Hag Purim!

Purim in Israel is one big party. It is a much bigger deal here in Israel than in the United States, but it is not a religious holiday. Most Jewish holidays are filled with rules and regulations associated with religion, but Purim is a secular holiday centered around 4 mitzvot. The first is to read the megillah and make lots of noise (especially when the name Haman comes up). The 2^nd is to send gifts of food (mishloach manot) to your friends (its Jewish holiday- of course there is food involved). The 3^rd is to give to the poor. Last but not least is to eat a festive Purim meal and (if of age) to drink until you can’t remember. In addition to these mitzvots, the holiday is like one big costume party and carnival in one. People gather together and have carnivals or parties where everyone dresses up in costumes.

         These are the basics of the holiday, but Israel makes it even bigger, especially with the kids in the schools. First I should mention that although Purim itself is only a day, and in reality it’s a week, the whole month of Adar is called Chodesh Tov, which means good month. The whole month is celebrated throughout Israel as the happy month with events leading up to Purim.

         So what are the signs that Purim is approaching, happening, or recently happened in Beit Shean? The answer: fireworks being shot all day and night, tons and tons of makeup on all the kids, people wearing costumes, pajamas or anything they wouldn’t normally wear, kids not really doing any schoolwork, people giving out mishloach manot, and last but not least everyone’s attitude is just a little bit happier and goofy.

All of these are things we all have seen this past month/week, or are even still currently seeing here in Beit Shean.

         The fireworks. I don’t know how common this is among Israel in general, since in Jerusalem for BFL I didn’t hear a single one, but here in Beit Shean people shoot them off all day and night. All month long we have had a soundtrack to our lives from these firecrackers going off. On skype it sounds like a bomb or gun is being shot outside, which always gives people a scare. But seriously people are still shooting them off now, even though Purim is technically over. They can be highly annoying especially when they are right next to the apartment, but I suppose I appreciate the fact that everyone wants to celebrate all month long.

         The makeup. Lunchtime has now officially been replaced at many of our schools as makeup time. I‘m not talking about a bit of lip-gloss and mascara- I mean white faces, red cheeks, brightly colored eye shadow, and bright red lips. The girls are the ones putting on most of the makeup, although I have seen a few boys join in the party. All the kids though, boys and girls, and have done a less extreme version by having stuff painted on their faces at school, whether it’s a heart, flower, smiley face, or full on Spiderman. The kids may look a bit ridiculous at times, but it’s cute and they’re having fun, which is really all that matters.

         The costumes. Every school had a party where all the kids dressed up as the costume of their choice. This is normal and expected, what wasn’t so expected was the week leading up to Purim, where kids wore pajamas (for upside down day), kids wearing crazy hats, underwear on their heads, and other silly mini-costumes if you will to get the Purim spirit. It reminded me a lot of homecoming week from high school. Mamash Cef!

         School. Due to the costumes, the kids’ carefree attitude, the teachers going with the holiday spirit, the kids basically did not work for the week of Purim and the week preceding. It was like a big in school vacation for the kids.

Mishloach Manot. Being beloved members of the community and volunteers, we are a popular target for lots of mishloach manot. We received our fill of bamba, chips, chocolate, and other junk food. It was also fun to give out yummy treats to people that we liked around Beit Shean. In addition on Sunday, I am pretty sure every single family in town had a barbeque. The whole town smelled like hamburgers and hot dogs, and every family was sitting outside enjoying each other’s company and the beautiful sunshine.

         Lastly, the holiday spirit is very present in the Beit Shean community. With a holiday that to me feels like a combination of Hanukkah and Halloween in the US, it’s hard not to feel the joy and the air. The kids are crazier than normal, everyone is more relaxed and goofy, and because of this everyone is a bit nicer to each other. It was a very happy month, filled with lots of crazy fun and weird abnormalities- but I think that’s kind of the point of Purim to just celebrate and have fun. Finally a Jewish holiday that doesn’t have any guilt! =)

Purim-themed cooking Chug

Pin Haman on the tree.. haha

Costume Party at school!

Gaya (my brilliant star student) and I

                                                          Purim Dancing!

Purim parade in Beit Shean

Partying for purim! 

Purim play! 

MASA BFL leadership conference

           The MASA leadership conference was a packed week full of seminars and lectures on leadership skills, Israel advocacy, and opportunities for future Jewish involvement. There were 500 people there, half of which were gap year (post high school) and half that were post college. It was a great opportunity to meet other people from around the world doing other long-term Israel programs. Throughout the week I actually came to a realization of how happy I am that I decided to go on OTZMA instead of one of the other programs. OTZMA has given me such a great exposure to so many aspects of Israeli life; I really have gained so much from the accumulation of all the education days and seminars. From politics to the environment, and especially our seminar in the west bank, I really have learned so much and has made my time here in Israel so worthwhile. I also love how our program is split into 3 distinct parts, each with their own experiences. I think it was really beneficial for our whole group to live together in an absorption center at the beginning. There we got the opportunity to really bond and get to know each other as a group before we started the main part of our volunteering. For the 2^nd part I am obviously really happy with my placement in Beit Shean, but I think its great that we are spread out across the country in smaller communities. By being in a smaller community in the periphery, we get a completely different experience then just living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Here we have really become an integral part of the community where everybody knows us and we are like local celebrities. The 3^rd part will be similar to many of the other programs, and although we won’t have as much time in the center as the other programs, I think we have more experience and knowledge about Israel that has been extremely rewarding and worthwhile.

         Anyway, the conference started with an entertaining speech by Avraham Infeld (president of Hillel). He emphasized that in order to be a leader you need to have passion for cause and a vision. He also talked about the moving people and how that is a major requirement for leading people. He said that if people are in exactly the same place before and after you lead them, then you really have not lead at all. It was an interesting start to the week ahead. We met our small groups for discussions and then had a gala event at night to kick off the week.  One of the highlights was hearing from the Nu campaign and getting a shirt they made especially for BFL. The organization is really cool- they make shirts for different charities and put a story about the charity on the inside of the shirt. They sell the shirts and donate a portion of the money to the respective charity and the shirts are actually really cool, Next time I am in Jerusalem I will check out their store and buy a couple shirts.

         The next day we went to Yad Vashem, where we had an original look at the holocaust through a leadership perspective. We had a short tour and a lecture focusing on who where the leaders in the holocaust and what does the concept of leadership even mean under those circumstances. Later we had some group discussions and workshops to develop specific skills. At night we had an activity called open space, which I thought it was a really great activity to take home with me for any kind of youth gathering. The activity basically was a way for a group to engage in a bunch of different conversations, where the topics were picked by the participants. The next day was separated by tracks that we had picked before. I was on the Jewish people hood track, which was basically another day of Otzma- since it was run by partnership 2000. We went to Beit Shemesh and met with DC’s partnership city and spoke with the director of partnership 2000 among other things.

         The next day we continued with out group discussions and skill workshops, and had lectures on North American Jews and Israel Advocacy. They were both very interesting, especially the Israel advocacy one, where we discussed scenarios and ways to deal with ant-Israel situations. The next day we went to Neot Kedumim to work on outdoor leadership and teamwork training, despite the rain and the cold. We spent most of the day in tent doing activities because of the weather, but it was a still a good experience, and very camp-like which of course I enjoyed. We did it within our groups, which was nice, because we really got a chance to bond with our groups. Our concluding activity for the day was another one I want to take back home with me for camp or other youth programming. We all made candles, by molding clay, pouring in some oil, and using cotton as wick. After that each person lit another person’s candle and said something nice about them. At the end everyone had a lit candle, to show that everyone was special and unique- it was a really great wrap-up activity. That night, Matt Barr performed Bible Raps, which is exactly what it sounds like. I thought it was pretty stupid, but I could maybe see how it could be cute with kids if they got the opportunity to actually participate with him and not just watch (which apparently some camps do).

         On our last day we had goodbye ceremony, where we received graduation certificates and then said goodbye to our new friends. Overall the week was a good one. There were some interesting lectures, some boring ones, and I took bits and pieces from all of the workshops and discussions. It was nice to meet lots of other people from other programs, and a nice way to focus on what to do after Otzma. 

Shabbat Mifgash

Last weekend we had a meeting with the Israeli versions of us. They were our age, after the army and working in American summer camps during the summer. We got a chance to really get to know them by discussions on everything from the death penalty to Justin Beiber as well as just hanging out and playing Yaniv (a very popular Israeli card game). We started the weekend by thinking together as an Otzma group about how Israelis stereotypically think of Americans and how we stereotypically think of Israelis. Then we met the Israelis and had some icebreakers to introduce ourselves. The next morning we did some experimental learning exercise outside in the woods to work on teamwork and leadership. Then we came back ate lunch (the food was really good at the hotel we stayed at, so all the meals were great!) prepared for Shabbat, and went to services (reform, conservadox, or alternative). I helped plan the reform with Erin and a couple Israelis. Then we had a really nice Shabbat dinner, after which we sang the birkat hamazon-- camp style. Then we did a speed-dating style activity where we got a chance to have quick convos concerning all kinds of topics with a bunch of the Israelis. Then we played some games and called it a night.

         On Saturday morning we had a discussion based on the Catcher in the Rye where we discovered some difference and similarities in how we each communicate, specifically in relating to how we introduce ourselves and how our culture shapes us. We continued having lots of interesting discussions throughout the day. We played beseder/lo beseder with a bunch of serious and silly topics, as well as discussed the Jewish populations both in Israel and the Diaspora. We focused on the relationship between the 2 groups and how both really need each other to be as successful as they are today. We concluded our weekend with a nice havdallah service before heading back to our P2K cities for another wonderful week! Overall the weekend was a really great experience, where we got a chance to discuss the relationship between Israelis and Diaspora Jews as well as making some cool new friends.

Hope and Conflict Seminar

The Hope and Conflict seminar was 5 packed days full of speakers and visits to different places within Israel and the West bank in an attempt to analyze the conflict between the Israeli state and the Palestinians. We heard from people on the right, people on the left, optimistic people, pessimistic people, basically every kind of person imaginable. Throughout the seminar there was no single right or wrong answer to the problems facing Israel today, but everyone had a different opinion and for the most part and everyone had a convincing argument to support their side. One of the speakers said it best by saying if we were more confused at the end of the seminar than the beginning, then the speakers did their job.

         Our first speaker was one we know well, Neil Lazarus, we have heard from him a few times before and he is pretty beloved within Otzma. He has a good sense of humor and is a very good speaker. He provided us with an introduction to the seminar and guided us to ask specific questions of all the speakers we encountered. He also said to pay attention to the time frame that each speaker uses (1948? Biblical times? 1967?), because everyone can be right at the same time, if each person is using a different time frame. He also pointed out the conflict Israel has, in being both a Jewish and democratic state, and how Israel has to give up a certain amount of either one of those ideals. He told us to challenge every speaker we meet: ask the left how they plan to keep Israel safe without walls and checkpoints and ask the right who are the Palestinians and what do you do with this group of over 3 million people.

         Then we met with Jared Goldfarb, another familiar speaker to us and we drove to East Jerusalem where he explained some of the problems in there and the different borders of Jerusalem. Today, the population of Jerusalem is about 63% Jewish and 37% Arab, with almost half of the Jews who live in Jerusalem in post 1967 borders. This is the basis for East Jerusalem, although the land where Jews are is not really considered to be part of East Jerusalem. It’s the areas with large communities of Arabs; most of who live very poorly, that gets the all the media attention and where conflicts arise. Over the years there has been many discussions about if Jerusalem should be divided and if yes how so. This discussion is ongoing today, in which there are basically 3 options. The first is to divide Jerusalem permanently, into a Jewish city and state and a Palestinian city and therefore it would be part of a larger state. The 2^nd option to have 1 united Jerusalem (either by removing one group of people or re-defining the borders). The 3^rd and somewhat utopian option is for Jerusalem to be a bi-national city where Jerusalem is the capital of 2 nations. Having said that, none of these options are realistically going to happen anytime soon- so the problem of East Jerusalem is something Israel has to deal with.

The Arabs residing in East Jerusalem now are not citizens of Israel; they are only residents of Jerusalem. This means they cannot vote in state elections, get passports, and do not have many of the rights Israeli citizens receive. They have a resident card that allows them to receive their basic needs, and travel within Jerusalem. These communities are generally poor and lacking in important basic necessities such as infastructure. Having said that, the people of East Jerusalem for the most part do not accept Israel as a state, and therefore do not vote in local elections where they can. This is one major reason why they are lacking in things such as infrastructure. Basically, the problem of East Jerusalem is not going to go away, and more importantly it is part of a much bigger problem, the whole existence of Israel and if a two state solution is necessary and possible.

At the end of the first day we met with Steve Israel, who talked to us about the rise Jewish nationalism, as it compared to Arab nationalism. This talk was very interesting to me because for the most part it was information I had never learned before.  I have always wondered why only Israel seems to have this perpetual conflict over a tiny sliver of land. The US, Europe, and other western nations all conquered land that wasn’t land originally theirs through a war and the kept the land to make a country, The roots of Israel can trace back to both the Jewish and Palestinian people, but regardless of that in 1948- there was war- the Jews won the war and therefore won the land. However since that day there has been more war and fighting over trying to reclaim the land. The US did that with every state, but you don’t see Mexico trying to take back Texas. The big question is why. What is it about Israel that there is a continuous struggle for survival and why can’t the Palestinians just accept defeat. Well, here’s the answer: Nationalism. During the years leading up to the state of Israel’s creation two huge movements of nationalism were developing. One from the Jewish people who needed a homeland after years of mistreatment culminating in the Holocaust, and one from the people of Palestine, who at the exact same time as the Jews, sought to create a state in their home Palestine after a revolution in Syria. Both the Jews and the Palestinians tried to claim a state at the exact same time, do due external circumstances on both ends, this is the basis for the conflict- as neither group really has any other place to go now.

The next day we met with Eve Harrow, who is from Efrat, the largest Jewish Settlement in the West Bank.  She was an educator about as far right as possible, who told us about her experiences living on in the settlement and her thoughts on the political situation. She spent a significant amount of time defending the settlements, and claiming that the conflict with the Palestinians would be worse, not better if Israel were to abandon the settlements. She explained that conflict was based on the fact that the other Arab nations in the Middle East will not absorb all the Palestinian refugees, and the Arab society, not Israel is to blame for the displacement of these people. She went further to explain that the Arab world is corrupt and doomed to fail. The Palestinians want an Arab version of Israel, but she believes that will never happen. If the Palestinians got their own state, she believes it would end also in corruption, not in a democracy, dictated by violence in terrorism. She was not optimistic that peace would ever come between the two populations. Her “solution” is for Israel to work on better PR and to buy time until the Arab world hopefully changes their society. She believes it’s important to stand strong to the Arab communities to show intolerance to any kind of violence and corruption. She claimed that in an Arab, world mutually destroyed destruction does not apply, and that nothing can be left to chance.

Then we met with an advisor to Israel’s foreign affairs, who spoke about the situation in Israel. He summed it up by saying things are never as bad as they seem and things are never as good as they seem, they are always some where in the middle. He pointed to all the inherent dangers in the surroundings: Hezbollah has 70,000 missiles, some of which can reach Tel Aviv, the corruption of the Arab society including mistreatment of women and lack of any kind of innovation, threat of Iran, etc. However, he also pointed out Israel has many regional alliances because of the treat of Iran and that Israel’s economy is thriving. In contrast to their neighbors, Israel is at the top of innovation, with things such as electric cars, water saving strategies, and more. Overall, he thought that the prospects for success between Jews and Palestinians were slim, and that things would carry on as they are for quite some time, He explained how the media distorts the situation and exaggerates it from either side of the scale.

We spent Shabbat on two of the Jewish settlements in the Judean Hills. I, along with half of the group stayed in Tekoa, where we all had different experiences. Arielle and I stayed with a family from America, who was one of the first 7 seven families to settle the land. They were very ideological in their choice to live in the settlement. There are all kinds of families that live in these settlements, some are just there because it’s a nice suburb close to Jerusalem where you can raise a family, and some people are there because they want to claim the land and make sure nobody else is living there. My family was very much the latter, as they were very attached to the land and the belief that it belonged to the Jews. We had a very interesting discussion with the father of the family, where he described why he thought it was so important for Jews to live in the Settlements, and how he would never leave his home. He gave us a tour of the settlement, showing us the nice areas with new houses, and then the places where some people were still living in temporary housing (a caravan) waiting for a permit to build a house. The building freeze has left many people without homes in these settlements, and they are forced to live elsewhere or stay in tiny mental caravans. Overall the place was very nice though, and looked like a small suburb from the states (with the exception of the giant mountains and Jerusalem as your backyard).

The family themselves were very nice and totally American. I love all the Israelis and their customs, but it was a refreshing dose of home to have a weekend of American stuff. We ate Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Philadelphia cream cheese, played monopoly and spoke English all weekend long. Their house even looked American and was filled with lots of English books, foods, and the Jerusalem Post. Overall it was a really great Shabbat, and a great experience in the West bank. I really enjoyed spending time with the family and in the community. After my time spent on the settlement, it is hard to imagine them ever leaving—I am pretty convinced that at least the major settlements are there to stay. They are wonderful communities, with people from all kinds of backgrounds living together under one common purpose, to live the homeland of the Jewish people.

After our experiences on Shabbat, we met with the extreme left. First we met with an organization called Rabbis for Human rights (which Eve Harrow called Rabbis for Arab Rights), who fought to ensure that everyone had basic human rights. The person we spoke to came off quite strong, as we toured through the Hebron Hills into a Palestinian “settlement”. We saw group of Palestinians who were living in tents without a lot of basic necessities. These people had a Palestinian citizenship, which currently is like no citizenship at all. Some of them were willing to be Israeli citizens if it was offered to them and some of them where not. No doubt it was sad to see people living this way, but I have to wonder whose fault is it really and could they live somewhere else if they chose to? The rabbis for human rights believe that the way to peace is through helping the Palestinians and giving equal rights to everyone. They believe the Palestinians have rights to their land and Israel should help them rebuild the houses that were demolished, and be apart of the Israeli society. They believe that in order to have peace, Israel needs to promote more positivity towards Arabs, so they have a better impression of Jews and don’t want to kill them. Personally, I don’t know how realistic that is, and in general this person’s argument came off a bit strange, but it was interesting to hear an opinion that went completely against what we had heard before.

Then we met with another organization on the left called Breaking the silence. This organization was really interesting and eye opening for me. This organization was made to inform the public of the mistreatment of Arabs enforced by the army. The organization is made up of soldiers in the settlements who have come brought attention orders they were given that were morally wrong and difficult. The mistreatment of Palestinians within the West Bank by the IDF is what they focused on with their stories. The soldiers wrote how about how they were ordered to use non-violent terrorism such as shootings in the air and constantly searching houses to terrorize the Palestinians. They also did little to nothing about settler violence against Palestinians, but were told to shoot any Palestinian that attacks a settler. Even the terminology is biased as a settler attacking a Palestinian is called a quarrel and a Palestinian attacking a settler is a terror attack. Overall they explained that the IDF has a political force in the territories to try and remove the Palestinians

Then we heard from an Israeli-Palestinian citizen of Israel and talked to us about the relations between the state of Israel and Palestinian Israelis. He explained the Palestinians have a strong connection to the land that Israel is on and that will never cease to be a problem. He also discussed how Israeli Palestinians are not equal to the Jewish citizens, as they face bias and prejudice everyday. He discussed the fears he believed affected both the Israelis and Palestinians and then ideologies of how to work together and live in peace. His solution to improving the situation was for each side to acknowledge each other’s existence and work from there to create policies that help lessen the fears of both sides. He argued to lessen the use of walls both literally and figuratively.

The last place we visited was the “hope” part of our seminar where visited a community outside of Jerusalem that was half Jewish and half Arab living together peacefully in one community. This community, Neve Shalom, was a community for people to live together as well as learn together. In addition to their elementary school in which all the children learned together, they had another school called the school for peace, which brought Arab and Jewish high school students together to create a dialogue about the conflict and engage in serious discussions. This community was on one hand very pleasant and full of hope. On the other hand it was very small and not very representative of the whole society, especially the people who are engaged in the conflict. The idea for such as community is a great one, but unfortunately the only people in currently reaches out to are the people who already believe and peace.

We concluded our seminar by having a mock Camp David discussion, where we all were assigned a country (Israel, Palestine, or America) and an issue to discuss with each other. On some issues agreements were made and on some they weren’t, but it was interesting to see how hard it really is to come to agreements on these issues that neither side is really willing to give into. We saw how difficult it was and will be for the governments to ever create a peace treaty. Overall the seminar was very interesting and filled with tons of information. I don’t know if I am more or less optimistic for peace after hearing everyone’s point of views, but I do know that is much more complicated and difficult than anyone can imagine.  

                                               Palestinian Settlement

                                                        The Wall

Neve Shalom

                             
Our madrichim dressing up for Camp David- picture taken by Alex Kadis