First Shabbat, End of Orientation, The Real Beginning

We started off Shabbat with services that I felt didn't do Shabbat in Israel justice. We skipped a lot of the service that I happen to find quite beautiful. For dinner, the vegetarian option was Israeli's last vegetarian option, fake shnitzel made with corn, which i got sick of on previous Israel trips. After dinner, Section two split up into groups to play a circle game called "Bang." We then rejoined and played a song game. We were given a word and had to think of songs with that word in it. My group got out at the word "Blue" because we accidentally repeated a song.

Later that night, most of section two went to the beach, a 30 minute walk straight west. I decided I wanted to try to keep Shabbat. So I didn't bring my wallet for food or my cell phone. I also brought my binoculars but the moon was not out and there was too much light pollution to see anything good.

Ilyssa and I ready for orthodox services

There were a few optional activities Saturday morning: "Israel Update," "My First Shabbat in Israel," and going to a nearby Orthodox synagogue. My Boston friend Becca David, a roommate, Ilyssa, who has been to one orthodox minyan, and I decided to try out the orthodox service with our ex-religious madrich (counselor) at 8:30 AM. The temple ended up being a Sephardik service making the morning even more interesting. Becca, Ilyssa and I sat above the men behind the mehitzah and watched one man with a long gray beard read two parshot, lead the service, AND give the D'var Torah. One woman noticed the three American teenagers utterly confused, so she showed us what page we were on and helped us follow the entire service. She was incredibly nice and told us a nearby temple to go to if we needed services for Rosh Hashanah. The service ended and I went back to sleep for two hours.

Around noon, the roommates and I headed for the beach for the day. To our surprise, the water was very salty and warm. The waves were also huge and scary! Many of us got a burn if not a tan (and I applied sunscreen twice and I still got a burn!). We all had to be at the beach at 5:30 for a "Rosh Hashanah" activity. Again, I thought it was going to be a discussion about apologizing or re-newing ourselves for the new year, but it was just "dyatic encounters." It is when two people answer personal questions about themselves, similar to boundary breakers. So they split us up for an hour then moved farther down the beach to do Havdallah. I was excited to do Havdallah, but again, it was 30 seconds long, two people knew it and everybody was talking. I felt gross from the day on the beach (sand was EVERYWHERE), but still, a few friends and I decided to go out to dinner on the beach and had delicious pesto ravioli! It was a weeknight so I went back to the apartment after dinner.

Sunday: Our last day of orientation....FINALLY

We all went to a new building (nicely air conditioned too!) for more lectures, but this time, it was all about volunteering in Bat Yam. Within each group, we broke up into smaller groups of volunteer groups of what we are interested in. I was torn between working on a farm or working with the elderly. I finally decided on working with the elderly and this is why: 1. I want to do environmental/outdoors volunteering in the Negev next semester 2. the elderly group decided to video document the lives of the people that live there. I think the old people now (mostly immigrants in Israel) have had incredible lives, each with a different story. They could have survived the Holocaust, came from Ethiopia, or came to Israel on a boat and swam onto shore to get in. I think its important for this people to tell their stories before they leave this world and to get their stories heard. The biggest challenge my group (of only three) will face is the language barrier. Many of these immigrants barley even know Hebrew, and we certainly are not fluent either. We are going to try to find a translator to help us.

Sunday evening came with great adventures. We were told there was a small festival in Bat Yam that would be very cute and fun to go to. Two of my roommates, Yael and Ilyssa, and I decided to find this festival. We called our madrichim and they told us we should take bus 26. Once we finally found the 26 bus stop, after asking 2 different people, we asked the bus driver where the festival was or where we should get off. He was incredibly unhelpful and laughed at us while we frantically called our madrichim, who also didn't know. Then the bus driver told us we were in Yaffo and approaching Tel Aviv. In panic, we decided to get off the bus next to an Aroma, very popular cafe in Israel, where we knew they spoke English. When we got off, we were looking around for people who we thought spoke English and a Hippie-looking man turned to us and said, "I speak English." He was our savior! He told us which buses we could take back home and where we could find the bus stops. We got on the next bus heading home, exhausted and laughing at ourselves.

Monday came the real beginning. Group Aviv started classes while Group Maoz started planning their volunteer work. I had Ulpan (Hebrew Class) first. I am with my friend Chelsea and we have a very funny teacher from Tel Aviv. He seems like a great teacher and I am very excited to get to know him. We started off with reviewing basics, we did fine. After two quick hours, we had a 30 minute break before our Zionism class. In the middle of the class, immature Israelis came right in and interrupted to ask a question. They had no manures and were not welcome in our class. The school that we are taking classes at is a school for kids that do too well in a normal high school, says our teacher. Class ended at one and my roommates and I headed to the mall to pick up a few things. I was exhausted and wanted to take a nap, but by the time we got back to our apartment, we had to leave again 10 minutes later for our next activity. We went to a few kids apartments with the madrichim to discuss apartment issues, like how to deal with bad neighbors, or what are the best characteristics in a roommate. Dismissed for dinner, we went home only to go out again at 7:30 for our first Erev Tzofim (Tzofim night). We played some games and then we made hot apple cider, too bad that the temperature outside was almost the same temperature as the hot cider. After, Yael and I went on a nice 25 minute run followed by climbing up and down the stairs a few times. Finally, as I write this, I plan on saving it because our internet is down. 

Tomorrow is the first day of volunteering and I am meeting my volunteer-mates at Aroma for a yummy breakfast of brainstorming.  Tomorrow is our last day before Rosh Hashanah break. I am spending the two days at Itziks house, 20 minutes outside of Haifa. Itzik was a camp counselor a few years ago and some fellow camp kids are also going to his house. I am coming home Friday because it is my friend Alice's 18th birthday and we need to celebrate.

אהוא של בת ים,

תמר גפן כן

Love from Bat Yam,

Tamar Gaffin-Cahn