No, we're not on taglit!

Before I start this blog post I have to apologize for my lack of posts in the last month.  Life has been insane and  I've been trying to take advantage of every moment I have here in Israel, which means blogging has been on the back burner.  Really, I'm just apologizing to myself and my mom because I'm pretty sure no one else reads this.  Anyway, I'm just going to briefly talk about all of the AMAZING things I've done in the past month :)

After I got back from spring break we had 3 national holidays.
1. Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Rememberance Day)  I attended a ceremony at my school and heard the siren sound from all over Jerusalem.  It was a beautiful ceremony with musical performances put on my students from the International school that I attend.
2. Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Fallen Soldiers Rememberance Day)  Once again I heard the siren sound twice on this day.  The first time I was at an intersection in East Jerusalem and I barely saw any cars stop because many of drivers in that part of Jerusalem are Arabs.  The next morning I went to Mount Herzl where Theodore Herzl is buried and I attended a ceremony there.  It was the tightest security I've ever been through in my entire life.  I was questioned about what I'm doing in Israel, why I came to the ceremony, if I had weapons, etc.  After that we had our hands swiped to see if a bomb could be detected on them and then we continued through to the usual security where you walk through and put your bag through the machine.  I'm used to the last part when I go to school, malls, or bus stations all over Israel.  The Prime Minister and the Chief Sephardic Rabbi were at the ceremony as well.
3.  Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day)  This started at sundown after Yom Hazikaron and the entire atmosphere in the city of Jerusalem completely changed from solemn to happy and joyous.  I went to a huge party that my school threw for the students right next to the Old City.  The next day I went to a BBQ in a huge park with thousands of other Israelis to celebrate Independence Day.  It was really neat to think about the fact that Yom Hazikaron is remembering the soldiers who fought and died to make our country what it is today and the next day we celebrate the fact that we are independent because of these soldiers.

At the end of the week after Yom Haatzmaut, I hosted a Musical Shabbat service in my apartment for my internship at Hebrew Union College.  It was such a wonderful experience to share Shabbat with all of my friends.  My roommates helped me tremendously to pull it off, and it couldn't have gone any better.

The next morning I woke up and climbed Masada (a huge mountain in the Negev where King Herod built a palace) with my boss that was visiting from the JCC back in Indianapolis.  We rented a car and I was able to direct us there without a map!!! We climbed up the snake path and made it up eventually after taking quite a few breaks.  After we were finished there we went to the Dead Sea and we floated for a while and on our way back to Jerusalem, we stopped to take a quick ride on a camel!

The next week I went to a folk music festival on the Sea of Galilee for 2 days and it was a blast.  I camped out with friends, listened to a lot of music and went swimming!  It was a fun and relaxing weekend!  At the end of the festival, I went to meet my new co-music specialist for camp this summer at her Kibbutz.  It was so neat to see where she lives and learn about the Kibbutz and her family.  I'm really excited to work with her this summer!!

This week has been another great week on top of it all!  The IU birthright trip has been here for ten days so I was able to see some of my good friends that are on the trip for about four days and celebrate Shabbat with them as well.  It was so great to see some of my close friends seeing Israel for the first time and getting to experience it with them.

Well, that's it for now.  Hopefully I will post one more time before I leave this beautiful, amazing country that I get to call home for only a few more weeks!

Pizza and Pasta and Wine, OH MY!

This spring break vacation was definitely a whirlwind- 6 cities  in 11 days. How we saw all of the sites, made all of our trains and planes,and made it back to Israel with our passports and all of our belongings is still a mystery to me! The trip began in Athens, Greece for the first day and a half. The second we got off the airplane we saw how friendly everyone was, and were even surprised when we were greeted by a smiling lady at the tourist desk that told us how to get to our hostel, all the sites, and more without getting fed up with all of our questions, like many Israelis do. After we got a routine down in Athens, we pretty  
much followed it in each of the following cities: 

1.go directly to hostel 

2. Get a map of the city in English 

3. Set a goal of which places we wanted to see each day 

4. Eat/ drink coffee. 

This routine worked like a charm and got us through the following 10 days with no anxiety. Being in Athens, Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, and Prague was very different from Israel. We discussed several times a day about how few people we were seeing wearing kippot (head coverings) and how strange it was since such a large part of the population in Israel wears them. One of the coolest parts of the trip was that in 5 of the 6 cities there were  
Jewish quarters and synagogues and we visited several of them in  
addition to all the other sites (including churches and seeing the Pope speak!) that we saw. It was very neat to see Jewish communities functioning in these European cities. Even though they seemed so different from Israeli Jewish communities and American Jewish communities, we came to find we're more alike than we thought. I spent the first night of Passover in Venice and attended a Seder in Hebrew. We sang the tunes I sing every year at home and if I had closed my eyes at any point in the Seder and hadn't known where I was, I wouldve figured I was in Israel. It's amazing that I was far from Israel on this trip and everything was somehow able to connect back to it. 

Throughout the entire trip, we would find ourseleves in situations where people around us would be standing around and not taking initiative while waiting in lines,taking pictures, etc. Daily, we would joke that people needed to be more Israeli (like us) and be more pushy to get what they wanted, or  
they weren't going to get anywhere. Now I know I talk about Israelis as if they are awful people, but they are wonderful people with huge hearts, they just have a not so soft outside. When we arrived at the airport in Prague for our flight back to Israel, we immediately heard Hebrew being spoken and were instantaneously happy, despite our exhaustion. Of course it was mass chaos and the check in counter for our flight wasn't open yet, so we all stood in a huge group complaining together. Eventally the counter number came up on the screen and everyone bolted and pushed in true Israeli fashion into lines (not quite lines but more clumps). Although I had a great spring break trip, I am so unbelievably happy to be back home in Jerusalem. I saw some of the most beautiful sites and architecture that took my  
breath away, but nothing compares to my Jerusalem of gold.

Being productive in my 4 hour class...

The past few weeks have been a complete and total blur.  Time seems to be passing by so quickly and yesterday seems like years ago.  Now more than ever I am trying to take advantage of every opportunity I am given because I am almost halfway through the semester already.

So during the week after I last wrote, we celebrated Purim.  On the first night, we went to Tel Aviv to celebrate and then returned to Jerusalem on Thursday to continue our celebration.  It was such a neat experience to celebrate this holiday in the Holy land.  Everyone was dressed up around the streets of Jerusalem starting on Tuesday and lasted the rest of the week.  I learned about the story of Purim and why it is celebrated at different times depending on whether or not it is being celebrated in a city with or without walls.  It was so interesting to learn about Purim in so many different contexts - with my Reform internship and with several Orthodox teachers.  I've always known the story of Purim, but it's amazing how many different details I learned about the holiday in one week from all of these different teachers.  It truly is a reflection of my semester here and everything I'm learning.  I feel like a sponge, trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can about Judaism, conflicts in Israel, and just learning how I want to live my life.

Throughout the rest of last week, I did a lot of touristy things.  On Thursday, I went to an Ice Festival which took place in the old train station in Jerusalem. It was the first ever Ice Festival to take place in Jerusalem.  Everything inside the building was made out of ice and the temperature was very low in order to keep the ice from melting.  It was so neat to see all of the different ice sculptures, ice slide, and ice bar.  Below is a picture of a merry-go-round made out of ice.

On Friday I went with my school on a field trip to the Dead Sea.  We were supposed to go on a hike at Ein Gedi in the morning, but there was a flood warning so we weren't able to go.  We ended up going on a short stroll through a nature reserve, which did not even compare to the hike we were supposed to do at Ein Gedi. It was still a good field trip though, because we were able to float in the Dead Sea. Below are a few pictures from my trip to the Dead Sea.

On Saturday morning I went to a Shabbat service at HUC where I am doing my internship.  It was really good to attend my first Reform service in Jerusalem - it was a breath of fresh air.  I was called up to the Torah for an Aliyah during the service which was a really nice opportunity and it gave me chills to think that I might be back here in a year and a half leading services as a Cantorial student.  

For the next week I am focusing on midterms and then in only ten days I will be on my way to Europe for 11 days!!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Well I jinxed myself in my last post when I said that the weather was supposed to be beautiful in Eilat.  It turned out to be very cloudy and a little bit rainy, but don't worry because the sun came out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky on Sunday morning right as we were boarding our bus to head home to Jerusalem.  Of course we still managed to have plenty of fun and I was able to swim in the Red Sea!

The rest of last week was rainy every single day, all day long.  It was quite frustrating skyping with friends back in Bloomington and hearing about the beautiful 60 degree weather.  Don't worry though, because it snowed on Friday morning and it was the most beautiful sight to see!  In all honesty, the rain is not the worst part, but the wind is awful and whether you have an umbrella or not, you end up getting soaked.  This week was the first week that I sort of wished I could have been at home.  At orientation for Israel last semester, we were told that a month or two in we would begin the phase of "Culture Shock".  At this point, all of the excitement from the first month has worn off and you begin to miss things from home that aren't available to you.  Well, I'm going through this phase right now and I want Mexican food more than anything and this weather is not helping!  Don't worry though, I have Purim this week and I'll be getting my Mexican fix in Tel Aviv on Thursday (since there's no real Mexican food in Jerusalem).

For Shabbat last week, I went with my roommate to her Aunt's house for dinner.  It was a very nice dinner with 4 other girls our age from a seminary.  We had very interesting conversations about Shabbat, Purim, and Judaism in general and I left dinner feeling very stimulated.  When we returned to the Kfar, we went to a friend's apartment with about 20 other people and once again played guitar and sang for hours.  On  Saturday, I went with some friends to the Israel Museum which was absolutely amazing and I learned so much in the 3 hours that we were there.  We only made it through 3 of the exhibits, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, so I will definitely be going back again.

Today, I had my first field trip in Architecture class and it was SO COOL!!  We went to the City of David and learned all about the history there from the First Temple Period.  Then we walked through Hezekiah's Tunnel which was one of the coolest things I've ever done.  The water in the tunnel went up to my waist at one point and the tunnel got very narrow and short at times, but it was so fun!  I love that instead of sitting in a classroom for four hours straight, I get to go on these field trips and see the architecture first hand.

Lastly, I'd like to share with all of you a little video of  two of my roommates and I doing the cinnamon challenge.  If you are unfamiliar with it, we did not make this up and we are not crazy - or maybe we are for actually doing it.  Anyway, Google or Youtube it to understand what it is and then enjoy this video of my roommates and I having some fun during our rainy/snowy week in Jerusalem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGO84EtKdPw

Israeli Spectacular, isn't it?

Sorry for the delay in posting.  In the past few weeks I finished Ulpan and managed to get an "A" and I have started my real classes at the University.  Yesterday was my first day of classes, which consisted of Hebrew and Jerusalem's Architecture.  Now you may ask, "Julie, why are you taking an architecture course?" ... well, I will tell you! It's an easy class that gives me the opportunity to take field trips around Jerusalem to see firsthand what I am learning in the classroom and I can't do that at IU!  During our first class yesterday, we went on our first little excursion to the roof of one of the buildings on campus which overlooks all of Jerusalem.  This was my second trip up there because my friend and I accidentally found our way up there a few weeks ago while looking for the promenade and we were speechless. The first thing my architecture teacher said when we got to the roof was "Israeli spectacular, isn't it?".  Yes, it really is the most beautiful place in the world and I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to take classes here like Architecture of Jerusalem with a "Kibbutznik" and Issues in Contemporary Halacha with a wise old man who escaped Nazi Germany when he was a young boy.

In addition to my classes, I am also doing an internship through Hebrew Union College.  I am beyond excited to have this internship because it is giving me even more amazing opportunities.  My main responsibility is to advertise the events that are already on the calendar to the students at the International school with me.  These events include a Shabbaton on a Kibbutz, monthly potluck Shabbat lunches, etc.  I'm most excited for the Shabbaton because I will have a chance to lead some of the Shabbat services with some of the HUC Students!  Another part of my internship is to create a few events on my own.  I plan to do a musical Shabbat service at the student village and I'm still brainstorming the other event, but in any case I'm so thankful to have this internship!

Last Friday night I attended Shabbat at a Modern Orthodox Synagogue called Shira Hadasha.  I had heard such great things about their services, so I couldn't wait to go!  A woman led Kabbalat Shabbat, but everyone in the congregation was singing along and making the most beautiful harmonies.  I got goosebumps numerous times and I cannot wait to go back there again!  After the service, I came back to my apartment and my roommates and I made a big Shabbat dinner for some of our friends.  The ten of us squeezed around the table  and shared a delicious meal together and then proceeded to play guitar and sing for hours.  It was exactly what Shabbat is supposed to be.

This weekend, we're planning to go to Eilat which is 5 hours south of Jerusalem.  The weather is supposed to be gorgeous.  I love that I am a 45 minute drive from the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea and only a 5 hour bus ride from Eilat.  I can casually go to the beach whenever I want, it's great!  Also, I finally have my spring break planned and I will officially be going to Greece, Italy, France, and the Czech Republic (and eating Ramen noodles for every meal!- JK.. Kind of :)  Well, that's it for now, back to homework, but I promise to write very soon!

Yam V'Shemesh

"Yam V'Shemesh" translates to "Sea and Sun", which is exactly what my friends and I enjoyed last weekend during our trip to Tel Aviv.  It was such a nice change from the previous week which consisted of me laying in bed with strep/scarlet fever while it rained almost every single day.  When we arrived at the hostel in Tel Aviv, we ran into some friends from Australia that we had met a few weeks before at our friend's hostel in Jerusalem.  It still boggles my mind that we ended up staying at the same hostel as them in Tel Aviv and we spent the whole weekend together.  Our friendship with the Aussie's is proof of how hostels have the ability to bring people together from all around the world.  We also met a British musician who kindly shared his guitar with us, so naturally we spent the whole weekend making music together and meeting a lot of new people.  My friends and I walked all over Tel Aviv, from restaurants to an art fair, to a street party, to the beach, and back to the hostel.  In one afternoon we walked, what felt like, the ENTIRE perimeter of the city.. although that is a bit of an exaggeration.  It was really fun to walk and explore the city and then come back to the hostel and make music with our new friends. It was a wonderful, relaxing, and much needed weekend!

Beach in Tel Aviv-  There were some interesting people on the beach, but we seemed to attract a lot of attention while sitting on the beach and singing/playing guitar.  

 Yesterday, I went to the Old City to pick up my Hadaya necklace.  On the way to Hadaya, my friends and I passed the store that we had purchased scarves from a few weeks before, and Amen (the son of the store owner) remembered us and embraced us with hugs.  Of course we went into the store and made about an hour long pit stop on the way to Hadaya because there are so many beautiful scarves and pieces of jewelry.  It's a family owned store, so Amen's brother makes a lot of the jewelry.  My friends and I decided that this store is our favorite in the Old City and we plan to buy ALL of our gifts for our family and friends there.  After we finished shopping, a few of us went down to the Kotel to pray.  I've decided that I will visit the Kotel as many times as I want throughout the next 5 months, but I will only go up to it and pray when I really feel that I need to.  I don't want to forget how important and special it is to me, especially since I have the ability to go there whenever I want over the next 5 months.  As soon as I turned around from walking back from the Kotel, I heard/saw a group of soldiers standing in front of the Israel flag singing "Hatikvah".  As soon as "Hatikvah" ended, the call to prayer immediately began and it echoed all around me.  I got chills and had another "Wow, this is the coolest country ever!" moment.  All in all, things are going back to the way they were before I was sick and I am so thankful.  L'hitraot for now!

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing... That I Wasn't Sick Anymore

Here it is, already the beginning of the third week of this amazing journey and the time is flying by.  As usual, I had Ulpan every day last week and every day after class I went with my friends to explore more of Jerusalem.  

On Monday, I had my first experience at the shuk (market) as an "Israeli" rather than as a tourist.  I brought my backpack and bought all sorts of produce until my backpack was full because it was incredibly cheap compared to the prices at our local grocery store.  The shuk has all sorts of little shops and stands set up with fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, cheeses, candy, etc.  This trip to the shuk was much calmer than the one on Friday when everyone in Jerusalem seemed to be there because they were all buying food for Shabbat.  

On Tuesday after Ulpan, I went to the Old City with my roommates and a few friends that were in Jerusalem visiting.  We started out in the Christian Quarter because my roommates and I wanted to find tapestries to hang on the walls in our apartment.  Of course we got ripped off because we bought them from the first little shop we went to, and although we got them down from 400 shekels to 100 shekels (about $25) we found that we could've gotten them cheaper if we had just walked a few stores down.  The second store we went to that had cheaper tapestries and hundreds of scarves lining the walls, was our favorite store we've been too yet.    The owner's son took a liking to us and showed us every possible way to wear a scarf, including on top of our heads.  After we finished shopping in the Christian Quarter, we went to Hadaya, which is a very well-known jewelry store in the Jewish Quarter.  I've been waiting to visit this store for almost two years to pick out the perfect piece of jewelry and the perfect quote engraved in it.  I got a heart necklace that says in Hebrew "What will be, will be" on the front, and "From generation to generation" (L'Dor Vador) on  the back.  I thought long and hard about what I wanted on my Hadaya, so I'm very excited to have it ordered and to pick it up in a few days!

While we were in the Old City, we went to a balcony to take pictures of the Western Wall.   When we arrived we saw hundreds of people praying at the wall, which seemed a little abnormal for what I would expect on a Tuesday evening.  There was one man using a microphone that was leading the praying, and he sounded like he was weeping.  It was haunting.. I attached a video of it below. I attempted to ask an orthodox man and his wife why there were so many people at the wall, but the man took one look at me, turned and walked away.  Apparently I was not covered up enough even though I was in a sweater and long pants.  We later learned that the reason there were so many people at the wall was because of Rosh Chodesh (the new month).  

The next evening we received a knock on our door, which we assumed was from our friends that were coming over, but when the door opened there stood a rabbi dressed in full gear.. long black coat, tall black hat, the beard, etc.  He informed us that it was Rosh Chodesh and he was at our apartment to celebrate with us.  He brought a bag of treats along with him and we all did a “L’Chaim” and ate cookies.  All I could do was laugh because something like this would NEVER happen in America. 

Unfortunately, the next day I woke up and had a fever and I’ve been sick now for the past 6 days.  I went to the doctor on the first day that I had a fever, which was definitely an experience in itself.  My health insurance gave me a list of doctor offices in Jerusalem and told me to find someone who spoke Hebrew to figure out which was closest to my apartment and to give me directions there.  Once I had an appointment, I got in a cab with my friend and we were off to the doctor with these specific/shady instructions:  The doctor’s office is located in the shopping center between two banks.  Look for a red door and take the stairs next to that door up to the roof and then you will see a door that says “Doctor’s Office” on it.  I followed the directions and due to some miracle, we had no issue finding the office.  The doctor wasn’t very nice or very helpful.  He listened to me breathe and told me I had the flu.  That was it.  I stayed in bed miserable until yesterday when I called my health insurance and requested for a doctor to visit me at my apartment.  This house call was a first for me, but this doctor was much nicer and took one look at my swollen neck and freaked out.  She immediately gave me a prescription (which was free, along with the Dr. visit, because of my health insurance here).  Although these past few days have been awful, I have discovered that I have some of the greatest friends of all time.  They’ve made soup and tea for me, given me their medicine, gone to the doctor with me, done my laundry, etc.  I am so thankful to have such amazing friends!  So here I am, still sitting, waiting, and wishing that I was healthy enough to go to class and explore Jerusalem on this beautiful, sunny, sixty degree day.