December 2008 Archives

This cat wasn't just cute-- she was pristine. She had golden brown hair and long whiskers. She stood at quite an impressive height and even purred beautifully. Also, she was begging me for food (and may not have been female; I didn't check). I was feasting on a pita filled with shwarma in a little, hole-in-the-wall, food establishment near my youth hostel in Eilat. Some of my Year Course friends and I had decided to go down to Eilat to spend the few days between our volunteering trimester in Bat Yam and our learning trimester in Jerusalem. Eilat is Israel's premier tourist city and is basically one huge resort.

            Now, the fact that this cat was so pretty and yet was begging me for food is an interesting dichotomy. But that was not what interested me. What I found surprising was simply that the cat was pretty. If you've been to Israel, then you know that stray cats here are like Walmarts in the United States: They're everywhere and they're ugly. The story goes that when the British ruled Palestine they were bothered by an overabundance of rats. They solved this problem by bringing in tons of cats. Fast-forward to today and Israel has tons and tons of stray cats, as a result.

            Most of these cats are diseased, dirty and resemble the rats they were intended to chase away. Especially in the less-than-wealthy neighborhood of Bat Yam, where we had been living for three months, the cats were a pity to look at. But there I stood, in Eilat, with this gorgeous cat staring up at me.

            What I'm trying to get at is that Eilat is different than the rest of Israel, in more ways than just their stray cat population. Their beaches were cleaner. The people were friendlier. The air even smelt better.

            This fact about Eilat, that it was kind of just nicer than other cities in Israel, was the overarching theme of our trip. We all implicitly understood it in all of our activities. We understood it when we were being dragged at rapid pace on an inflatable tube behind a motorboat, screaming at the top of our lungs. We understood it when we took a paddleboat out onto the Red Sea and wondered at the hills of Jordan before watching the sun set over Egypt. We understood it when we went snorkeling and saw dozens of gorgeous species of fish in the unbelievable coral reef. We understood it when we got dressed up in our Sunday's best (Shabbat's best, here in Israel) to go out for a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant, just to treat ourselves. We understood it when we lied on the beach, getting a tan at the end of November.

            We really understood the majestic nature of Eilat and I think that pristine cat did too.

Though it seems like a year, ago, it's only been three weeks since I moved from Bat Yam to Jerusalem. On Year Course, our nine months are broken into three sections- Community Volunteering, Jerusalem Studies, and Israeli Experience. On November 23, my Community Volunteering section came to an end and I moved, along with my 200 peers in Section 2, to Jerusalem to begin the Studies part of the year. That Sunday was a fateful day, and though a lot has happened in the past three weeks that I could write about, it's been the change of semesters that centers most in my day-to-day life.

The 23^rd marked the day I stopped volunteering three times a week and going to Ulpan twice a week, and began going to school every day from 8:30 to 4:00. The 23^rd marked the day I moved out of the small, but cute Hadadi 3 apartment and into the posh Year Course apartments in the center of Jerusalem's Talpiyot. And, the 23^rd marked the day that I left the tzofim.

The tzofim are the Israeli scouts that live with Year Coursers in Bat Yam and Holon during the Community volunteering section. They are on their shanat sheirut after high school, taking a year off to volunteer before they join the army. These specific tzofim partner with Young Judea and help us get by while living in the very foreign Bat Yam and Holon.

In a twist of fate, I had three tzofim in my apartment instead of the average one. And it was amazing. My Israeli roommates fast became some of my best friends. They helped me communicate with the locals, they invited me back to their homes for Shabbat, they taught me Hebrew, they helped me with my Ulpan homework, they organized activities for the section, and they helped us all get used to living away from home. But, even without all the help they provided, they would have been the coolest people ever.

Though I'm enjoying Jerusalem a lot, and loving all of my classes (I'm in Hebrew, Jewish Prayer, History of Zionism, Introduction to the Jewish Bookshelf, Arab/Israeli Conflict, and of course Israeli Dancing) I can't help but miss all of the tzofim. Of course, they are only an hour away (it's funny how small Israel is sometimes) and I've already seen them twice in the three weeks since I moved, it is still so different living without them. In the past four months, making these connections with Israelis has been one of the things I am most excited about and thankful for.

So that's the reason that, even though I'm transitioning quite nicely into life here in Jerusalem, I often think back to that Sunday and the provided pizza lunch (alright!). The moment where my apartment had our group hug and final goodbye, the moment where Section 2 got on the bus, the moment where I broke down crying because I was leaving the place that, in the past three months, had become my home.

After three months of living in Bat Yam, adjusting to my new life of volunteering and living independently, the first three months of Year Course absolutely flew by. Before I even had a chance to take a breath, it was time for me to quickly pack up and head out to Holland, the second of my Olami excursions.

            Our trip began at the prime hour of 3:45 in the morning when we left the Young Judaean Youth Hostel for the airport. From there, after a restful flight, we landed in Holland. The theme of my Olami trips is Sephardic Judaism and Zionism, and we were in the Netherlands for a week of learning about the Sephardic community that emigrated there after the Spanish inquisition, as well as the country's secular and Ashkenazi Jewish history and just plain touring and fun. For the duration of the trip, we were based in Amsterdam, but traveled to different areas of the country during the day.

            After a week of touring, traveling, and fun, we brought in Shabbat with the Jewish community of Amsterdam. This was one of the coolest experiences of the entire trip, especially since we had spent the entire week learning about the Jews that used to live in Amsterdam, and used to have a thriving community in the beautiful synagogue we visited, we were fortunate enough to be able to spend Shabbat with the Jews that still are a part of the Dutch Jewish community, which may not be as large as it used to be, but is certainly an active community.

            We spent our Shabbat at the Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam, which was founded hundreds of years ago, and has been in use ever since. I have been to other old European synagogues, but none of the ones I have previously visited are still in use today. Getting to be a part of a lively Jewish community in modern-day Europe was remarkable, considering how much of the continent was unfortunately destroyed during World War 2. However, the shul in Amsterdam was absolutely beautiful and we got to hear Sephardic t'fillot (prayers) and learned about the traditions of the Dutch Jewish community. After Shabbat, we went to just hang out with the Jewish teens of the community, which was awesome. 

            Olami is just so cool, I am so glad I get to add traveling to my Gap Year experience. Also, it is not just your average Euro-trip when I get to tour a little bit and hang out, I am learning the roots of the Jewish people, and meeting Jewish communities all over Europe.