, where we'll be focusing on the Talmud. It seems like a great class--the teacher is very dynamic and interesting, and it's so cool to be reading these old texts that I know are an important foundation of Judaism as we know it. Even though today was only the first day of class, we really dove into the material. We started by studying a Midrash on Cain and Abel. The teacher gives us a translation of the material since not everybody knows Hebrew, but he also provides us with the original text, which is really neat. We looked at the Shema, and then read the opening portion of the Mishna that asks when we are supposed to say the Shema at night. We looked at one of Rashi's commentaries that was actually a copy of the actual manuscript that Rashi wrote! A lot of what we're doing reminds me of the work we used to do in Reuben Gittleman, when I went to a Jewish day school in elementary school. I'm remembering how much I loved discussing the Torah and its commentaries, even back then.

I went food shopping last night, and stocked up my kitchen a bit. It's funny, because there are SO many stray cats around the dorms, and every time I start to cook, they come to the door and meow really loudly! I know better than to feed them, but they are so adorable and pathetic at the same time. If you're not careful, they'll also hang around the door when you're coming in and out of the apartment, and they can dart in if you're not quick enough! I've already had a few stubborn cats in my living room until I managed to kick them out again.

Haifa is a city built on a hill, and since the University is at the very top of the mountain, there are gorgeous views from here. You can see the entire city and the ocean. It's really beautiful here, and I'm starting to feel more and more like Haifa is my city. When I first got to Israel, I really wanted to be in Jerusalem, which is a great city, but I'm learning how wonderful Haifa can be, too. There is a really nice park right across the street from the University dorms, and last night we had a big bonfire and a bbq.

One more thing: I've got a new address. I'd love some mail! Send it to:

Mariel Boyarsky
c/o International School
Haifa University
Haifa 31905
ISRAEL

I'm a University Student!

I'm here at Haifa University! After I got back from Greece, I visited the kibbutz for a night, and on Thursday, Anita and I took a cab to the University with my huge amount of luggage. My apartment is really nice, it has a big, spacious kitchen, which is actually really dirty because Israelis have been living there all summer. There's a fridge, sink, cabinets, and hot plate, but no oven! I'm going to have to try to score a toaster oven somewhere. My room is really nice, and I have my own bathroom! It's a better set-up than even senior housing at Vassar. None of my Israeli suitemates are here yet, because Israelis don't start class until Oct 20.

The people on my program seem really great. They're from all over the US and Canada, and I've met people from England, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, India...

Yesterday we took a tour of campus, which seems pretty straightforward, although I still don't know my way around very well. Yesterday evening was shabbat, and a few of us had a small, Orthodox-style service in the little beit-kinesset (synagogue) that's in the dorm. Afterward, we had a big shabbat dinner, which was nice, because I've been trying to cook for myself in my little apartment, with my awful cooking skills and limited appliances and food.

Today we took a tour of the Bahia Gardens in Haifa, which are really beautiful. The Bahai are a relatively new religion that took root in the late 19th century. They're a small religion, and very peaceful. Their world center is here in Haifa, and there are these gorgeous gardens there.

Then we went to the Wadi, the Arab section in Haifa. For lunch I had a laffa pita (big, thin pita) with zatar (a very good spice), and a taste of a falafel at the best falafel shop in Haifa. We stopped by the shuk to buy some produce for our empty kitchens.

Class starts on Monday! I think I'll be taking Hebrew, two linguistic courses, and Introduction to Rabbinic Literature.

Stay tuned for pictures in the near future...

How I Learned the Greek Alphabet

It figures, doesn't it, that I'd travel to Greece for ten days, and end up learning how to read Greek. In the touristy areas, like parts of Athens, signs for everything are written in Greek and transliterated into Hebrew. And that's how I learned the Greek alphabet.

I think the best part of the trip was Crete, which was beautiful, like most of Greece. The highlight was taking a really overpriced cab from our hotel to the Samarian Gorge, the longest gorge in Europe (16km). The drive over was stunning. Treacherously slim and wildly winding roads threading their way through the myriad of mountains on Greece's largest and southernmost island. The car spun around snakepath turns, climbed up and down hills, the gorgeous countryside spreading out and out and out from the windows, our eyes so happy. Green hills dotted with olive trees and goats, everything pristine and untouched all around us.

The gorge was even more breathtaking, if only because we were actually inside the beauty, instead of watching it from the window of a car. So many meters of sheer cliff and rock extending upward on either side of us, the mountains in the distance, toward the end a patch of blue that was the sea. Rocks--red, gray, black, white, and all kinds of shades in-between. A ravine running through the whole thing. Unlike hiking in Israel, not a piece of trash to be found anywhere.

In Santorini, a smaller island off the coast of Crete, a short hike led us to the Red Beach, where magnificent red sand spilled from the tall, red cliffs behind us, into the cold, glittery ocean at our feet. A longer, steeper, and hotter hike the next day lent itself to a gorgeous view of the island, a slumbering volcano and natural hot springs, the sea and sky such similar hues that it looked like one big blue blanket. At the very top, the ancient city of Thira, a pile of ruins thousands of years old.

Back on the mainland, we suffered the long, uncomfortable bus rides up north to Delphi and Meteora, where we were rewarded with more ancient ruins and views each more beautiful than the last. Delphi boasts the Temple of Apollo, among other things, and a view of mountains and lakes as far as the eye can see. Meteora has these weird, beautiful mountains that are skinny and flat on top, and reach up to the sky, poking through the dense fog. You can tour these centuries-old monasteries, but they're all really far apart and hard to get to without a car or bus.

Crete!

Hi from Crete!

Yesterday Tyler, Chen and I took a 6-hour boat ride from Piraeus (the port near Athens) to Hania, Crete. Crete is Greece's biggest island, way down south. You know how they say it's about the journey, not the destination? I've stopped feeling that--nowadays, we board a plane in one city, do our best to try to fall asleep in those narrow seats, and wake up in a completely different part of the world. But on this boat, you really feel like you're traveling from somewhere, to somewhere.

Athens

I hate paying for internet, so this isn't going to be long.

I'm in Greece!! I got in to Athens yesterday morning, and spent the day walking around the part of the city where my hostel is. I was pretty nervous before, because although I am traveling with two friends, one didn't get here until today, and the other one doesn't get here until tomorrow, so I was alone all day yesterday and last night. But everything went smoothly, the flight, finding my way to the hostel on the metro, wandering around Athens and seeing the Acropolis. I realized that I would be completely fine traveling on my own, even for an extended period of time. Still, it's nice to have Chen here with me now.

My hostel is in a great location, around the corner from the metro; around a different corner from the Acropolis; really close to the restaurant district and all the shops. There is a bar on the roof, and from there you can see the Acropolis. It's amazing to see those ruins and to think how old they are. And today Chen and I went to the National Archaeological Museum, which is huge, and we saw things like pottery and figurines from the 13th millenium BCE!!

Tomorrow our friend Tyler gets here, and at 4PM we're taking the 6-hour ferry to Crete.

It's wonderful to be on the move, to be traveling, away from the stagnant life on the kibbutz. Athens, at least the part where I am, is so touristy that sometimes it feels like there aren't any Greeks in the whole city, but I've met so many people from all over the world. Last night I talked to an older, very intelligent British man for half an hour.

Oh, and sometimes I don't like history very much, but standing under the Parthenon, it just sort of comes alive...

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur in Israel is nothing like Yom Kippur in New York. In the States, a Jewish holiday feels like a Jewish holiday within your home, or within your synagogue, or with your Jewish friends. You make the holiday a holiday--by lighting the candles, having a festive meal, praying. In Israel, the holidays are holidays everywhere. The festiveness, the chag-ness, seems like its in every particle of the world. I breathe the chag in and out, I am inside of it when I walk the streets.

All public transportation stops every shabbat and every chag here in Israel, but Yom Kippur is something special. There are no cars on any of the roads at all. It's silent. The children take advantage of this by taking their bikes and tricycles out in the middle of the streets. There are blocks filled with children playing in the otherwise-empty roads. Everybody is dressed in white--flowy white pants, white shirt, white skirt, white head scarf.

My cousin Sarah made us a meal around 4PM before the fast started. I think she might be the best cook in the entire country. At around 6, my cousin Yossi and I walked to a beit kinesset (synagogoue) a few blocks from the house. The closer we got to the beit kinesset, the more crowded the streets became. There are at least three or four synagogues within close walking distance to my cousins' house, and the one we went to was small, old, Orthodox. It was overflowing when we got there, and by the time we walked back home, it was more than overflowing. Men pray downstairs, and women pray in the upstairs balcony. Many people brought their own books, because there were far from enough for everybody. Children rode small bikes in the courtyard, played in the streets outside the synoguge, ran from Ima (Mom) upstairs to Abba (Dad) praying downstairs with the men in their tallitim. There were were the Dati'im, religious people, who usually attended the beit kinesset, and there were probably hundreds of chilonim, secular people, who don't attend on a regular basis, but made the walk over for Yom Kippur.

When Yossi and I left, the streets were packed for blocks. Night had fully descended on Even Yehuda, and people looked like bright white ghosts in their white clothes, shining against the darkness.

The next evening, after having fasted for a little more than 25 hours, we broke the fast on Sarah and Moti's deck, a cool wind rustling the cherry-colored tablecloth on which we sipped hot tea and devoured those first pieces of honey cake. As we ate, we heard the cry of the shofar from one of the synogogues nearby, signaling the end of the chag.

Pho-toes

the port in Akko


Akko


my cousin Noam


a tiny stray kitten that was following us around and that I fell in love with


me and Anita on our way to the pool


I went to the Kineret with my Kibbutz family and 400 other people from Yagur! My tattoo


Kineret...haircut...apple...


Cachal, my 11-year-old kibbutz sister


Gali, my four-year-old kibbutz sister



a group of us went to Akko one Shabbat; this is a nargilah (hookah) bar in Akko

Halvayah.

When you're in a foreign country, learning the language, words come up in every day life. It's really different from sitting in a high school classroom with posters of different countries on the wall and a pull-down map. There are words that come up that are fun to learn, like melafafone, which is a cool word, plus it means cucumber, so it's delicious, too. And then there are words that might be useful, but you might still wish you'd never been in the situation where you had to learn them--tipul shoresh (root canal), for example. Or halvayah--funeral.

Rosh Hashannah this year was strange and sad. I traveled to my cousins' house in Even Yehuda on Wednesday afternoon. In Israel, trains and buses don't run on Shabbat or on chagim (holidays), so I had to get in early before the chag started Wednesday evening. We had a delicious, if subdued, Rosh Hashannah dinner (my cousin Sarah might just be the best cook I know). On Thursday morning, we all--me, my cousin Noam who is my age and was visiting from the States, his dad Yossi, and Sarah and Moti all went to the hospital to visit my Uncle Chaim.

Uncle Chaim was 90 and adorable. When my mother was my age, she also traveled to Israel, and Uncle Chaim was her Israeli father. They had a really special connection, which they kept up through all the years. Each time our family was in Israel we visited with Uncle Chaim, and he visited us several times in the States, too. This past year he's been sick and in and out of the hospital, which was difficult for everybody, especially for his daughter Sarah and his son Yossi.

I had visited him in the hospital a few months ago right after my birthright trip. It was strange to see him in a hospital bed, but he was conscious and alert, speaking, and happy to be leaving the hospital that week--which he did. Before my sister left Israel to go home, we visited our cousins, and Uncle Chaim was able to join us for dinner. This was about a month ago.

But Thursday was awful. Every breath was labored and difficult. He wasn't speaking. Noam and I spent the entire day there.

On Friday morning, Yossi and Noam went to the hospital to visit Chaim. He must have passed away a short time before they walked into his room, because they were the ones to find him. My cousins said that soon after, they heard a shofar being blown in the hospital and felt like Chaim's soul was ascending to heaven along with the shriek of the shofar. Because it was still a chag, and Saturday was Shabbat, we had to wait until Sunday for the halvayah--funeral.

It was my first Israeli funeral. The cemetary was very crowded, since it had been a 3-day chag and lots of people had passed away, and needed to be buried on Sunday. Usually, you don't wait in Israel--as soon as the person passes away, you bury him. When it was finally our turn for the rabbi, we all piled into this room that was empty except for the body in the front and a few benches lined across in the middle. The body was wrapped in a white cloth, because you don't bury people in caskets in Israel. It was weird because I could see all the contours of Chaim's body: his limbs, the rise of his nose, dips and bumps. The rabbi told the men to stand in front of the benches and the women to stand behind them. I thought this was strange, because everybody at the funeral was extremely secular, especially my cousins, and so was Uncle Chaim in his life. Usually it's only in Orthodox Judaism that men and women are separated, but I guess this cemetary was for everybody. Also, sometimes in Israel, people are either completely secular about things, or rather religious. There's much less of an in-between than there is in America.

The rabbi said a few words, and then a friend of Sarah's read something that Sarah had written. The whole thing was in Hebrew and a little difficult for me to understand, but it was very poignant and sad all the same. Sarah and Yossi, Chaim's children, and their children, Chaim's grandchildren, all stood in the front with their arms around each other's shoulders. Then they wheeled the body, still in the cloth, to his plot, and we all followed. They placed the body in the hole, and then anybody who wanted to was invited to help fill in the whole with dirt. It was so strange and sad and a little horrible, to stand there and watch piles of dirt dumped onto his body. I cried.

And then we placed stones on the grave as a mark of respect, and drove back to my cousins' house where they are now sitting shiva (the 7-day period of mourning). I'm back on the kibbutz until the end of the week, when I'll travel to my family again for Yom Kippur.

Ulpan Yagur-Revised

Things are a little different here now:

1. Lazar and I are "yedidim," friends. This is very nice, because he is a really a wonderful person, and I hated the awkwardness of living two doors down from him and not speaking to him. When I came back from Jerusalem on Sunday, the day after my birthday he threw me a little surprise party in my room. It wasn't too much of a surprise, because Spencer texted me twice and called me once asking me where I was, and then Lillian called on Ori's phone asking where I was, and then when I was walking up to my room I saw people at the window on my hallway and I heard somebody shout, "Here she comes!" But anyway, it was a really sweet idea, and the first surprise party I've ever had, and it was fun because my room was decorated with happy birthday fingerpaintings and balloons with pictures of trees on them because people call me the tree-hugging hippie. And the theme of the party was Hippie Party, so people dressed as hippies and drew peace signs on their cheeks. But half an hour later Lazar cornered me in his room and asked me if we could get back together again, so that wasn't as fun, but I was firm and said no. So now things are better.
2. I traveled to Haifa last week to get a real haircut, because when I first cut off and opened my dreads, I had a girl on the ulpan do it and it turned out horribly. My hair is even shorter now, but at least it's styled. By the time I come home next year it will have grown out a good amount. I still kind of hate it, but I guess I hate it a little less every day. I guess.
3. The boy that I wrote when to the hospital for psychological issues actually tried to kill himself with a broken piece of razor. He's back home in Ohio now, enrolled in drug and alcohol rehab. He was really messed up on drugs and alcohol all the time, and one of the big problems on the ulpan, so in a sense things are a lot more peaceful and comfortable now that he's gone. Hopefully he'll get the help he needs back home. A friend of his who was messed up with him all the time got kicked out, and he's not longer here either.
4. A third person left the ulpan because everybody hated her. She was a jappy little princess from England, and a huge slut, and when it got out that she slept with her best friend's (and only friend's) boyfriend, she decided to leave. Everbody agrees that things are MUCH better with her gone.
5. I had a deliciously relaxed and fun birthday weekend, which I needed really badly after all the drama that was going on here on the ulpan. I traveled to Jerusalem with my friend Lucy, and we visited our friend Scott there. He cooked a scrumptious dinner for us Friday night, which included a cake. On Saturday, my birthday, we went to the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo which has every animal mentioned in the Bible, and then some. It had been a long time since I'd been to a zoo, and I'd forgotten how much fun it was to stand in front of the monkey cage for an hour and marvel at the resemblance between the gorilla and my friend Scott. But now I remember. But seriously, everybody who knows me knows how much I love playing with children and like a child, fingerpainting and hula hooping and pogosticking and jumproping and hopscotching and listening to Disney music. So it was special to be at the zoo on my 20th birthday. It made me a little less stressed out to be turning 20.

Those are most of the changes here. I'm still cleaning toilets, still finishing by 10AM most days, unless Ariella, whose sole purpose in life and job on this kibbutz is to follow me and Sarah around and tell us to knock spiderwebs off the walls, is on the prowl. Today she trod on my heels for half an hour saying things like, "Ehh, Mehhriel, pleeze empty the ass-tray," when I am about 3 feet from the ashtry and with every intention to empty it, or telling me to please clean other people's congealed cups of green two-month-old rotten milk.

Rosh Hashannah is next week! I still need to figure out what I"m doing, but I'm really excited to be in Israel for the High Holidays.

And one more piece of good news: my good friend Chen booked a flight to Greece, and he's coming with me!

Chayim Kashim

I know I don't have such a hard life, all things considered, and the following is not so much a testimony of my own difficult life. But of course, it is that as well.

I left for Israel glowing so golden with happiness and excitement that I forgot that I was leaving to live in a foreign country alone for a year. I forgot that this can be a difficult thing. As the second month of the Ulpan draws to a close, I've been living in Israel almost three months. Life here, like life everywhere, is made up of waves. Things seem rosy and wonderful for a certain amount of time, you are high on the newness of life. And then--and now--the wave crashes.

Living in a small space with the same 40 people for two months is challenging. We're all starting to get bored, testy, and claustrophobic. Some days I feel like there is only a small handful of people I don't hate here.

I guess the point of this post is to say that on Saturday, I broke up with Lazar. Saturday night I chopped off most of my dreadlocks, and at this point I much more closely resemble a middle-aged lesbian than the "Rasta princess" my friend Shlomo from birthright calls me. Let me tell you, it's rough going breaking up with someone you care a lot about and who loved you, seeing him around all day every day, all the while looking like the type of person who is liable to rip off her bra and burn it in front of the Chadar Ochel. It doesn't help that my birthday is coming up on Saturday, I'm turning 20, I'm miserable right now, and I have no plans.

Okay, I might be a spoiled brat. But it also doesn't help that the atmosphere here is so negative that an Ulpanist was brought to the hospital last night because of psychological issues. I am unable to disclose more information at this point, even though half the kibbutz probably knows all the details already. Word spreads like a fire in Greece here. I saw my kibbutz family today, and even though I hadn't spoken to them in a week and a half, they already knew about me and Lazar.

So sometimes life is hard. And sometimes life is less hard. Aren't I brilliant for figuring that one out?

Ma Chadash

This is going to be a quick update because my laptop charger is still broken and I'm trying to conserve power here.

Last Shabbat I stayed on the Kibbutz for the second time since I got here, but I think I'll be spending more shabbatot here because I'm quickly running out of money traveling so much. It was Lazar's birthday, so Friday night a big group of us went out to dinner, including his brother (16) who was visiting. Saturday, ROSA, a family friend from when I lived in Israel in 1989, invited me over for lunch. Nikki, who also lived on Kibbutz Chanaton with Rosa's family and my family in 1989, was also there. In the afternoon, Rosa took me to Daliyat Al Carmel, a Druze village, and to the market there. I ate some delicious Druze pita with lebanah (a yogurty spread).

Saturday night Lazar, his brother, and I traveled to Bat Yam (near Tel Aviv) to be with his family for his birthday, which was Sunday. I met his mother, who spent most of her childhood in Israel and speaks Hebrew fluently, and his father who speaks much less Hebrew but talked to me in Ladino (Spanish with heavy Hebrew influences) and French, and also his grandpa who only speaks Turkish.

Also--I booked a flight to Greece! I'll be in Greece (and possibly Italy and/or Turkey, because there are ferries) from October 1-10!!

Tmunot-Kibbutz Yagur!

the first picture I took on the Kibbutz--Ayelet from Brooklyn with her cleaning supplies, back when she had the cleaning job. I thought this was hilarious. Then it happened to me.Shoshanna from Californiaview of Haifa from the top floor of one of the buildings of the University


Ulpan Kibbutz Yagur!Lucy from Brooklyn. She's adorable.


Lazar shows his beautiful face for the first time!During Rayna's free shabbat. Rayna and her friend Gaby
our family friend Benny from Hadera
sisters


Ari Kohn (USA) with my "This is what a Feminist Looks Like" shirtSpencer from England. Lazar's roommate. We love him.
Adam from Canada
Mike (California) and Josh (Pennsylvania)


Chen (Canada). This kid is my best friend.At Beit Tfutzot Museum in Tel Aviv. Left to right: Danny (South Korea), Eilad (LA), Josh (Pennsylvania), Anita (Hungary), Adam (Canada)

me and Michelle (Vancouver, BC)
Hilomi (Japan) and Bar (Israel/Hong Kong/France/Canada...don't ask)


Lazar looking hip with my bag, and hugging a tree suspended off the groundChantal (Germany), Lazar (Turkey), Natalie (Germany)
Shoshanna (California) and Artur (France)
Smadar, the Ulpan Mother. We love her.
John from Chicago
me in the Grand Kanyon Mall
Jackie, Lazar's friend from Turkey who lives in Tel Aviv now, ponders his next Shesh Besh move.
Sam (London) and Lucy (Brooklyn, NY)
Ayelet (Brooklyn) and Mike (Cali)
this is where we ulpanists hang out every night. It's always a party with nargilah (hookah) and shesh-besh (backgammon)!


Lazar and me before going to Ultrasound, the biggest discotheque in Israel, located on Kibbutz Yagur

Meital, my soldier friend from birthright came to visit! Meital and JackieLaura, USA (she left the Ulpan but came back to visit), Chantal (Germany), Meital, Jackie


Lazar and Michelle (Switzerland) at Ultrasound

yours truly at UltrasoundLazar and me at Ultrasound

returning home from Ultrasound at 5AM
Lucy, Lara, Michelle
Meital loves to visit me, and she loves to dance!
me and Natalie (Germany)
Tyler's birthday at Ultrasound (South Carolina)
Eric (Canada) and Lilian (Beverly Hills) in mine and Lilian's room
my side of the room
the papyrus on the bulletin is from Egypt, the elephant thing is from a shuk in Jaffa, and the blue plaque is a berchat habayit (blessing for the home) that Meital made me
Eric sitting on Lilian's bed


More ulpanists hanging out and playing shesh beshI am a hippie tree hugger! Waiting for a sherut outside the Grand Kanyon Mall after seeing the Harry Potter movie
Chen tried to stuff Michelle into this garbage can that John bought for the purpose of making jungle juice.
but Lazar thinks it's a hat
I think it's an outfit
Lazar crashing on my bed