KIRYAT GAT!!

Shalom,

So this past shabbat, before yom kippur, I was in Kiryat Gat. Let's talk about that.

SO FIRSTTT the summer before my senior year of high school i went to CHUSY's encampment, and each year CHUSY, Chicago Region USY, has 12 Israeli's from the Kiryat Gat area attend camp with us. They are juniors, so one year younger than me. I met a kid named Roi, a really great guy while at camp and we decided that if i ended up going on nativ i would come stay with him on free weekend. Seth also happened to host Roi for the week before camp started.

Thursday night, a bunch of us decide to go play basketball at the park, get back around 1030 and was asleep by like 1130. All good. Seth and I wake up the next morning at 9, pack and head to Eged central bus station. We caught a 1030 bus to Kiryat Gat which arrived around noon. Roi picked us up from the bus station. We went to the Kiryat Gat mall, a pretty cool mall not very big but obviously not a tourist attraction at all. There were only israelis there, very different from the Americanized Jerusalem. Roi seth and i got lunch at Aroma Cafe, the only thing that slightly resembles it in America would be corner bakery, but corner isn't nearly as fresh. its like fresh food but really healthy and yummy. mmmmmm.

After eating we walked around the mall and Roi knew sooooooo many people. They were all from his "Moshav." for everyone that isn't too up to date with israeli terminology, a moshav is similar to a kibbutz in many senses, but, as Roi explained it to me, in a kibbutz everything is shared; economy, social scenes, families. moshav is where everyone has their own jobs, some work in the moshav but it's not required, there are a ton of community things such as parks, security, etc. but it's not nearly as extreme as a kibbutz. his moshav is moshav shekef. shekef is a moshav that produces grapes. it also happens to be, literally, on the border with the west bank. but i'll get to that story later. ok back to what we're doing.

so roi's mom picks us up after about an hour an a half walking around and seeing people. its about 25 minutes to the moshav from kiryat gat. fyi kiryat gat is in the south of israel, a little bit south west from Be'er Sheva, which is south of Jerusalem. OK cool. we get to the moshav and our other friend from camp CHUSY comes by. His name is miki. miki, roi, seth miki's friend and i get into miki's car and miki takes us to what he calls is "the most beautiful place on earth." i was pretty excited. I'll post some pictures of what we saw as well so you can see.

We drive about 5 minutes outside the moshav, unlock some gates, drive on some dirt roads and up a mountain. on top of this mountain we could see soooooooooooo far! looking out, we could see from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gaza Strip, across the entire country. with that, we could also see the West Bank obviously and Tel-Aviv off in the distance, as well as some other smaller cities such as Ashkelon and S'dereot. We're chillen on top of the mountain and all of a sudden we see black smoke start to come out of the west bank. I start to freak out and say "ROI THE WEST BANK IS ON FIRE!!" Miki quickly comes over, puts his arm around me and says, "Josh, don't worry, the west bank is always on fire." That was.... comforting I guess. It wasn't a big deal, don't worry.

After about an hour of hanging out on the mountain, we get back in the car and return back to Shekef. We get back, its around 630, and we have an amazing home cooked meal by Roi's mom. Their whole family spoke English and that made things easier. After dinner, we met up with some of Roi's friends. We hung out that night with Ron, Shir, Shir, Na'ama, Jon and Gafen. We got to the park and three Israeli Soldiers that were stationed at the Moshav, because its on the border, were on break. So we hung out with them. None of Roi's friends really spoke English that well, so I ended up speaking more Hebrew than English that weekend. It was really cool, not just the hanging with three random Israeli soldiers part but my Hebrew got muchhhh better that weekend. Around 2 we went back to Roi's house and hung out. I woke up and the first thing I thought was actually in Hebrew, not English. Strange right?

The next we we just hung out with everyone again at the park the next day. Seth and I returned to our home in Jerusalem on Saturday, went out for ice cream for David's birthday, and called it a weekend. It was a great shabbat.

Enjoy the pics

Currently I'm sitting on the porch with Jesse chillen, he's studying for some test and I already studied for my ulpan test, but I should probably study again soon. maybe, there's erev Nativ tonight so that takes up time from 7-10, maybe i will after its over.

I didn't get my Jerusalem final back yet, lame i know right?

I'm still trying to get this formatting of picture thing down, I'll figure it out soon though don't worry! If worst comes to worst I'll just ask David.

Talk soon,

Josh

Yom Kippurrrrr

Gmar Hativah Tova!!!

This was a longgggggggg day. Luckily its all over, don't think I would wanna do it again anytime soon but glad I did. Here's what happened:

Last night we had dinner 330, ended at 4 and fast started 4:53. So I actally ended up fasting an hour longer than I needed to.

No biggie. I went to Kol Rina for Kol Nidre and Maariv. I went there before for Shabbas Morning services and it was amazinggggg, lots of singing and very modern orthodox. There's a front/back Machitzah, the Chazzan prays in the middle though and its not very high so its pretty fair I would say, if you were wondering. I was there with Tyler, Seth, David, Gabe and some other people. It was ok, nothin too fancy, a lot of independent davening so good to an extent.

This morning me tyler seth gabe michael and some other went to yamin moshe. It was more orthodox than the last one, but I got to parade the second torah and sit with it when they read from the first one! Mitzvah!! it was great. that service was also ok.

After 6 hours of services we came back to beit nativ and slept for like 3 hours. at 4, jesse jonny and I went to kedem, the conservative shul off of emek refiem, right near burgers bar. i went there for rosh hashanna and it was greatttt then. so we went there for the second halfish of maariv and Nehilia. It was muchhhh better than the orthodox servies. I thought that I liked the orthodox services better, maybe not. i dont know, ill figure it out this year. they then had an amazinggggggggg break fast, not as good as the Maxwells break fast of course, but it was filled with Rugalach and a ton of juices. So it was great.

Came back to beit nativ, had some bad dinner like always but I was already full from the break fast at Kedem. We went out for Ice Cream and now I'm here on the porch updating my blog. yay!

OK guys, I'll let you know how i do on my j-lem test tomorrow when i hopefully get it back. and for the record i'm sick of using proper spelling and grammer, i dont know if you could tell but halfway through the post i just realized that its kind of overrated. so sorry if it offends. :)

Talk soon,

Joshua

Gmar Hatima Tova!!!

Hey everyone,

Just as a heads us, Daylight Savings Time started today in Israel so I am now officially only 7 hours ahead of Chicago. Just to let you know now we have one more hour of overlap! Yay

Yom Kippur starts tonight. I just got back from the Mikvah with Seffi, David, Seth, Judah and Tyler. The Mikvah is basically like a little pool but the water is holy and it "purfies" you. This was my second time at the mikvah, and probably won't be my last. It's a cool experience. You go into this really small room, with a ton of big smelly Jews, only men obviously, take a shower, then go into the mikvah, then shower off because the water is kind of gross because hundreds of smelly old Israelis go in it every day. Whatever.

Now, I'm sitting in my room with Seffi, not quite sure where I'm going for Kol Nidre tonight, possibly The Leiders Minyan, maybe Yemin Moshe, maybe Shira Chadasha I don't know, I'll figure it out soon.

Gmar Chatima Tova! Talk after the Chag is over. Easy fast for everyone,

Josh

Jerusalem Final/Kaparot

Hey everyone,

So today I took the Jerusalem final for my History of Jerusalem class. I studied a ton last night for it, and it wasn't that difficult. Hopefully I did well. I also took a test in ulpan, which went over well. I'm learning sooo much "ivrit" its unbelievable. Having Israeli teacher's is veryyyy different than having an American teacher. After the test, Seth, Debbie and I took a taxi back to Beit Nativ because we didn't want to wait an hour for the Nativ bus.

We got back just in time for Seth and I to participate on the Mark Kirk Nachshon Conference call with my dad. It was a pretty standard talk with Kirk in my opinion, I've had talks with him just like this one many many times before. But this time, it was almost surreal at times when he talked about Israel. Because before when he would say we need to protect Israel I always looked it the situation from the comfort in my house in the north shore of Chicago. This time when he said Israel could be in serious danger real soon, Seth and I looked at each other and uncomfortably shifted around listening to the congressman. It was surreal when he said "Jerusalem" because that happens to be where I'm living. That was a little scary.

On a happier note, I guess, I did a mitzvah tonight! WARNING IF YOU DONT LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH VIOLENCE TOWARDS ANIMALS DONT READ THIS.

K now that I've given fair warning, tonight I fulfilled the mitzvah of doing "Kaparot." Kaparot is where a Jewish individual takes all of his or her sins, puts it into a chicken, grabs the chicken by its wings and while reciting a brucha, swings the chicken around his or her head. I took a real, alive, squirming and bawking chicken by its wings, attempted to read Hebrew while swinging it around above my head. Then, we gave the chicken, which we named "mo-mo" to the guy and he proceeded to break its neck, slit its throat and toss it into a pipe-type thing. This is all run by Chadisic Jews by the way. After the blood drains, the cut it up and give it to the poor.

Yes, we put our sins into chickens and give them to the poor to eat.

I kid you not this is considered a mitzvah. One of the girls on Nativ actually started to cry and had to leave because the smell was so sick, and there were so many chickens dying right in front of us. I'll post some pic's of me swinging the chicken soon! At least I cleansed myself of sins, right?

So now were planning to go out tonight, so I'm gonna sign off for now. Tomorrow Seth and I are going to Kiryat Gat to see Roi, a friend from Camp CHUSY that we met two summers ago. Well be there for Shabbas and we're returning to beit nativ. And now were going to play basketball. Change of plans. OK I gotta get ready.

Talk soon,

Josh

First Blog Post!

Hey everyone,

I decided to do what everyone else on Nativ is doing and start a blog. Yea, I know I'm lame. Oh well. I just wanted to check in and make sure this thing works. Subscribe to me? Cool.

It's currently 12:30 on Tuesday night, I should probably go to sleep. I'm never up this late, but my roomatey Seffi and I took long naps today so we're not that tired.

I started to choose my classes today for the fall semester at Hebrew U! I'll let you guys know when the decisions are final.

I'm going to go to sleep now, I'm tired.

Talk soon,

Josh