Josh's Israel Adventure

Pesach Vacation and more Yerucham stuff

2010-04-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone-

Sorry I don't really write anymore. The problem is is that nothing really happens here that is really writing worthy. But I'll give an update anyway.

Two weeks ago, I went back to America (yea, I know, thats writing worthy) Long story short, I went to the CFJE Annual dinner which honored my dad. I made a speech there. It was fun.

Then I watched a lot of March Madness. My bracket is terrible.

Then I went to the AIPAC Policy conference in DC. It was very educational, saw some amazing speakers such as Hilary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu, and had a ton of fun.

Last week was Pesach break. The family came to the holy land, and we toured around the country for a bit. We started in Tel-Aviv, had seder in Holon (a northern suburb) with Tyler, Roee, Mor and Mor's sister+boyfriend, the chilled on the beach the next day while Daniel played in the water. We then traveled to Tiberous and then Jerusalem where we spent a lovely Shabbat and double Chag at the Citadel. Tyler and Shira joined us for Shabbat at the Citadel as well, which was a lot of fun.

OK, time for Ma'ariv. Sorry I'm a terrible blogger. I'll post something awesome soon, promise.

-Josh

Remember when I blogged???

2010-03-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

Yea OK so I realized I didn't finish Italy, I have it written down its just really annoying to type it all out. I'll post it all soon.

So here's the reason why I havn't been blogging nearly as much as I did first semester: I'm not really doing much. Wanna know what I've been up to the last 3 weeks? Read on...

We arrive in Yerucham. I'm in an apartment with Joey and Tyler (roommates) and Eric, Kowler and Reuben (apartmentmates). We cook our own food: last week's dinners included chicken fried rice, baked mac and cheese, breakfast for dinner aka waffels, french toast and omelets, and schnitzel. We also make lunch for ourselves. I usually make some grilled cheese (or as tyler likes to call it, grilled chai. don't ask me why.) or some sandwich. pretty basic.

I volunteer at an elementary school 4 days a week, Sunday-Thursday excluding Tuesday (Yom Nativ.) Yom Nativ is similar to erev nativ but its all day instead of just at night. and "we plan it" which means the staff tells us we plan it but in reality they change anything they dont like. its really cool but that last part makes it kind of lame. Anyway, I work different times each day, but my work day roughly goes from around 8:30-1:30. I never work all the way through, no more than 4 classes/day and each class is 45 minutes long. Sunday, for example, I work from 11-1:30. OK, so then I come back home, Joey is usually back by then, and Tyler either doesnt have work cause he only works twice/week at the yeshiva and we hang out for a little bit. Joey goes on a run, and I go on a bike ride. He gets back before me, takes a shower, then I get back, take a shower (because we're both afternoon shower-ers now. Most people are either evening or morning, but were afternoon. because we can!) Then, we usually will go to the park with a blanket and meet up with some people or just sit. Joey reads and I either read/play guitar/write music. That goes until around 4:30. We go back home, and just do nothing til arund 5:30 when Tyler gets home and says "what are we doing for dinner????" well we always forget about dinner, so then we go to the supersol grocery store and buy dinner. from around 6-7:30 is making/eating dinner. 9 is Ma'ariv at the local shul, Akafim. it's optional, but its legitimately the only way that I see half the Nativers daily, and thats extremely generous. If people don't go to ma'ariv, and there more that don't than do, and I don't work with them, chances are good that I could no see them for days on end. After ma'ariv, the night officially starts. Wednesday nights are poker nights (where I won last week!), monday is usually everyone hangs out night because yom nativ is the next day, and other nights are just random whatever we feel like doing nights.

Everything closes in Yerucham around 8, with the supersol closing at 8:30. the town is quiet by 9:30. no joke.

so yea, thats my life the last 2 weeks. I'm currently on leadership seminar, its awesome so far. I'm back at Beit Nativ!!! but not in the Pirates Cove. :( sad face. I'll update more later.

With love,

Josh

Italy 2010: FLORENCE!!

2010-02-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

After missing our train to Lecce, we were all pretty bummed about not being able to go to “the Florence of the south.” Gabe was especially upset because Lecce is where his dad was born. We boarded the train to Florence at 9:30, and arrived at 12:30. We got off the train, and I immediately called Debbie, in the girls group, to see which hostel they were staying at. Besides the obvious problem of wasting money on train reservations and buying new train tix, we didn’t have a hostel booked for that night either. they were staying at some hostel near the train station, and Debbie told me it was nice. I followed Rachel’s directions from the train station towards the hostel just long enough to get us completely lost. Adam took over, and after circling a few more times, we eventually made it to the train station. Luckily, they had rooms available. We split up three and four, with Seffi, Seth and I taking the three. The hostel was nice as the girls said, nothing super fancy but not bad. There was a computer in each room with super slow internet, which was nice. It also had free wi-fi throughout. We put our stuff down and went to find some lunch. Of course, we ended up at another pizza place! As expected, the pizza was very tasty and overpriced. After pizza and gelato for dessert, Adam and Gabe, still in chronic depression from missing Lecce, went back to the hostel to chill out. the five of us went for a walk.

We started at the Duomo. The duomo was beautiful and huge, but was closed due to mass. That was a familiar story. We then made our way to the David statue. The David was unbelievably breathtaking. After admiring the statue for a long time, and seeing the rest of the statues, Seth came over to me and said, “Josh, there’s a musical instrument section! Have you seen it?” I almost full-on sprinted to find it. I walked in and was greeted by a huge, 14^th, century harpsichord. ‘So THAT’S what a harpsichord looks like,’ I thought to myself. It was pretty small, but stil amazing. There were a few super old cellos, violas, violins, horns, trumpets, trombones, drums, clarinets, serpents, flutes and pianos on display as well. Also, there was a real Stradivarius violin on display! Mr. Brame, my band director from high school, talked all about these ultra-rare and expensive violins during music theory class. It was a fantastic experience at the museum.

After, we made our way back to the Duomo, a church that took 140 years to build! According to Ricky, it is the 3^rd largest church in the world! Next to the Duomo was a Ben and Jerry’s store. I freaked out a little bit when I saw it (I LOVE Ben and Jerry’s!!) anyway, the Duomo was still closed, either due to Mass or just because they’re mean. Whatever.

Next, we went searching for the Jewish Ghetto section of Florence. It took way longer than it should have, but we found it. The synagogue looked sooooo cool. Unfortunately, it too was closed. So I was only able to get some pictures from behind the gate. It was depressing that it was closed, but still cool that we saw it. Then, we followed Nadav back to the hostel. We were all pretty tired from waking up at 6AM. Adam, Nadav and I watched zombieland in the room. It was pretty gruesome, but really funny as well. Ban hour and a half of relaxing was alli needed to get my energy back. I needed it because that night was round 2 of fancy dinner night with Adam and Gabe.

The three of us left the hostel around 8. We walked down the street for about 15 minutes before finding a cool looking lace called Ciro and Sons. It was sooooo good, and the atmosphere was great too. We enjoyed another fantastic 4-course meal. Before we knew it, literally, it was 10:30 PM and we were sitting at dinner wondering where the night went. We made it back to the hostel by 10:50.

Gabe and I wanted to walk around the city, and Joey and Seth decided to join us in the excursion around Florence I really just wanted to see Florence at night. Unlike Rome that had a distinct main street, we didn’t know if there was a main street in Florence. We quickly discovered that Florence was not anything like Rome. It didn’t matter though, we wandered in and out of random convenient stores, candy shops and other random places. We even ended up back at the Duomo during the night. We walked back to the hostel and were asleep by 12:30.

Day 8:

Wake up at 9. We enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hostel with the girls group considering we were at the same hostel. We said good-bye to them and were out the door by 10. We said bye to the girls and made our way to the Leonardo Di Vince museum. At the door, Adam and Gabe split up from us to go see the David. Us five entered the museum. It was three rooms full of his inventions. As I walked in, I heard a familiar voice. I instantly recognized it, but refused to believe it. I turned the corner to see Asaf and Jesse looking at some display. The whole other guys group just happened to be at the same museum as us. We explored the small museum, played with the inventions together, and were the only people there the whole time. I really enjoyed hanging with them again;. Jesse and I caught up a little bit as well. After about an hour of messing around there, we said bye to the group and made our way back to the hostel to get our bags. We met up with Adam and Gabe at 11:45, and got to the train station by 12:05. We had already reserved seats for the train that morning. I grabbed some more Italian pizza and headed to the train where, as I’m writing this (not typing it, obviously), I am sitting next to Gabe. We’re rockin’ out to our own personal The Who marathon from my iPod (and, as I’m typing this, was more fun listening to them on the train then when they played at the superbowl…. Ouch!)

Tonight is Shabbat in Venice. Should be a good time. I’ll write more later!

-----Now in real time: HI!!! We finally arrived in Yerucham. I’ll write more later, btu I don’t wanna distrupt this flow of blog posts about Italy. We moved in to Yerucham two days ago, and since then have done…. Not much productive. We shopped 4 times, have soooooo much food, have cooked some pasta

Italy 2010: SORRENTO, NAPLES AND POMPEII

2010-02-01T10:44:00.001-08:00

DAY FIVE:

We decided during one of our many pre-italy meetings not to go to Florence and to go to Sorrento instead. Sorrento is this cool coastal town in southeast Italy. We chose Sorrento because Florence was supposedly extremely expensive, and Adam thought Sorrento was going to be really cool. Also, it was on the way to our next destination: Lecce (located on the southern most tip of the boot of Italy).

We boarded a train from Rope at the Termini to Naples. We about a 20 minute layover in Naples, but we used that time to get our Naples pass, good for Naples and Pompeii. It is very similar to the Roma pass. The train took about 45 minutes to get to Pompeii. Once in Pompeii, we stored our bags at the train station and searched for some delicious Pompeian pizza. There were a bunch of pizza stands lined up, and after turning every owner down at least once, one guy told us that he would prove to us why his pizza is the best. He brought me down personally to the kitchen. He showed me how he makes the pizzas fresh and that makes them better. That bought him 7 pizzas from us.

After lunch, tour guide Adam (and Ricky Steves) lead us on a tour through the Pompeii. The tour took two hours. We saw basically a really old city, made completely of rocks, that Pompeians lived in thousands of years ago. I’ll post some pics of that as well. The end of the tour ended at a cool coliseum. There, we took a little ciesta. I was, of course, the first one to get bored, so instead of napping, I ran and jumped onto where the coliseum goes up. everyone else quickly realized what I was doing and wanted to join. Nadav was the first one to get up because he was really tall. Everyone else wondered how I made it up there. I used my “jumping over walls” skills I aquired at gadna to get up and over the wall. I had to teach the others how to do it properly. Eventually, we all made it up. it was pretty cool

We left the ruins and reboarded the train going the same direction as before. Pompeii is almost exactly halfway between Naples and Sorrento.

Once we arrived in Sorrento, we did the usual getting lost for some time before finally realizing where we were going. Eventually, we reached the “deluxe hostel.” Let me tell you, it was probably the nicest hostel in the entire world. it looked like a up-scale hotel, but was the same price as all the other hostels we had stayed at. We had our own rooms. I roomed with Seth, Seffi and Joey. WE had our own shower, beds (no bunkbeds which was nice), free wifi, and a big TV! We walked downstairs to find the hostel also connectied to what seemed like the community pool. We didn’t end up swimming, but we could have if we wanted to.

Gabe, Nadav and I left a little later to hit up the grocery store. I had the great idea to but some Italian cheese and crackers as a snack. What an idea it was. The Italian cheese was so delicious!

After our grocery store run, we went to find dinner. What did we have for dinner you ask? Of course, we had pizza! A bunch of us ended up getting pasta and the pizza place though. I got gnocci, sooooooo good.

After, we went back to the hostel and watched district 9 on Adam’s computer. We went to sleep after it ended, around midnight.

Day SIX:

We slept in a bit the next day, and ended up leaving around 10:40. We took a train at 11 to Naples where we saw the famous archeological museum. It was really cool, but very similar to the Rome national museum.

After, we heard from Rick that the best pizza place in all of Italy is in Naples. Well, we couldn’t pass that up for lunch! As we made our way over to the pizza place, I quickly learned that Naples is dirtyyyyyyyyyyyy, but very alive. It’s a very interesting city. I woudnl want to stay there overnight, so I’m glad we only took a day trip. Rick’s pizza place had a line out the door and onto the street Rick mentioned that in his book as well. He said that the best pizza place in Italy had a “rival pizza store.” We figured the rival had to be good if it was the rival, so we decided to go there. Still fantastic pizza, quite possibly the best pizza on the whole trip. After lunch, I basically had given up hope of going to My. Thesevious, an inactive volcano in Pompeii because no one else really wanted to go as basd as I did or pay for it (it required taxi’s, buses and an entrance fee.) that was really sad. I don’t wanna talk about it. it was already getting dark at that point, so we decided to go back to Sorrento. Before we went to the station, we stopped by the “best hot chocolate in the world,” Illy hot chocolate. It lived up to the hype for sure

Once in Sorrento, we went back to the same place as the previous evening. We were regulars there, basically. I got pasta again, and it was till amazing. We thanked the owner and chef for a second great meal and went to wander around Sorrento. We went through the main square, and this place that seemed like the Sorrento version of the shuk. We ended up at the beach, which was spectacular. It was getting late that this point, but we didn’t want to call it a day yet. We went to a karaoke bar where we sung a ton of The Beatles and Elton John. We expected the karaoke bar to be just some guy sitting with a karaoke machine and hoping the three people the bar will want to sing a song. We were pretty much right. There was a big screen displaying the words for us to read, and whever we stopped singing, he took over. After we were singing without mics for about 10 minutes, he brought one over to us. When he turned on Billy Joel, we all went nuts. He was basically a professional karaokeist. Funny we left around 12:30 and got back to the hostel after.

To Lecce (Florence):

DAY SEVEN:

We woke up at 6, and left the hostel by 7. We were at the strain staion by 7:15. We neded to be at the naples Train staion by 8:50 to catch our triain to Lecce. Every time we had taken the train in the past, it didn’t take more than an hour to get to Naples. We gave ourselves plento of time just in case the train was running a little late.

A little late is an understatement. It was 45 minutes longer than we expected. We got off the train at 8:53, and sprinted through the whole terminal to our train. I think I knocked down at least 3 people during the sprint with my huge ski bag. It was crazy and a little fun, but it ended in failure. We missed our train to Lecce by exactly 3 minutes, even when it left late. We decided to go to Florence instead.

Italy 2010: ROME

2010-01-31T05:22:00.000-08:00

Departing Beit Nativ:

My Italy group consisted of Me, Joey, Seth, Seffi, Adam, Nadav, and Gabe. We had many, many meeting in the months leading to the trip.

We left Beit Nativ at 2:05 AM. The seven of us teamed up with the Judah Italy group of three (Judah, Adam and Ben) to take a shereut (taxi) together to the airport. We arrived in record time, walking into the airport at exactly 2:37 AM. We skipped some lines by saying we were a “group” and made it into the main terminal. I went to a cool little resturant and had some pasta at about 3:30 AM. We all hung out with all the groups. There are 5 groups in Italy right now. Throughout these series of blog posts, I'll be referring to groups by names so I don't need to say each person every time. So, future reference, there is us 7 (my group, or just "us"), the “other boys group” (Jesse, Jonny, Aaron, Max, Asaf and Brian), the “girls group” (Jordana, Ariella, Adina, Debbie and Rachel) the Judah group (Judah, Adam and Ben) and the "other girls group" (Stephanie, Becca, Rhyan, Ariel and Sara). We all hung out for a little while, and eventually made our way to the gate. I lied down on the floor at the gate, slept for about 15 minutes, and at 6 AM, boarded the plane to Italy. I sat next to Gabe, in front of Jesse and had a window seat. I don’t even remember take-off. After the flight attendant checked us in and sat down, I put my chair back, put my head against the window and was out. Italy had just begun.

DAY ONE: ROME

We got off the pane around 9 AM. 1/4 of Nativ was on this plane. We all went directly to the baggage claim. While we were waiting for our bags, Seffi broke up our 8th man for the next 2 weeks: Rick Steve's Guidebook to Italy 2007. We all crowded around him (the book) as we began to read through the book. We all collected our bags and read about this "Rome Pass" thing. We wandered the Rome International Airport after, searching for ATM's and a "tourist information" booth (because they spoke English and Rick Steves said to). the TI told us to buy a Roma pass to make things less expensive. The Roma pass only 18 Euro, gets us two free admissions to muesems, and unlimited free rides on the metra and beses throughout rome for 3 days. As we made this decision to buy the Roma pass, I looked over at the other boys group was also reading Rick, but their version was 2010. Grr...

After getting the Roma pass, we said goodbye to the other boys group because they knew where to go and we didn’t. we asked around, and eventually found out the best way to get to the Termini was by raild. We walked towards the Metra station when we were approached by a man who said, “eh, want to go to the termini? Only 8 Euros!” Well, the metra would have beenn 12, so obviously we took the bus. Who did we find already on the bus? The other boys group. It wasn’t long before the bus left, and I drifted into a good nap.

I woke up after about 10 minutes. There was beautiful Italian fields all aaorund me, the sky was blue, and most of our group was awake and talking. Next to me, seffi was reading Ricky Steves. We decided on a few things asa group on the bus. We needed to get toas many mesdems as we could because they were all discounted in Rome (due to the Roma pass) and Ricky says they are awesome. Second, we needed to see the Vatican, and third we needed a tentative plan of what to do in the upcoming 4 days of Rome.

We arrived at the Termini around noon. We bid farewell to the other guys group, and started the treck to find our first hostel, hostel “freestyle.” We had no idea wher it was, only that “it’s close to the termini.” FYI, the Termini is the central train station in Rome with a fancy name (and a cool one at that). Not more than 10 minutes after wandering though rome did gabe and I get separated from the group. I kid you not. We turned a corner, and they were all gone! Well, af first we were like “oh no this is so bad,” but eventually that turned into “wow this is so awesome!” Instead of staying put and hoping the group would retrace their steps to find us, we began to ask around for TI booth. They would tell us where our hostel is, and we could just meet the group there. I asked some police officers where the TI was. He mumbeled something in Italian, and pointed at a circular kiosk in the distance, 2 blocks away. We thanked him and headed that way. It was my first adventure of Rome. Gabe said to me, “man, we shoulda got lost sooner!”

After finding the TI, and the group along the way, we realized that they didn’t know where the hostel was anymore than we did. “Well,” Gabe said, “Josh and I know, becaue we got lost!” We used the TI’s info to find the hostel. We arrived at the hostel, and immediately went out to get our first Italian meal of the trip. The hostel owner told us there was a lot of cheap pizza near the termini. Perfect. We found this great pizza place that sold ¼ of a pie for only 3 euros. The food was amazing! After lunch, we set our sights on the first sight of the day: the Colosseum.

Nadav was our Navigator. He took out the map that Gabe and I took from the TI. He didn’t quite know how to read Italian maps, but pointed in the “general direction of it.” We figured the Colosseum couldn’t be hard to miss. I opted for the scenic route through the park.We were running all around, talking, taking pictures, and having a really good time. All of a sudden, Seth said, “guys, look there’s the Colosseum!” we all looked in awe at the collessel Roman Colosseum. We walked down and out of the park. There was a pretty big intersection in front of us. It was pretty crazy that the Coloesseum was in the middle of a major intersection and not a majestic field, or a crater, or a volcano, or something else glamorous. Joey said, “wow, people probably drive here everyday!” tha’s pretty strange to think about. We walked around the Colosseum, and say a bunch of people dressed up as Gladatiors. They wanted 30 Euros for one picture! Absurd (45 US dollars). The Colosseum was absolutely MASSIVE!!! It was one of the most spectacular things I’ve eery seen. I can’t really describe it in words, so I’ll post some pics of it when I get the cable in a few days.

After the Coloesseum, it was time to get ready for SHABBAS IN ROME! Seffi had ben talking with the Chabad Rabbi in Rome about being hosted for Shabbas dinner that night. The Rabbi said he only had room for 4 of us, and not all 7. Seffi, Joey, Nadav and I decided we would take the 4 spots. We all agreeded on it. We went ot the room, and after 5 minutes there, Judah’s group walks in! they had the room next to ours. Crazy., they also were being hosted for dinner. We all got changed, and the 7 of us (us 4 plus Judah, Adam and Ben) made our way to the synagogue.cNadav lead us there, and we arrived just as Mincha was ending. Perfect timing.

We sat down. I was so excited for an amazing Italian Kab Shab. The man who lead Mincha stepped down, and a boy, probably about 15, stepped up. Kah Shab started. We skipped the first 3 prayers, did L’cha Dodi (kind of), and went straight to Ma’ariv. Wow, all in about 7 minutes. I loked over at Joey. He was just as confused as I was. Ma’aric was very similar. The boy chanted, and everyone else listened. It was a Sfardi Shul, obviously, and they sang in a very Sfardic tone. 36 minutes after we arrived, it was over. Shortest Friday night service. Ever.

After it was over, we found the Rabbi and asked where to go for dinenr. He told us the host didn’t end up showing up to services and we need to find it alone. He gave us an address “Via , 7”and pointed down the street. “Shabbat shalom” he said. We left, confused, and hoping Nadav could navigate us there. As we wre leaving, another man approached us. “Via?” he asked. “I can tell you how to get there (but he said that in Hebrew)

(Here's the new part):

We responded (also in Hebrew) “OK, thanks.” He gave us detailed but confusing directions from the synagogue to the apartment. We thanked him and left.

We walked (the 4 of us now) onto via Natzionale street. It was a pretty major street with lots of people, stores, music, gelato stores, etc. it was the 3^rd major street (according to my previously mentioned criteria for a major street) that I had already seen in Rome. Rome was awesome. All the buildings were magnificent and old. we walked one direction for about 10 minutes, knowing that we needed to eventually needed to make a left. We didn’t see Via. I decided to ask someone for directions. I asked a random women. She didn’t know. I then asked a random man, and he also didn’t know. I asked a third random man, and he pointed in the opposite direction with his cigarette in hand. We thanked him and wandered that way for about 15 minutes before asking someone new. This man was selling nuts on the corner. He pointed down the adjacent side street. We looked, and in the distance we saw a parralel street to Natzionale. It was Via ! Of course, the one thing the guy forgot to include in his directions is that wasn’t off of the major street. We found number 17. It was an apartment building. The family was on the top floor. Great. We strated the trek, passing 3 hotels, the international American University in Rome, two banks and a retail on the way up. it wasn’t until the 7^th floor that we started to see residential names on doors.

We knocked on the door. A woman opened the door, smiled, and invited us in. the apartment was absolutely beautiful. There were a ton of huge (and probably really expensive) paintings, bookshelves, couches, flowers, and Judaic material. She invited us to sit on the couch (whispering) until her husband got back from shul. He was actually there. Awesome. While sitting on the couch for 45 minutes, we were actually just talking about the spectacular apartment (flat) that we were sitting in. eventually, the husband, Vito, arrived. He invited us in to the dining room they all spoke English well enough to hold a conversation, but the wife spoke the best. They were all very welcoming and nice. Vito also invited one of his friends to dinner, and they had a 16 year old son named David (pronounced the Hebrew way). We made Kiddush, washed, Motzei, and got ready for what looked like an amazing meal to come.

At first, it was a little awkward because of the obvious language barrier between us and them. Vito was a great conversationalist in Italian, but none of us knew any conversational Italian. Eventually, we just talked among ourselves (for the most part) and they talked among themselves. Dinner was fantastic, all 5 courses. Afterwards, we sang Zmiros (songs), during which Vito was obviously impressed that a bunch of Americans knew the same songs he did and sang them well. During dessert, the wife turned to us and said “so you’re coming back tomorrow at one, OK?” Seffi replied, “Is that ok, can we come back?” She said, “Why of course you’re coming back. Be here at one, and bring your other three friends. I don’t know why the Rabbi told you we could only have four, we could have had more.” I guess its expected to have dinner and lunch at the same place when you are hosted in Rome. Fine with me! the food was great and they were all fun to be with. Its also really convient that they live right in the middle of town, and only 15 mins from our hostel. Four hours after we arrived, it was time to go. The wife gave us good instructions on how to get back to the Termini. We thanked them for dinner and left. On the way home, we diverged from the route a little bit to see this cool, illuminated fountain in the distance. We made it back to the hostel, told the other 3 about our lunch plans, and got to sleep. It was a great day one in Rome.

DAY TWO:

We woke up at 8:30 for our free breakfast through the hostel.it was stale cornflakes, warm mild and hard bread. Yum. It got the job done. We got dressed into our Shabbas clothes, not to go back to shul, but to avoid needing to come back to the hostel before lunch. We grabbed our Roma passes and made our way to the Roman National Mueseum. It was about 10 mins away, towards the family’s house sort of. It was filled with a ton of statues, figures, coins, paintings and mosaics. It was super duper cool. That took about an hour. We then went to show the rest of the group our cool fountain that we found the night before. That brought us to about noon. Well, we needed to do something that would kill an hour. How do a bunch of teenagers in downtown Rome kill time? Well, we were wandering down Natzionale street when we found this clothing store. We spent about 35 minutes there playing dress up, and having Adam and Seth take picutes. I tried on many fancy jackets, hats and scarves. I’ll post some pics; they’re pretty funny. Afterwards, we walked down Natzionale street toward the family. We ended up timing it perfectly, knocking on the door at exactly one.

We were greeted by the women, but instead of whispereing to us and inviting us to the couch, she invited us directly to the dining room. We put our jackets down on the couch in the foyar. I saw a bunch of other jackets already on the couch. They all looked oddly familiar for som reason. I quickly received my answer when I heard a “aww… no way!” from the dining room. The other guys group was already sitting at the table. Well, that was an extremely pleasant surprise. We were all in disbelief. The family seemed very surprised that we knew each toerh. We explained that we wer on the same program back in Jeruslame. Imagine those odds: we just so happened to be hoseted bu the same family on Shabbas a fternoon in Rome. It was crazy.

The lunch was a lot of fun. I loved every minute of the two hours we spent having lunch. Aaron explained to us that they weren’t invited back as we were, so they went to shul that morning. After the service, they asked the Rabbi to get hosted. He said no, but the guys were approached by the dad after and invited over. Small world right? After lunch we sang zmiros again, only this time, people out on Natzionale street probably heard us singing. We were so loud. Vito would start a song, and we would instandyly take over. After Y’did Nefesh, a song that we sang particularly loudly and with ruach, there was a great silence in the room. Vito said something in Italian to his friend, and the turned to us. “that was amazing,” he said. “you all deserve some of my whiskey for that! Please!” we all looked around in amazement. That’s like a big deal, especially in Europe, having the host give 13 guests some of his 21 year old, super expensive whiskey. It was imported all the way from somewhere f ar a way that I don’t remember. It would be rude to say no. Vito made it clear the previous night and during lunch that he loves fancy alcohol. It was a huge honor.

During lunch, Vito treated Brian, a Cohen, like a king for that reason. He had brian make the 2^nd Kiddush and lead the Birkat Hamazon. Jealous. After lunch, Vito said, “we have a minyan, how about Minche?” we davened Minche and then just wandered around his huge apartment for about 45 minutes. We ended up leaving around 4.

After lunch, we walked with the other group to an Irish pub to see if they would play the Vikings game the next night. they said they would, and we agreed to meet up then went straight to the Pantheon, a big circular church in the middle of Rome. It was closed for mass. Near there, Ricky said there was the best gelato store in all of Rome. We checked it out, and it looked awesome. We wount back to the hostel after to get ready for the night. At 7:30, we had some great dinner prepared by the hostel. It was authentiuc pasta in tomato vodka sauce. Mmmm.

After dinner, we left for the Spanish steps to meet up with the girls group. We hung with them for a bit and admired the veiew before ewalking to the largest McDonalds in the world. we met up with the other guys group there too. We made sure to get back early that night, around midnight, to rest up in preparation for a big next day. It was a great 2^nd day in Rome.

DAY THREE:

We transferred hostels by then, and now we were in the Mosasic hostel. This hostel was a little nicer than the freestyle. We left at 10 and headed to another museum. It was cool. After, we decided to go to the Jewish Ghetto to get some kosher food. It took about an hour to walk there. On the way we walked through a different park and near a couple of other huge, majestic buildings. When we were close to the Jewish Ghetto, we noticed a ton of police officers, barriers and newsvans.s we asked one of the police officers what was goingon. He said the Pope was speaking at the great synagogue of Rome that night. we wandered downt the street with all the Kosher resturants, loking for a deli. Eventually we found one. It was decent, not quite worth the hour walk but worth the story and the expericnce. After, we made our way back downt o the Pantheon. It was open this time. the Pantheon is very cool. After, Adam and Gabe left to go back to the hostel. We all met up at the Irish pub and watched the game. We were joined by the other guys group and the girls group. After the game, some of us walked to the Trevi fountain and enjoyed some Gelato. The rest of us walked around, seeing the Trevi fountain and the 4 rivers fountain. Around 11:30, we boarded the metra and went home. Day three: very successful.

DAY FOUR:

We left early from the hostel. We boarded the metra and took it 6 stops to the edge of Roman City limits. We left Rome and entered Vatican City. Seth, Adam and Gabe wanted to go through quicker than us four, so they broke off and headed off in another directions. Us four walked around the Vatican, seeing the Sisteen Chapel and St. Peters Cathedrial, the biggest church in the world. it was MASSIVEE!!!! I’ll post pics for sure. We then made it into this huge square, and Adam couldn’t find us. He got frustrated and left with Seth and Gabe. Us four just wanted to explore, so we lef the Vatican and started to wander around the outskirts of Rome. We had a map but didn’t use it. after about an hour of wandering, we realized that it was time to actually figure out where to go. We traveled the absolute wrong direction. We reached this cool lookout point overlooking the entire city of Rome. We saw Titus’s arch and the Forum. That was near our hostel (kind of), and far off in the distance, we saw the Termini. We decided to just go in that general direction. The only problem is that between us and the city was this forest. We wandered into it. we eventually made it to a fence.

Was this fence going to stop us from getting home? Not a chance. Nadav was the first one over, Seffi and Joey quickly followed suit, and so did I. we found an older couple walking along a path. We asked them how to get out of this place. They told us this was the Rome Botanical Gardens, and they laughed when they figured out we unintentionally broke in there. They pointed us in the right direction. We snuck out the front gate. It was great. We found some random pizza place for lunch, where they actually spoke zero English. We somehow made due, and enjoyed some fantastic pizza.

After leaving, it wasn’t long before we figured out where we were. We were near the Pantheon, and therefore near Gelato de las Palmas. We had to get some Gelato from there, obviously. We did, then hopped a bus back to the Termini.

That night, we went out to the girls part of town. It took a metra and two buses to get there. Geez. We fmet up with them, went to a cool bakery, and eventually ended up going back home and went to sleep. It was a fantastic day, and capped a great first four days in Italy.

Gadna and ITALIA 2010

2010-01-31T05:14:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

As you've probably noticed, I havn't blogged in a very veryyyy long time. 3 weeks ago, I went through Gadna (army training) in Mitzpe Ramon. There was no computer access there. From there, I almost directly went to Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv and started the most amazing 2 weeks of my life in Italy. There was internet access, but it was limited to the point where I couldn't blog while I was there. I didn't really think this one through, because I left my computer at home for break. But HAVE NO FEAR! I wrote down my blog posts on paper (yea, I know, talk about the 1600's) while in Italy in this journal I bought there. So, in the following couple of days, I'll write what I wrote while there. If I start talking in present tense, such as "Wow, the mountains are so cool!" or something like that, I'm not actually in Italy while typing that, but I was while writing it. Just to clarify.

Also, when they open storage on Wednesday, I'll get the cord to connect my camera to my computer to upload pics.

SO! Stay tuned for Days 1-4, Jan 15-18: ROME

I'll write about Gadna after I finish Italy, don't worry.

-Josh

HI

2010-01-29T01:48:00.000-08:00

OOOK so I just got back from Italy, and before that I was at Gadna for a week, so I'm sorry for not blogging for basically the whole month of January. But posts will come soon! Have no fear.

Josh

The Beginning of the Middle

2010-01-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

WELLLLLL

So I realize that I've been pretty inconsistent about blogging later, and I have good reason for it. Let me try to explain. It's not that I don't want to blog, far from it, its that my schedule has been incredibly inconsistent. Unfortunately, it isn't going to get any better until probably the second week of February. I'll give one good story though.

Monday January 4th was my last day of final exams. I had the Society and Politics final. It was actually pretty easy. I even got Omri Casspi into the essay I wrote about Arab (in)equality in Israel. It was pretty awesome (if you don't know who that is, google him. He's my HERO). I woke up around noon, printed out my Talmud essay, and met up with Joey in the lobby. We hopped a 19 to school. For the last month, I've had this rule not to use my iPod on the bus to and from school. I feel that I should get as much out of Jerusalem in my finals days here. Joey and I take the bus together a lot, so we just talked for the 45ish minute bus ride. We got off the bus, and make a schedule for the next hour or so. We needed to get our transcript forms completed for colleges, go to the business school to get the package the Dekalo's left there for me, and turn in our Talmud essay.

First, we walked the longer way because it was such a nice day outside. There was no rush, and we took advantage of the beautiful view of East Jerusalem and the warm sun in January (it was about 65 degrees F. Be jealous). We walked to the Rothberg library first. We had the libranians check to make sure we didn't have any overdue books. Also, Joey had Rachel's account checked out as well because she was leaving for Poland that night and didn't get a chance to go in herself. They checked all three of us out, printed some forms saying we were good, and instructed us to go upstairs to actually get our transcripts sent.

We walked up four flights of stairs (who takes the Rothberg elevator???) to room 426. There, we turned in our form. I had transcripts sent to Illinois, Indiana and three to my parents. There are five free transcripts through Rothberg, so I figured why not. My dad would probably find it funny. We thanked the women, and then asked her for directions to the business school. The directions were pretty vague, but it amounted to "go that way."

We went into the forum (middle of Hebrew U campus) and instead of going the normal way, straight, we made a right into the "school of social sciences." We wandered aimlessly until we arrived to a staircase. We knew her office was on the 4th floor, and by then we saw the word "economics" and "finance" everywhere, so we figured we were in the B-school by then. Let me tell you, Rothberg doesn't feel too much like what I think college should feel like. This school definitely did. There were a ton of students and professors walking around, lets of cool little hangout areas. We searched all around the 4th floor until we found her office hiding in a little corner. I walked in, and told her who I was. She gave me the awesome headphones my parents got for me (thanks mom!!). We thanked her, and left. Joey and I were both very happy that in our final Hebrew U experience, we finally got to see some other school besides the International School. It was great. Happy and hungry, we boared the 19 back to Jlem. After about 1 minute, I realized what we forgot. I turned to Joey and said, "we never turned in our Talmud essay." Joey's face turned from content to frustration. We hit the stop button as the overcrowded-Jerusalem bus halted to a stop at the bus stop. Why would anyone get off when the bus hasn't even left campus yet? Because two stupid Nativers forgot to turn in their essays, thats why. Well, Joey was pretty unhappy with himself. He said, "obviously you're going to forget, your memory is terrible (it's true, my memory is pretty bad. Just ask my roommatey). But, how did I forget!?" We walked the long way, not by choice this time, and made it back to room 426, the transcript room and where we were supposed to turn in our Talmud paper.

The women there was a little confused, for good reason, and we thanked her after. Our plan was to get 25 shekel pizza on King George street, then go to the Shuk to by gummies, and then return to base. Instead, we stopped at B52, a really good schwarma place in the forum. It ended up not being so bad because the schwarma was just soooooooo good.

From there, we made haste to the Shuk. We bought some gummies from the gummy guy. Buying gummies is fun because you put on a glove, and just reach into endless boxes of gummies, grab some, and put them into your bag. The guy weighs you bag, and you pay based on weight. It was great. I got 11 shek worth of gummies, and it'll probably last me for more than a week. :) On our way back, I spotted a fruit-smoothie bar. I really wanted a strawberry smoothie, and they prepared it for me on the spot (with orange juice.) Phenomenal. So good. We walked back to base, happy that a frustrating mistake turned into a fun adventure.

the next day, Joey (again), Ariella, Zoe (not a nativer, Ariella's friend) and I went on an adventure. We walked to the famous Jerusalem bridge, walked across it, and walked back. It may seem like a pretty lame story, but it was super fun. We just walked though almost all of downtown Jerusalem, which is sooooooooooooooo big. It was the first time in a while, as Joey pointed out, that we went walking "just to walk." Yea, we had a destination but the goal wasn't to just go over it and back. We took a few long cuts, went over it and then back over it again. Eventually, Ariella and Zoe decided to go shopping. That's lame, so Joey and I walked back to base together. It was all-in-all a three hour excursion, and super fun. It goes along with my goal of making the most of Jerusalem because before I know it, I'll probably be sitting here blogging every 5 seconds cause there will be nothing more to do in Yerucham.

Ok time to go!!! Love much

Josh

Sderot Rally for Hope!!!

2010-01-03T15:46:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

On Thursday, Dec 31, I attended a rally in Sdereot. The goal of this rally was to convey to the world that Hamas needs to stop firing rockets at Sdereot citizens and children immediately. I'll write about it more tomorrow, I need to go to sleep now, but check out some articles about it.

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3828008,00.html

This one is the best, look for me, Aaron and Max in a picture!!

Here's more places the rally showed up:

1) CNN:http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/31/gaza.march/Protestors Rally to End Economic Blockade of Gaza
*Towards end of article

2) The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101935.html

3) Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1231/In-Israel-embattled-Sderot-comes-back-to-life-after-rocket-barrages-of-Gaza-war

4) New York Times:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/world/middleeast/01gaza.html
*Towards end of article

5) ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/meta/search/imageDetail?format=plain&source=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2Fimages%2FInternational%2Fa26d64e2-1c64-4d4c-9b35-1bcd5fa4275c

US National Public Radio (NPR):http://topics.npr.org/article/0bzU5tZdTpd9w

6) AP Photos of Rally: http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=MIDEAST%20ISRAEL%20PALESTINIANS&showact=events&prds=10135&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1262277611&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

7) Reuters Photos: http://www.daylife.com/photo/01Er9KQ2hz8I3

8) Jerusalem Post Video: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1194419829128&pagename=JPost%2FPage%2FVideoPlayer&videoId=1261364567946

9) Jerusalem Post articles:

1) Hundreds Protest Israel's Gaza Policies as Sderot Rally Releases Peace Balloons: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364566077&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2) Sderot children send New Year's Message to Gaza:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364566089&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Israeli Press Coverage

10) Israel National News:http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135296

11) YNet News: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3828052,00.html

12) Israel Channel 1 (Hebrew): http://www.news1.co.il/PageLoad.aspx?adid=5324&pageUrl=Archive/0020-D-225215-00.html?tag=21-16-31

13) YNet News (Hebrew): http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3828008,00.html

Josh

New Years!!!

2010-01-03T06:40:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

New Years here was pretty interesting. For the first time in my life, I didn't see snow before new years. yea its not that big of a deal but it was strange to go out from home on new years in just a Northface jacket. Adam, Seth, Tyler, Hadley, Shira, Rachel, a bunch of other people and I went out to downtown Jerusalem. Shira, Rachel, Tyler and I branched off for a little bit to meet up with Shira and Rachel's friend Mark from school. That took us until around 11. It was soooo late already! I was so used to new years with friends or family, where festivities start around 9. the fact that at 11 we made the decision to meet up with everyone was really strange to me

Around 11:15, we met up with a bunch of other Nativers. We were planning to go into Hertzl (like we always do), but it was a 40 shek entrance fee and by that time, it was almost already new years. Almost everyone showed up (besides Seffi, Gabe and Ariella who insisted on walking through Mamilla mall). Besides them, everyone and I mean EVERYONEEE was there.

I've never seen so many people in downtown Jerusalem before! There were literally hundreds and hundreds of people! It's tourist season so it was veryyyy crowded.

We walked to the bottom of Ben Yahudia street, and instead of the normal "Rabbi Nachman" van there blasting music, there was a DJ booth and a Rabbi Nachman guy DJing through some speakers. it was alike a mini dance club in the middle of the street. it was awesome

Today, I had my Silicon Wadi final. It was soooo much writing. It was a 5 question exam, but some of the questions had multiple parts. You know how that goes. Afterward, Joey, Aaron, Jesse and I decided to walk back to base. Mount Scopus isn't in Jerusalem, its right outside. It was a fantastic 58 minute and 47 second walk (I timed it). I'll post pic's later.

NBA Finals tonight!!! Get stoked.

For all that were at IC, hope it was amazing!!

Josh

Week Update: Dec 20-26

2009-12-27T03:15:00.000-08:00

Hi!

Wow, I haven't written in while! It's been a veryy long time. Sorry about that.

Nothing too exciting has happened in the last 11 days. Lets see....

I spent the last Shabbat on base with Seffi. His grandma and uncle were in town so I went to dinner with them. The next day, I just hung around base. I went to Shira Hadasha in the morning with some people. Standard services, nothing extra special. The Shabbat was pretty fun, and I can't really think right now of anything extra special that took place. I just chilled with a bunch of people that were on base.

The week was pretty standard. Classes were long, and the fact that finals week is looming has been on my mind frequently. I had my first final on Friday, in Ulpan. It was pretty easy, which scares me more because when something is easy it means i may have overlooked something. So hopefully I did well.

The Goldklang family (Mom's brother's family, so first cousins) finally arrived on Wednesday night. Their flight was cancelled and they arrived here 2 days late. Lame. We went out to dinner on Wednesday night at HaShamen, the best Shawarma place in all of Jerusalem (and probably the world.) to my family: sorry I didn't take you there when you were here. I didn't know about it yet :( They loved dinner, and after dinner they went back to the Mamilla hotel to crash. I went out for the normal Nativ Wednesday night hangouts. I wanted my cousin Matt, a sophomore in high school, to come with me to meet the Nativers, but Uncle Bob and Aunt Mia were being super mean and didn't let him go. It was probably a good decision in hinesight because I didn't get to sleep until very late (mostly because I went back to base early to catch up with my good friend Amy on skype) and because I woke up early to get to the Mamilla Hotel at 7:45 AM the next morning for breakfast.

Thursday, I joined a group of about 50 people from mostly the San Diego area to Masada for Ari Lew's Bar-Mitzvah. I know this family through the Goldklangs. It was super nice of them to let me join them on Thursday on the bus, touring Masada, etc. The service was a nice reform service. It reminded me a lot of Solel back home, actually. We were greeted immideately after getting off the bus (I slept on the ride literally the entire 2 hours) by two Rabbi Nachman guys. They had HUGE shofars slung over their backs and bongos tethered around their shoulders. They played a little tune for us on the Shofars before rockin' out on the bongos the entire way up the cable car ride and walking across Masada. (Masada is a super big, historical and important moutain/plateau. Look it up if you don't know about it. cool story.)

After Masada, we went to the Ein Gedi restaurant for lunch. It was no Frank Sinatra lunch from Hebrew U, but hey I can admit Frank has spoiled me a little bit. After lunch, at which all the kids (Matt, Cole, the Lew kids, and a bunch of other random kids) were scaring the 20 cats away from our table, we boarded the bus and went back to Jerusalem. I got back around 4. I hung out with the cousins a little bit more, and then headed back to base to get ready for the night. Thursday night was serious. Serious studying for Ulpan the next morning. Allrighttt.

The next day, I was with the cousins again. We were in Mitzpe Ramon, rappelling down the same cliff I did with the family only three weeks before. We also had a cool camel ride through a small part of the desert. We ended in Tel-Aviv. I took a sherut back to Jerusalem. This taxi driver was actually even cooler than the "I'll help you with studying for you ulpan midterm tomorrow" taxi driver. I spoke in Hebrew the entire ride, one full hour. I didn't even feel that constrained with my ability to speak and I understood basically everything he said. It was crazy. We talked about many things. First, about why I was in Tel-Aviv, what I'm doing in jerusalem. Then about Hebrew U, and Nativ, and Israel, and America. Then about Coldplay and The Who, then about his family, then about my day with Mada. He thought that was really cool. It was a very quick hour car ride, and he gave me his number so if I was ever going to do that ride again I could call him. Taxi drivers like to do that, i've learned. To an American, it may sound a little creepy. But here it feels completely normal. I really like the inherent trust between people that exists here.

OK, now sitting in Silicon reviewing for the test next week. It's gonna be SOOOOOO HARD. Wow, I think its over. its exactly 3pm. This class ends at 4. NEW RECORD!!

Miss all of you. Talk soon

Josh

Closed Shabbat in Yerucham

2009-12-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone-

I'm sitting in Silicon right now. Adam and I will soon be presenting our proposal to bring Build-A-Bear Workshop to Israel. Sounds good right?

Lets talk Yerucham (or as they spelled it Yeroham). We (the Kehilah track) woke up early on Friday morning. We departed base in Jerusalem around 10:30, and arrived in Yerucham around 12. Right after arriving, we dropped all our stuff off in our rooms at the hostel and loaded the bus again. We got to choose our rooms, and I roomed with Seffi, Joey and Tyler. Solid room. The bus took us to the Yerucham forest. There's a forest in Yerucham, aka the middle of the desert. Crazy, right? The forest was really nice. We enjoyed lunch there. The staff bought Holy Bagel for us back in Jerusalem. After eating, Tyler took out his frisbee and we played catch. Adam, Asaf and Noah quickly joined us. After lunch, our tour guide led us to the Yerucham pond. (now back at Beit Nativ). The pond was reallyyy cool. I hope that our houses/apartments aren't that far away from it because it would be a really cool hang out spot when we are there. The bus driver decided not to come back for us, so the staff got a mini-bus which took 12 people at a time to shuttle us back to get ready for Shabbat. We arrived with about an hour to prepare.

Shabbat was pretty boring, honestly. We had a lot of sessions with random important people that were talking a lot about Yerucham. They told us stories of how Yerucham got started. What I realized is that Yerucham is basically a top-notch developmental town in the negev. There are stores (a falafel store, a pizza store, a super sol, and a store called "Ha Makom" aka "The Place." I think they could have come up with a more inventive name), streets (there's one main street) and a bunch of parks (the slides are HUGE). I'm excited. On Saturday, we walked around Yerucham and saw one of the houses that we could potentially live in. It was a pretty run down house, but it also fits 10 people and looked pretty spacious. There also was a electric piano just sitting on the porch in front of it. So hopefully Tyler and I can get it to work. That would be great to play when we record the album. That night, we went to a community concert. At first, I wasn't liking the concert because the band was really bad. But then I realized that this concert wasn't for good music. It was supposed to bring the community together. I was sitting with Adam in the middle, and about halfway though the first part of the concert, we got up and started to dance. Nativ was about 1/3 of everyone in the concert hall. At first it was a little awkward, but during the second half when we were all expecting the bad music, Adina, Jonny, Jesse and Asaf joined in the fun. Adam and I went up to the back row to dance with them. Check the picture below.

The next day, we checked out of the hostel and said goodbye to Yerucham. We then visited the Ben Gurion museum. That was pretty boring, and most people fell asleep during the lecturer. We finished off the day with a great but short hike. The trip to Yerucham was really fun!

I also happened to work on the video on both bus rides (2 hours both ways). Speaking of that, we showed it at erev Nativ the other night and everyone really liked it! I'll post it soon, probably closer to when IC starts because I don't want people seeing it before then...

I'll post some pics from the weekend.

OK I think I'm actually all caught up now. Talk soon!

Josh

Seffi (my roommatey) and I hanging on a pole outside of the concert.

the Yerucham Lake

The hike

dancing during the concert

Jesse, Adina, Jonny, Asaf and me (adam was cut out of the picture)

Mada 2nd Post

2009-12-16T03:29:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone--

Sorry I couldn't finish the post before. Talmud class doesn't wait for bloggers :)

Again, you probably shouldn't read if you don't like graphic detail.

OK so I ended with the riot/broken nose guy. Cool. We get a call for another man who had fallen. We rush to his house. When we get there, I took the ambu bag and oxygen tank. Alex took the chair. Yitzack and Shira took the papers and such. We get to the entrance to their apartment and his son is waiting there calling for us. We entered the apartment and saw a man recinding against the bottom of a couch. There were a ton of blankets/sheets/pillows all around him. We took his BP and talked to him about what happened. He said he didn't remember much, but he wasn't feeling well. He was drifting in and out of consciousness. His pupils were extrememly dialated. His blood pressure was rapid and weak. He didn't remember much. Any guesses? Seziure. We got him dressed, and of course against his wishes got him into the chair and out the door. Yitzack and Alex carried him into the ambulance. We transfered him into the bed. We didn't feel he needed to be carried from one to the other, and neither did he. When he stood up, he almost immediately fell down. I caught him before he hit the street. He would have hit it hard. We got him in, flipped on the emergency lights and drove quickly to Terem again. In the drive, he started to become more and more conscious. By the time we got there, he was putting coherent sentences together and didn't even need us to wheel him in the bed into the hospital. When he got to the front desk, he made a huge deal that he was fine and he didn't want to be there. He made Shira call his son, who he thought was his brother, to talk to him in English. The guy wouldn't let her talk in Hebrew for some reason. We left shortly after.

We then got a call for a guy named Danny. Apparently he calls all the time. We get to the house, I start to get the things and get out when Yitzack says "don't worry, he'll get in himself." We saw him walk out of the house, lock the door, walk up the stairs, open the back door of the ambulance, say hello and ask for the classical music station. We brought him to Terem, and he was immediately brought back to his house. It was pretty funny.

He then called again an hour later, and we got him again. This time, he was standing on the corner of the street and fell asleep in the ambulance ride to Terem. He loved the classical music station.

The next guy was the scary one. We get a call for a dehydrated man. I thought "this shouldn't be too hard." Little did I know. He was an 88 year old, ultra-orthodox man. He was sitting on his bed when we went into his room. He skin wasn't pale. It wasn't very pale. It was chalk white. Chalk on a chalkboard white. There were a ton of red/purple/black bloches all over his skin. And his feet were about 3 time as big as they should be. They were both deep purple and extremelyyyyyyy swollen. When I saw them, Yitzack quickly said in a calm voice, and English, "don't react." I tried my best not to. I looked at his arms, shoulders and hands. He literally was skin and bones. You've seen pictures of the starving people in Africa? Try seeing it in real life. He literally looked like a skeleton that was being held somehow by his skin. Yitzack and the helper of the house had to help get him into his diaper before dressing him with new pants and socks. After about 30 minutes with this guy, who ever 5 minutes would say "tzit-tzit kippah, tzit-tzit kippah," we got him into the chair. I took one arm and Alex took the other while transfering him from his bed to our chair. I actually thought his arm was goign to break off when I lifted him. I didn't see any muscle, or veins, or blood running, or anything. His arms were icy, icy cold. He felt like he had just gotten out of a freezer, it was that cold. We had to drive without the emergency lights because he couldn't have taken the sharp turns and such.

When we got him to Terem and transfered him from our bed to the real one, we found that his pants were absolutely soaked and dripped a lot of liquid onto the floor during the transfer. I wondered, "soaked with what?" I looked at the ground between the beds. I looked at the trail we left through the whole hospital. It was a light red color. Blood. He has completely soaked his pants in blood. Our bed was absolutely drenched in it. It took 20 minutes for Yitzack, Alex and I to clean it off. He soaked the sheet cover and the blanket so much that we needed to take a garbage bag from the hospital and leave them in the bag until we got back to the station. This was by far the most traumatizing call of the day. It was also the last.

There's my story. Hope you all enjoyed.

-Josh

First day of Magen David Adom

2009-12-14T01:40:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone---

A lot has happened in the last few days, so it might take me a few posts to write it all. Remember when I said I was done with the IC video? Well..... not really. I think over the last 5 days I've put in probably over 8 hours. I racked those up doing some editing with Ian, then I worked a lot during the closed Shabbat in Yerucham (which I'll cover later) on the bus rides. Plus last night Ian and I got 2 hours in finalizing the music. It's a lot, but it looks great. I'll post it soon.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 10th 2009: A day that I will never forget. Well, I hope not. Before we get to Thursday, lets talk Wednesday. Wednesday, I'm sitting right over there (in the library of Hebrew U, where I'm currently writing this), and I text Nadiv, the staff for Kibbutz. When we finished Mada training, he asked us when we were going to start volunteering in Jerusalem. Everyone gave him an answer. Most people didn't have a desire to volunteer until second semester in Yerucham. I told him that, he said I needed to choose a time while in Jerusalem, so I told him I would on Thursday's after freshman writing ends. I texting him saying "how do I volunteer tomorrow?" he responded with a few phone numbers of Mada staff members saying I should call them.

First, I called Almong. She told me to call Arei. I called Arei. He didnt answer, but called me back an hour later. He told me to call Boaz. I called Boaz. Boaz didn't answer. I waited another hour, and called Boaz back. Still no answer. I called Almong back, and she told me I should talk to Arei again. I called Arei back. No answer. I waited a little longer and called him and Boaz again. Neither answered. I went to Talmud and ISP, waiting for a call. Nothing. I get back home and get a call from Arei around 7:30. He says "I'll call Boaz and call you back in 10 minutes to see if you can volunteer tomorrow morning." Perfect! It took long enough for these guys to get it together. I go to dinner and go out with some Nativers. Before I know it, its 9. Arei hasn't called. I call him and he says "don't worry, I'll text you when I get through to him."

11:30- no call. I call Arei, and he doesn't answer. I call again and still no answer. I call Nadiv and he says "if you go and they say no, at least your making a statement that they are disorganized and they need to get it together. if you go then you might be able to volunteer. if you don't go, then you definitely won't volunteer. Worst comes to worst, you come back to base and go back to sleep." I thought about it while walking back to base. The morning shift starts at 7 AM, so I would need to get up at 6!!!! Thats so early!! Especially for a Thursday morning. I set an alarm for 6 that night, but still didn't know if I would actually get up and go.

I woke up at 6 when my alarm went off, and laid in bed for about 15 minutes deliberating whether to risk it or not. Eventually I decided to get up and call my family to see what I should do. I stepped out of my room to make the call. It was warm, the sky was a little overcast but still nice. It was quiet in the hallway, but the window cracked open so I could faintly hear the traffic on Agron street while I made the call. There was no answer. There was a gust of wind and the window open all the way. The fresh Jerusalem air was delicious. I put my phone away, and got into the shower. When I got out, around 6:30, I realized that I had no breakfast. Breakfast at Agron didn't open until 7, so I was stuck with whatever was around my room. I remember that I bought soup for myself when I was sick a few weeks ago. Ramen would have to do. I got changed into my jeans, Indiana hoodie and the white Mada shirt over it. I took the ramen and went downstairs to the hot water dispenser that we aren't supposed to use. Whatever, that's a dumb rule.

I caught a cab at 6:40, giving myself plenty of time to get to the station. I arrived at 6:49. I walked in to see two people sitting on some chairs in the main lobby. They were wearing sweet blue Mada jackets and pants. I said hello and sat down. There was a boy and a girl. The girl said something to me in Hebrew. I made out the words volunteer, you, now and hi. I tried to say that I am a volunteer and it was my first time. I couldn't really figure it out that early in the morning. The boy then turned to me and said in English, "oh its your first time? that's so exciting. I'm Alex and this is Noa." Phew. Someone spoke English. I started talking with Alex and learned that he's been living in Israel for a little over a year. He is in the army. He is going to be a medic, so he's getting a month of Mada work in (as a medic, not a volunteer) before going back to the army. He is from Georgia, the country not the state. After talking with him for about 10 minutes as random people were coming over and saying hello, the drivers walked in. One woman asked Alex to be in her ambulance. I told Alex before that that we should be together. I didn't know if anyone else spoke English and I really don't like being behind the language barrier. Especially on my first day of Mada. He said it was a good idea, but unfourtunately it didn't work out. A man named Yitzack walked in and asked in perfect English if I wanted to be in his ambulance. I quickly agreed. Noa also agreed. She is also an army medic getting training in Mada. She didn't speak any English.

At 7, Noa and I went out to the ambulance to begin checking it. We spend literally 45 minutes checking to make sure all the supplies were there. She explained the purpose of everything to me in Hebrew. I caught about half of it. Then, Yitzack and a woman named Shira got into the front two seats. Shira went over the checklist with us. Her English was also perfect. I was soooo relieved. Shira took the lists and us to the warehouse. There, a man named Boaz gave us towels and blankets (the missing items in the Ambulance). I believe its the same Boaz, but I'm not sure. We got into the Ambulance, Yitzack turned it on and we started to drive. I thought to myself, "we're already going?" We got onto a main road, and he flipped on the sirens! They were realllyyy loud. We then drove through some intersections, went on the wrong side of the road, crossed over some barriers, went over the sidewalk onto main streets and sped like no other before going back to HQ. It was just a test run. Wow.

Noa showed me her office in HQ, and we got Cariot (a yummy cereal) to snack on while on shift. Right as we walked through the main area, we hear "Ambulance Shira, Ambulance Shira!" Yitzack comes running through yelling "Bo, Bo!" (Come, Come!) We get into the Ambulance and start to race through Jerusalem. Yitzack, Shira and Noa were all talking in Hebrew, and from what I understood.... OK I didn't really understand anything. There was a women and a baby. Something bad happened.

We arrived to the apartment and Shira said, "take the AMBU bag and oxygen tank" to Noa and I. I grabbed the bag and she took the tank. We went up the stairs to the apartment. Yitzack knocked on the door and said "Magen David!" A women opened the door. Sitting on the couch was another women, about 35, holding a baby. She looked very pale. They spoke mostly Hebrew, but a little English. Noa asked if I wanted to take the blood pressure. I wasn't ready for that on my first call, so I said she should do it. We took her BP, then the babies. We took both of them into the ambulance. I found out that she fainted while holding the baby, and the baby hit its head when hitting the ground. We turned on the lights and sped to Terem Hospital, right outside Jerusalem. We got them into the hospital, did the paperwork, etc. She was fine. A little dehydrated, pale, but nothing serious. The baby was also fine. We said goodbye, and instead of going to the ambulance, we went to the connected mall to get some food. It was already 10 o'clock. We grabbed some food and got back into the ambulance. I would consider this a pretty easy way to start my Mada experience.

WARNING: The information that follows is probably going to be graphic. So if you're easily grossed out don't read it.

The next call we recieved sounded much more urgent than the previous one. We quickly turned on our lights and sped onto the highway. Shira told us there was a riot at an Arab school in an Arab town outside of Jerusalem. We got to a side road after about 20 minutes of speed racing, Yitzack slowed down and turned off the siren. I asked why we stopped. He said that we weren't allowed to go any further without a police escort, so we were waiting for them. I'm sorry if you're all getting super excited for this story, because its a little anti-climatic. Instead of the police bringing us to the riot, they were bringing the patients out of the school to us. A dark, tall Arab man got into our ambulance once the police opened the back doors. His face all very bloody. His nose was obviously not in the correct place. He had blood all over his shirts and his hands. He fell into the bed. We strapped him in, and asked what happend while the others took his vitals. He told us that there was a test being given today, and the students didn't want to take it. One of his 10th grade students punched him in the face. His Hebrew was good. After about 3 minutes, he started heaving. Shira quickly took out a vomit bag, and he started throwing up blood. Every bump we hit, he moaned in pain. He threw up some more. He asked if that was normal. Shira told him there probably was some internal bleeding but nothing too serious. We took him to Terem as well.

That's all I can write now. I finish up the 4 other calls later.

Josh

Part III of MU (massive update)

2009-12-08T13:42:00.001-08:00

Hi!!

I'll finish the 10 day-family trip now:

We went to Linda Gradstein's house for Shabbat/Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lot of fun. So much fun in fact that we invited them over the next day! My dad and I walked home together and the rest of the family took a cab. It was about a 35 minute walk. Much faster than over an hour when I went myself mostly because I actually knew where I was going this time. Big difference for sure. We got back to the Citadel and slept well that night.

The next morning, we went back to Shira Hadasha. Excellent service, as always. Jordana joined our family in the afternoon at the Citadel. We had lunch together, then went swimming and just hung out. My mom loved being with another girl, and I enjoyed spending time with the person I've known longest on Nativ (2.5ish years, and besides the Chicago people of course).

Jordana mentioned to us that there was a protest going on that night and that Nativ was invited. It was a protest against the Hareidi movement in Israel. We decided to join them and protest. It was reported that over 2000 people were at the protest. We walked down King George street and, of course, turned right onto Ben Yahuda. We decided to leave after about an hour and get back to the hotel a little early before they left. Tyler came with me to say goodbye to the family. It wasn't as emotional as when I left for the first time. I think I felt more comfortable because I walked up the street, and I was home. When I left in September, I was leaving home. Here, I wasn't going anywhere.

SO THATS IT! Wow.... I'm really happy that I'm all caught up.

So let's talk about today?

ITS FINALLLYYY OVERRRRRRRRR! Filming for the IC video officially took over my life in the last week. We filmed an unbelievable amount of scenes in sooooo many different places. I want to share a story about it...

Sunday was the start of crazyness. We filmed a few scenes in the lobby and some more at the basketball courts. Jordana Gilman and Aaron Leven are the stars of the video. Ally Turkheimer, Shira Kafker and I are the Directors (and Miles Berson but he didn't really do anything.) They are D'vora the Explorer (Dora) and Boots (her monkey friend). Monday, we filmed at Hebrew U on Monday. It was super stressful because the taxi driver stole the camera man (Ian, he's on the ulpan track and left school early to film at Hebrew U. So that was a bit tricky getting him into Hebrew U. Whatever. Filming was crazy, we staged a class (Israeli Lit) in which all the extras aren't even in that class. Funny.

Today is where the reallll crazyness starts. We got out of Ulpan at noon. There's a bus at 12:15, gets us to Ben Yahuda (where ulpan is) by 12:35, filming at 12:45, done by 1:15, Yeshiva by 1:45, done by 2:30. Tight schedule but do-able if everything goes to plan. So the first thing that goes wrong is the bus doesn't arrive until 12:25. No biggie. The bus won't start. Adds on a few extr minutes. Start to get nervous. The bus eventually starts and we make our way towards downtown Jlem. Behind schedule but not much. In the MIDDLE OF A VERY MAJOR ROAD the bus breaks down for good. IT JUST DIES. We are all told to get off the bus. Its 12:40 at this point and we're realllyyyyyyyyyyy freaking out. I call Elkana and ask if we can take a taxi on Nativ for the video. He agrees, so we hail a cab and yell at him "drive faster, faster FASTER!!!" We ended up doing the filming very productively because we had 2 days of experience under our belts already. We actually ended up finishing Ulpan by 1:15 and had time to get some pizza before going to the Yeshiva. jackpot.

Yeshiva filming was fine. nothing too stressful. Ian (cameraman/editor) shira and I edited the video for a little bit. Then I watched LOST with Seffi Adina, Debbie, and Rachel. We then had all of the Nativers (and by all I mean like 85%) of Nativers participate in the final scene. We all ran into the lobby as if we came back from the girls football game screaming and yelling LOUDLYYY. We all chanted "Nativ! Nativ!" over and over again. It was sooo much fun. Its a great scene. We then interviewed the past regional presidents to let them give shoutouts to their region. This includes Seth and a shoutout to CHUSY REGIONNNN! Sweet.

It's now 12:40. I really thought I was getting to bed early tonight. Guess not.

I'll write again soon. And when the video is done I'll definitely post it so everyone can see :)

-Josh

Part II

2009-12-07T03:55:00.000-08:00

Continuing from last post...

Shira Hadasha was fantastic. After lunch, we all walked back to the David Citadel hotel and enjoyed some excellent lunch. Steven Daniel and I then went swimming in the outdoor swimming pool. Don't let the fact that Israel is in the desert fool you. It was COLLDDDDD. Still wayyy worth it.

Steven and I then chilled and watched some South Park in the room while Daniel took a nap. That night, we did Havdalah and then went out.

This night was an epic night for Nativers. I asked Seth, Seffi, Tyler, Joey, Jesse, and Jordana to come out to dinner with my family. the 11 of us went to La Guta, a delicious meat restaurant off of Derech Beit Lechem street. Everyone loved the food and I loved introducing my family to some of my best friends on Nativ. After the 3 hour dinner, we walked back to the hotel for another great nights' sleep.

The next morning, we woke up early because my family wanted to see Hebrew U campus. We took a taxi to Hebrew U and I showed them around. I first showed them the lookout point over West Jerusalem. It's a really beautiful view on its own, but its extra beautiful because normally, tourists aren't allowed where Hebrew U is. Hebrew U at Mount Scopus is across the green line, aka East Jerusalem. So, we got a totally different perspective of Jerusalem. Then, I showed them the Rotherberg International school where we study. We then enjoyed great lunch at the Frank Sinatra cafe. Steven sat in my Silicon Wadi class with me for the first hour and a half. That night, I didn't sleep over because my parents were leaving early the next morning for the south.

Monday started midterms week. Stupid monday.

On Monday night after school, I went down to Mitzpe Ramon to spend Tuesday with my family. I took off ulpan and skipped erev Nativ. My family called a taxi for me, and I began my long journey south. The hotel was pretty good, and I was very excited for the big day ahead of me.

I hope I get all this right. The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast. We then went with our tour guide, Michael, to the bike place. We picked up our bikes and rode all the way to Ramon Crator. Ramon Crator was where we had desert survival, but we hiked on the other side of it. My family and I biked on the side where there was actually a town, people, roads, civilization, etc. After the bike ride, we went rapelling down a cliff. It happened to be the same cliff that I rappelled down when I was on pilgrimage two summers ago, but it was still so much fun.

After an exciting rappel, we loaded up the car and headed off to the bike place. This place also turned out to be a bed and breakfast, so that's where we had an amazing veggie lunch. Yum. I wish I could describe it to you, but my writing is pretty bad and I don't really remember it too well. Yea I need to update sooner tell me about it. We went back to the hotel and swam (this time in an indoor pool) and chilled for a little bit. Around 8:30, I got into the taxi and quickly returned to real life: MIDTERS. For the record, at Deerfield High School we never called them midterms. We called the test after first semester finals, then the tests after second semester finals. So this term is pretty humorous to me. I studied Hebrew on the way home with the driver. He was super helpful and is part of the reason that I did well. I got a B on my midterm which I think is great considering all the studying I did was with a taxi driver for 45 minutes. Solid.

Wednesday was the Ulpan midterm. Nothing too difficult and as I said I did well on it so yea. I also started my freshman writing final paper and Israeli Society and Politics (now to be known as isp) paper. each had to be 10 pages long. grrrr

My family returned Wednesday night late, so I just met up with them after my final freshman writing class on Thursday. We hung around Jerusalem for a bit until it was time to go to the Nativ Thanksgiving Banquet!!!!

Everyone on Nativ was at the banquet, plus a ton of former nativers and other families that were visiting. We started the night with a short video for the parents and former nativers to show them what life on Nativ is like this year. We then split up by track (kibbutz and kehillah) for dinner. My family and I sat with my suitemate Jesse's family and Tyler. It was a great dinner. After dinner, I said bye to my family and went downstairs to the auditorium for the Nativ only video. It was really funny and clever. It included every Nativer.

That night, I went to a jazz concert in the old city. It was this new age jazz, I wouldn't even call it jazz, that I didn't particularly get into. Oh well. I got back to base around 11:30 and made it to the Citadel by midnight. My dad insisted on going out even though he was exhausted to get something to eat. We went down Kind David street towards Ben Yahuda (aka the place where all the Americans/Yeshiva Buchar's/Israeli hang out on Thursday nights until late). He was really surprised by the amount of people there at 1:00 am. There was about 300 people walking about. I wasn't surprised but I guess thats because I'm used to it by now. We went to the coffee shop and got cookies. They were really tastey. Around 1:45, we walked back to the Citadel to go to sleep.

Friday morning, we met up with our friends Roee and Mor. We walked around Jerusalem with them. We went to the shuk, Machane Yahudia to get some Marzipan and food for the weekend. After we found Dad and Roee (they got lost), we went back to the Citadel to hang out and prepare for Shabbat. We got dressed and went to dinner at our family friend's house Linda Gradstein. It was a very enjoyable Shabbas dinner.

Talmud time. Finish later.

Josh

the beginning of the massive update

2009-12-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

HI!

Wow.... longest two weeks ever. Sorry I havn't been updating nearly as much as I wanted to be. Its already pretty late here and I'm exhausted, but whatever. details.

Let's start with two weeks ago....

Parents arrive on Friday night. It was super amazing seeing them. Steven didn't seem that different, a little taller. Daniel on the other hand was wayyyy bigger and spoke much much better than when I left him. He grew up a lot in the short three months.

We went to the Old City and the Kotel. It was soooo crowded on Shabbas eve. Then we attempted to go to the Southern Wall, but couldn't because it was closed. :( lame. We did Kab Shab near the Kotel and Southern Wall. We then walked back to the Citadel and had the best dinner ever!!! I hadn't had such good meal since leaving America. After dinner we hung out around the hotel and got some sleep before waking up super early the next morning.

That morning we went to Shira Hadasha. It was a great service and the whole family enjoyed it.

I meant to write way more. Its 1:30 and there's class tomorrow :(

I'll write during Silicon.

Josh

UGGGHHH MIDTERMSSS

2009-11-30T06:29:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

This week is the perfect storm of papers: Israeli Society and Politics due Wednesday (10 pages) and Freshman Writing (also 10 pages) due Thursday. SOOOOO on Thursday after I turn in my paper there will be THE BIGGEST UPDATE EVER!! Get excited.

My ISP essay is on Operation Cast Lead and the Goldstone Report. So far, the first 7 pages are pretty good (I hope...) and with all the research I obtained while reading online during Talmud last period, I should have enough information to get to the 10 page mark. OK my teacher is here for ISP, as usual 7 minutes late. woot woot

-Josh

Hi!

2009-11-25T02:45:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone,

I apologize for not writing in the past week. This week is midterm week, so I've been really busy studying/writing papers/etc. for them. My apologies.

Also this week, my parents are in town. So a lot of free time has gone to being with them.

I'll give a massive update on Sunday probably. Until then, have a great thanksgiving, watch a lot of football, eat a lot of food, whatever. If your back in the north shore from college and planning to go to the Turkey Dance, have fun! Sorry I won't be there. :(

ALSO: I recommend going to Haaretz.com because they have sooo many updates about Gilad Shalit, the captured IDF Soldier. It looks like he may be coming back home soon! (possibly by Friday!) Best thanksgiving ever?? If that happens, probably.

All for now

-Josh

Pictures from Ain Aqev!

2009-11-17T03:37:00.000-08:00

Here's some pictures from the weekend in Ain Aqev!

-Josh

Me and Aaron hiking

Aaron and I drinking the water in the FREEZING cold spring

Max and I hiked a mountain

Aaron and I hiking up the final mountain...

Max, Aaron, Asaf and I at the bus stop going home

Aaron and I went in the freezing cold water

Jumping in... it may or may not have been against the rules

Max, Aaron and I hiking

Everyone at the spring!

IMPACT! Ceremony/NBA/Hiking in Ain Aqev

2009-11-15T02:33:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I would like to apologize for now writing last Thursday. Hebrew U decided to give us an extra ulpan class at 4:30 Thursday afternoon, so I didn't get my Thursday to blog because I was at school doing freshman stupid writing, watching South Park with Seffi, etc.

Wednesday night, November 11th, my friend Tyler and I went to Tel-Aviv for the IMPACT! ceremony. IMPACT is an organization where donors can help sponsor Israeli soldiers fresh out of the army that need financial help with their university studies. My family is apart of the IMPACT organization and so is one of my former camp counselors from camp Interlaken, Roee, so we went together. This was a really cool ceremony. There were excellent musicians, great speakers (including Ehud Barak, former Defense minister) and touching videos of current IMPACT students. It was a excellent ceremony.

After the ceremony, Roee took Tyler and I around downtown TA, a place where I've wanted to go since I've been in Israel but never got the chance. Roee realized that he didn't remember where he parked his car, which was slightly a problem but was more funny than it was a problem (he ended up finding it don't worry). We went to a reallllyyyyy good ice cream store, way better than Jerusalem's finest-Aldo's. After about an hour and a half of catching up with Roee, we loaded the car and back to Jerusalem. Going back to Jerusalem is still one of the best feelings in the world.

Thursday night: NBA make-up because of the closed Shabbat the prior weekend. We had a session with Jules which inhibited our ability to have the NBA, so we made it up on Thursday. The white team played two games, against the blue team and the yellow team.

Game one: blue team. The game started out pretty even, with us basically trading baskets back and forth. I had a couple steals in the first half with helped us keep up with the blue team. Nadav, the big guy on the blue team, just was too big for Gabe, the big guy on our team, and the blue team had no trouble exploiting it. With 10 seconds left in the first half, with us down 6-10, David drove right, got stuck, and kicked it out to me with 2 seconds left. I put up a 3, and I finally made my first 3-pointer of the season as time ran out! I guess all the practice I've been doing at the "Yud Mem Kof Aleph" (YMCA) has been paying off. After hitting that shot, I ended up scoring 15 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, my second best game of the season (after the first game where I had 18 and 18, points and rebounds). We won by about 8 points. Everyone was going really good, and we just played much better basketball than they did.

Game Two: White Vs. Yellow. The Yellow team consists of Adam, Seth, Moskowitz and Noah. We were winning after the first half, but in the last three minutes, Moskowiz just started to drain 3's and they took a quick 8 point lead. Gabe fell apart at this point; stopped trying and stopped guarding Moskowitz which just ended up in him scoring more. This just got me angry and I think I pulled down 6 boards in the last 2 minutes of the game. My shots weren't falling but when I missed I made sure that I got my own rebound and put it back in. I ended up with around 12 points and 12 rebs. Not bad, but we still lost by around 6. By no means did we deserve to win, but I think we still could have.

FREE WEEKEND:

So for the first time since desert survival, I finally went camping for real. Asaf, Aaron, Max and I went to Ain Aqev, into the middle of the desert, with nothing but food, a tent, water and some camping spirit. I brought around 7 liters of water, which was way too much for 2 days i found out. As a group, we brought 20 pitas, Hummus, peanut butter, 20 chewy bars and 11 hot dogs. plenty of food for 24 hours of hiking.

After about a 2 hour hike into the desert, we found the camping grounds. Aaron and I set up the tent while Max and Asaf went to find firewood. Those two ended up tearing down a tree, a legit tree, which we used in turn to fuel our fire and cook hot dogs that night. Around 5, we did Kab Shab and Maariv, accompanied by some random guy who was camping about 30 yards away from us. Then, we had dinner and turned in around 8. Before we went to sleep, that random guy told us to watch out for foxes which tended to wander in the middle of the night. We thanked him and went to sleep. I slept pretty well considering it was FREEEZZZINGGG outside, my pillow was my towel and the tent was kind of small. All throughout the night, I heard the foxes barking in the distance. Not loud enough to wake me up, but if you were awake definitely something you could hear.

The next morning, at 5:45, the random guy came up to our tent and said, "ehhh... you want to Le'hit'pallel" (translation: ehhh... you want to pray?") after waking up Aaron, Max and I, Aaron reponded nicely with "no we're sleeping." The guy then asked if we wanted to at 7 and Aaron said no again. I ended up waking up boiling hot at 8 AM, saw max wasn't in the tent and went outside. I was immediately gripped by the cold air, but the warm sun made it a little better. I saw Max sitting on the sand hill, so I went over and said hello. He had put part of a branch into the sand and was putting rocks onto the leaves. He said, "it's art. How many trees do you know grow rocks?" Max and I then proceeded to go up the big mountain next to the camp ground. It took about 10 minutes to go up it, and it was soooooooooooo beautiful. We could see for miles and miles around us, all the other mountains and and sand around us. I wish I was a good writer because then maybe I could describe to you how beautiful it was. Once Asaf posts the pictures I'll put them here so you can just see them.

Around 8:45, Aaron and Asaf woke up and told us it was about time to go to the spring. We got down the mountain and loaded up out packs. Asaf said, "where's the pita?" Aaron said, "it's probably in my pack, and if not its one one of ours cause its not around the campsite." We loaded up and got hiking. after about an hour, we made it to the spring. We got there around 10 and decided it was time for breakfast. Max got out the peanut butter and hummus, and Aaron went to get the pita and bread from his bag. We then heard, "guys, where is the pita?" uh oh. I think you can see where this is going. We all scrambled to look through our bags to find the pita but to no avail. We decided that it was probably taken by some animal, or by the random guy because the night before he kept trying to mooch food off of us. I personally think it was animals but it didn't matter because somehow we lost 15 pieces of pita. After about 45 minutes of freaking out, realizing that for the rest of the day all we have is 4 slices of bread, hummus, peanut butter and 9 chewy bars, we realized it was time to start rationing our food. Rationing our food. Geez. Luckily I thought ahead and brought an extra 2 apples and 2 nature valley bars for myself, but overall it still was clearly not enough food for all of us. After about an hour there, a ton of other people showed up and it got really crowded really fast. Even though the water was freezing cold, Aaron and I decided we need to go swimming anyway so we did. It was sooo worth it.

We then hiked back to where we started, giving ourselves 5 hours for a 3 hour hike due to the lack of food. Right after we passed the campsite, not seeing the pita but definitely checking, we got to a big rock that was shaded by a big hill. We had "lunch" there around 2. Lunch consisted of one slice of bread with so much melted and gross hummus that you couldn't even see the bread anymore. Yum. After our piece of bread we shared the rest of the jar of peanut butter from 2 spoons. Double yum. Then we finished a bottle of Prigot Mango drink. Triple yum. That was it. Yay. Then we ate 2 cookies and cream chewy bars each. Great lunch right?

We hiked the last hour back to the top of the mountain where the bus stop was. The food situation wasn't that big of a deal. I was fine the whole time with an excess of water, extra food from my apple and nature valley bar, and it also wasn't even that hot. It was in the 70's the whole time, which for the desert is awesome. We ended up getting a ride back to Jlem with Maayan, the woman who works at the front desk of Beit Nativ who was in Beer Sheva for the weekend. Sweet.

OK, that's all for now. Hope that wasn't too long. Back to Silicon Wadi. Learning how to build a business today. A little upset that I missed part of the lecture to write this but not really. I got all the notes.

NBA tonight. Pumped.

I'll get some pics asap.

Talk soon,

Josh

Monday blog post/Yitzchak Rabin Ceremony

2009-11-09T03:26:00.000-08:00

Hi!
So I realized that every week may be a little boring, so let's do like Monday and Thursdays? On the days when we read Torah! (except Shab obvs)

This past weekend was a closed Shabbat. We had a special guest with us for the whole weekend, Jules Gutin! He is the international director of USY, and somehow actually knew my name when I talked to him this time. After 4 IC's, wheels and pilgrimage, he never actually knew my name. That's understandable considering there's thousands of USYers. But this time, he knew my first AND last name! It was very exciting. He gave us a speech which was built up to be another lecture like the two previous rabbi's, Roth and Artson. It wasn't at all. In fact, one could say that this lecture was.... boring? Oh well, he's not a rabbi.

I went to Kedem Saturday morning with Adina and Debbie (two of the girls I watch LOST with all the time). I thought was my favorite shul but ended up being just mediocre. I had only gone there on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and it was great then. It was not so great when not during the Chag Season. We had two more sessions, each with just the Kehilah group and not all of Nativ, and both also proved to be relatively pointless. Don't get me wrong, I definitely learned something from the weekend with Jules, but it didn't take 3 sessions and 6 total hours to learn it.

Sunday came my newfound favorite class, Silicon Wadi. This time, our teacher, Avner Halperin (we're not sure if we should call him Mr. Halperin or Avner) brought in his father to lecture to us about the US-Israel relationship. It was a great lecture. I took a lot of notes so if you want to see them, email me. We learned about the US-Israel relationship from '48 when Israel was established until today. I learned a lot. The one main point he continually reiterated was that although today is Israel's most important ally, the US hasn't always been. There have been many times where the US congress opposed Israel, but the President felt obligated to protect Israel and therefore supported Israel; overriding congress. It was very interesting.

Currently, I'm sitting in Talmud class. This is a good class because it's kind of a break from studying and working during my free time. We just found out about our Talmud Midterm today, exciting! A test on Talmud, never thought I'd see the day where I would be preparing for that.

Still have society and politics after this class, getting back to base around 6:45 (hopefully) and will try to go to the YMCA tonight to workout. That would be great.

Last night, my friend Tyler and I started to write our first song for the album we are going to create while on Nativ. It's a pretty simple song so far, but hopefully it will grow into something amazing. He plays piano decently, but more importantly than that is that he can sing really well. Together, I think we'll make something great. I'll keep you posted.

WAIT TIMEOUT! Friday night, the girls had a "sleepover party" which involved all the girls hanging out for about 3 hours before they went to sleep in their respective rooms. Not so much of a sleepover, but a good time to bond with all the guys since there were no girls around. A bunch of us were sitting in the computer room playing risk when we had this great idea: go to the girls sleepover party and take their food! Well, what a great idea this was. We waited about half an hour until after it started, then we ran downstairs. We ended up not getting any food, but we ended up just crashing their party for a little bit. It was a good start to Shabbat.

On Saturday night, 48 Nativers, including myself, boarded a bus and went to Tel-Aviv for the annual memorial ceremony for Yitzchak Rabin. This was a very interesting experience. I've learned about Rabin here at Hebrew U a little bit, back home at Hebrew school, etc. However, I wouldn't consider myself an expert on Rabin. I still wanted to go and see what it was all about. We arrived, and when we got there our Madrich (staff) Nadiv said, "After the ceremony is over, you have 20 minutes to get back to the bus, then we're leaving with or without you." He was being a little ridiculous considering it took 15 minutes just to walk to Rabin square because all the roads were closed off surrounding the square. We all made it back, don't worry. We get to the square, and I texted my yearcourse friend Arielle (the girl I visited twice that lives in Bat Yam) to see if she and the rest of the Bat Yam people were there. They were, so I decided to meet up with them after getting some Tel Aviv falafel. I wanted to compare it to Jerusalem falafel and see which was better. I gotta say, I really like Jerusalem falafel better. But that's an argument for another time :) Joey, Seffi and I aimlessly wandered around the huge area until we found some Nativ people. I then left them and went to meet up with Arielle and her friends including one of my good yearcourse friends, an Israeli Tzfoim Yoni. I spend the majority of the ceremony with them.

Once the ceremony got started, a bunch of important people spoke such as Talia Rabin and Tzpini Livni. AI obviously couldn't understand about 85% of what all the speakers were saying, so after a while I kind of tuned them out. Also, Hadag Nachash played. Funnily enough, Israelis don't really like Hadag Nachash, but that doesn't mean that I don't! They were awesome, playing "shirit hasticker" (the sticker song) which is probably their most famous song. All of the Americans loved it, can't say the same about the Israelis though. Then in the middle of the speeches, President Obama gave a video message to everyone. Go look it up. If you know my political tendencies you may be able to guess how I felt, but I'm committed to keeping this blog neutral. If you want my opinion, the email box is always open. I will just say that it was not too surprising of a message, I enjoyed listening to it, and the crowd definitely did to.

During the ceremony, I couldn't help but notice the signs that were extremely numerous and prevalent around me. For example, one of them said, "Bibi's government=no peace ever!" They were all mostly conveying this kind of message. After the ceremony, I found myself asked to be interviewed by the Daily Beast. They were asking me about what my views on Obama and Israel were. Again, neutral blog. We had a good talk, and eventually he asked me for my name/where I'm from/where I'm living in Jerusalem and why I'm living there. That lead me to believe that he was writing an article and was going to quote me, but to this day I couldn't find anything. He said his name was Uval Pearlman, or something like that. If you are a Daily Beast reader, let me know if you see my name! I've been checking but haven't been able to find anything.

Our staff member Nadiv felt the need to give his opinion to everyone on the bus after the ceremony. Considering most Nativers weren't able to understand the speeches like me, this was the majority of what they got out of the program: Nadiv said something along the lines of, "I've heard a lot about this ceremony, but I've never been there before. I heard that it has turned from a good memorial ceremony into a free rally for the left of Israel. Tonight, we heard many the speakers blaming the lack of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians on the religious right in Israel, and since I was wearing a Kippah people started giving me dirty looks. They turned Rabin from a prominent and important Israeli political leader into a martyr for the leftist propaganda." Whether that is true or not is not up to me, but just so you get an idea of what he believes happened. I personally think it was wrong of him to put his opinion onto us like that. And I plan on telling him it was out of line to do that as well.

I'll get some pictures from the ceremony.

OK thats all for now. Talk to you in a few days!

-Josh

Joey, Seffi (roommate), Me and Adina at the ceremony!

Week Update: Nov 1-5

2009-11-05T04:09:00.000-08:00

What's going on America,

I've decided that if nothing extra exciting happens during the week and I don't have a good reason to blog, I'll just blog every Thursday to give a weekly update on what's happenin' here in the holy land. So look for the weekly update. Plus some pictures if I can get some. Pic's from the internet don't seem to work on blogger which is super lame because I don't have my camera with my at all time but other people do. So when I figure out how to use those pics I'll put them up. I think I just did, so well see.

ANYWAYYYYY let's start on sunday, and you know what that means! Silicon Wadi! It was much better this week than in past weeks. Our teacher, Avner Halperin, isn't a teacher. He is just a successful entrepreneur who just teaches the Silicon Wadi class once a week. That has its ups and downs. One of the plus's is that he really knows the material not because he studied it so much, but because he lived it. One of the downsides is that he isn't very good at teaching. It's a fair trade off.

Talmud was cancelled on Monday, which was awesome, but instead of having the usual 4 hour break, we instead had a 6 hour break. That was rough. I couldn't really focus in Talmud on Wednesday, but I really enjoyed the homework. It talked about the idea of living life to the fullest, aka fulfilling all the mitzvot possible, and the reason why you may not be getting rewarded for it. In other words, "why do bad things happen to good people?" According to Rabbi Abaye, if you act poorly in your life, you will be rewarded well in this life but suffer severe concequences in the afterlife. If you act in a righteous manner, you may not be rewarded in this life, but in the next. Very interesting stuff.

Society and Politics has just gotten boring. Our teacher is ALWAYSSSS late, and while normally I wouldn't complain, he then keeps us that much later. Since it's my last class, his tardiness at the beggining directly effects how quickly I get back to base on Mondays and Wednesdays. I thought this would be more like a poli sci class, and so did Reina the Nativ Advisor, but she was wrong. So far, we have mostly just learned about the history of Israeli society; ie immigration from 1870 til today. I'm pretty sure the topic of my paper will be on Operation Cast Lead, the IDF's operation last winter. That should be a good paper.

Speaking of writing papers, unlike the previous class, Freshman Writing still is terrible. Today, she talked to us for literally 30 minutes on what a credible source is. According to our teacher, the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, or any newspaper is not credible source to get information. Neither is any internet source unless it specifically comes from Hebrew University. Neither are magazines, or personal interviews. So then I asked if Rabbi's are a credible source, considering my topic is Conservative Judaism, and she responded "well, sometimes." Right.

This week, I got to work out twice at the YMCA. It was great. I also got over being sick, I think, and that's good too. The Nativ Fantasy basketball league is going ok. I'm currently in second to last place, but I have faith that will change very soon. Jake Brown helped me with the draft, so how could my team be bad?

I wrote my first album review!!!!!! This is a huge deal for me, so if you have some time, check it out. My good friend Tyler Silver, aka T. Silvs has a website, Thagoodlifereviews.com. It's a Hip-Hop blog, but I wrote about the funk group Soulive and their new album Live in San Francisco. Let me know what you think of it! Here's the link:

http://www.thagoodlifereviews.com/2009/11/02/soulive-live-in-san-francisco-review/

This weekend is a closed Shabbat. We have programming all day Saturday, probably Friday night as well. But Saturday night, aka "Motzei Shabbat" as it's called here, is the memorial service for Itzak Rabin. I'll definitely get pictures from that.

OK, I'll post some pic's and say bye for now.

Talk soon! And feel free to email me if you have questions, comments, whatever. Love to hear from you.

Josh

Me and my Roomatey Seffi!

Me, Joey and Nadav walking around last Thursday night at Adina's birthday party!

The Nativ Basketball Association (NBA)

2009-11-02T03:46:00.000-08:00

Greetings,

This update won't be complete without some pictures, so hopefully I'll get some up soon. I didn't take any, but it would for sure improve the blogging experience if there are pics. Thursday after I blogged we had another week of the NBA (Nativ Basketball Association) and right as the first game started, a game I was playing in, it started TO RAIN!!!! Now, some of you might be saying "Oh man, how can you play basketball in the rain? That's soooo lame that it started to rain!" Well, as we've been told by our staff members, rain in Israel is ALWAYS good, and never ever ever bad. So by canceling basketball due to rain would be just plain wrong. So what did we do? We had the best week of the NBA yet. Besides the fact that my team, the white team, had its first victory ever against the blue team, playing in the rain was not only extremely dangerous but a ton of fun. Every couple of minutes, someone would slip and fall on the court because it was coming down HARDDDD. I only fell once, but the king of slipping and falling went to your truely, CHUSY regional President Seth Lerman. At one point, he was so wet he actually just laid down and make rain angels on the court. It was raining so hard that while everyone on the court still took the games really seriously, everyone watching just stopped and after anything good happened, we all just went crazyyyy. Like obnoxiously crazy. Like Tyler would hit a 3, and we would be yelling and screaming for like a minute straight. It was just out of control how crazy everyone was. Hopefully there will be some pics of the day, and I can show you guys how it was.

Last night, Sunday, was another week of the NBA and I finally got outsted as the rebounding leader. At 5'10 you think I wouldn't be the rebounding leader considering there are a good amount of players over 6'0 tall, some being 6'2 and much heavier than me. for the four weeks I was leading the league in average rebs per game with 10.7. This past week I was a little sick, so I only grabbed 8, which brought me down to 3rd place. Lame. I'll reclaim the title next week.

OK I should go back to working on freshman writing stupid homework. only two and a half more hours until class starts!

-Josh

Me driving on Brian Cook, or as he is more commonly called, Cookie.

Me guarding Aaron Leven. We have a little rivalry going between us. I think I won this one.

Week update: Oct 25-29

2009-10-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

This week consisted of two big highlights, and a lot of normalness. For the firs time, I felt almost like a real college student. Almost :)

The first highlight was on Sunday, October 25th. MASA, the program that brings American teens to Israel, such as me, sponsered a free concert for all teens spending a year in Israel. This concert started out as something small, some speakers, some little performances, etc. Nothing too exciting. A few weeks ago, they decided to turn it from a little concert into a huge concert by booking one of the most famous Israeli bands: Idan Raichel! Idan Raichel is awesome, their music is great and above all, all American Jews know and love their music. Therefore, all Americans in Israel suddenly wanted to go to this concert. This includes Nativ, Yearcourse, Kivonim, Yeshiva programs, etc. There were over 1000 people there. I'll post some pictures and videos below for you guys to see! It was an amazing concert, their music is so unique, and I found myself understand much more Hebrew than I expected. That was cool. A really fun night, got to see my yearcourse friends again after spending the weekend with them just the day before and see the Kivonim friends that will shortly be leaving Israel to travel.

The second highlight was last night, Oct 28, I went to the Jerusalem Poal's basketball game against some random European time in the Euro Basketball league. We didn't know who they were playing, we couldn't figure it out. They wore blue uniforms, if you know, tell me? That would be great thanks. I got back from school at 6:30 on Wednesday, so the Nativ group had already left. So Jesse, Jonny, Max and I had to make it there on our own. No big deal, except it took a very very veryyyy long time. We ended up getting to the game in the middle of the 3rd quarter. I didn't really care, it was still an unbelievable experience. It was really similar to being at a college basketball game, everyone was wearing red, the color of Poal, cheering, yelling, people brought drums to bang on, and the level of basketball was about that of a mediocre D1 school, so it worked out really well. I'll get some pics and vids of that too.

Classes this week were ok, Ulpan is getting hard but I'm learning a lot which is strange that it is working out that way. I just need to cement the new verb forms, new vocab, etc. It's getting technically more difficult, but I'm understand more and more.

Talmud is great, learning a lot and a great environment to spend time in. My cheveruta is Rachel, which means partner in Hebrew, and we do all of the Talmud homework together because you are not supposed to study the Talmud alone. Rab Pesach is our teacher, and he is a really good and passionate teacher.

Silicon Wadi is going well, finally dropped into a groove which consists of reviewing the homework for the first 2 hours and then learning new information for the second two hours.

Israel society and politics is a good class, but it is sooo much history on the society of Israel so far. I think that eventually it will be a good class, but at the moment it doesn't seem worth it to stay at school an extra hour and a half and get back at 6:45 as opposed to 4:45. That's kind of annoying, but it also has my Tuesday's and Thursday's almost completely free. That's really nice when that happens because I am very productive on those days, and I tend to do homework better at school than at home. Having class so late gives me a 4 hour break on Monday and a 2 hour break on Wednesday.

Freshman Writing is going to be terrible. It's so much work, and so far it doesn't seem to be helping me with my writing, which is it's overall goal. That's kind of annoying, but its ok. Hopefully they will teach me to improve my writing level. My topic is Conservative Judaism, and I believe I will be writing about the trends of Conservative Judaism over the last couple decades or so. I'm sure I'll be addressing the idea of Conservative Judaism increasingly becoming more and more secular, but I'm not sure I will take a stance for it or against it. I'll have to decide by next Thursday so I'll keep you updated on that.

Erev Nativ (Tuesday nights on Nativ, all Nativers must attend and its usually geared towards learning) was good this week. If you remember, a few weeks ago we were lectures by one of the most prominent Rabbi's in the Conservative Movement, Rabbi Roth. This week, we had Rabbi Artson. He lectured us on the topic of God. Rabbi Artson's main points were these: God is not all knowing because he can't know the future; God is not all powerful because if he had all the power, then he would have none of the power; God is not all good because if he is all good then he cannot improve; and prayer is not magic. As you can see, it was a very intense and intellectually challenging conversation. It was a very interesting discussion, and it has spurred a ton of conversations between Nativers over the last few days. Yesterday, Jesse, Joey, and I had a conversation for about an hour and a half over what the Rabbi talked about. I don't particularly want to post my own ideals in the blog, so if your interested in hearing, I would love to tell you just not here. send me an email. In my opinion, Rabbi Artons's views directly conflicted Rabbi Roth's and that was helping for me to have a balance of what to believe.

OK well on that note, nothing else really exciting happened this weekend, so I'll get some pics up and say goodbye! This weekend I will most likely be on base; I was going to go visit my friend Roee and Mor outside of Tel-Aviv, but that kind of fell through at the last second. Then I was going to go back to Bat Yam, but I just kind of want to stay on base and have Shabbat in Jerusalem. We'll see.

Have a good and restful Shabbat.

-Josh

Free Weekend in Bat Yam

2009-10-25T04:23:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon,

Currently I'm sitting in Silicon Wadi class, everyone is giving presentations about Israeli startups that they researched over the week. I researched a company called Mind360, its a pretty cool company, it's one of those 'play brain games to make you smarter' companies. Fun stuff.

Friday morning, October 23rd, Seth and I board a bus from the central bus station en route to Bat Yam. Bat Yam is a suburb of Tel-Aviv. One of my good friends from back home, Arielle Rosenberg, a girl that I met through USY, is currently on Young Judea Yearcourse. Unlike Nativ, YC is split up in 3 different locations, and she is currently in Bat Yam. They live in apartments spread out around the city, similar to what I'll be doing second semester in Yerucham. (Just did my presentation, went well. I think he liked my choice of company and analysis of it.) Unlike the cities that I am familiar with- Jerusalem, Kiryat Gat, Tiberous- Bat Yam doesn't have a central bus station, aka a place where everyone on the bus gets off the bus and from there walks/takes a taxi to their final destination. In Bat Yam, you just need to get off at one of the stops in town. We got off at a random stop, called Arielle, and eventually made it to her apartment. She wasn't there when we arrived, so Seth and I hung out with her roommates until she got there. Her friends Ben and Andrew came over, and after about an hour I decided that I wanted to go on a walk and see the town. We walked around Bat Yam, a pretty nice city that is on the Mediterranean Sea. Her apartment is about 20 minutes walking from the sea. We walked there and sat along the beach for about an hour. It was so beautiful to see the sun setting over the sea, and at least for me, being able to see a body of water. We don't get to see that much water in Jerusalem.

We walked back to the apartment after Shabbat started, and then went to a Yearcourse Ulpan dinner. Seth, Arielle, Marissa (Arielle's roommate) and I walked towards the Ulpan dinner. We picked up one of the "tzofim," Yoni, along the way. Tzofim are Israel's that live with Yearcourers, just graduated high school, and basically are taking a gap year before the army in Israel. One tzfoim lives in each apartment. Yoni is a really cool guy, he cooked the Challah for the dinner. There was about 20 people at this dinner. We did the blessings, ate, and played some games as a group. This was a cool experience for me because it gave me a little insight into what being on Yearcourse is like. Apparently, this not only was my first official yearcourse dinner, but Arielle's too. She said they don't really do the whole "communal meals" too often.

After a great dinner, meeting lots of new people and having a great time, we made our way back to change into bathing suits. We were going to take a little night swim in the sea. We met up with a bunch of other Yearcoursers when we got there. We didn't end up swimming, but just ended up talking and hanging out with them for a while. There was about 25 of us on the beach. Around midnight, we made our way back to the apartment for a good nights sleep.

The next day, we woke up around 11:30. Marissa and I went to Ben and Andrew's apartment to get some eggs and bread so we could make french toast. and by we I mean Arielle made French toast. It was super yummy. After breakfast/lunch we hung out in the apartment and took a nap.

After the nap I took the lead and said "time to go swimming!" I was not going to Bat Yam and not swim. We got to the sea just in time to swim, and eventually see the sun set again. It was sooo beautiful a second time. After a good swimming/body surfing session we retured a final time to the apartment, made some pizza/pasta dinner and said goodbye. It was a very fun weekend.

Class is starting again. Time to learn. Talk soon!

Josh

Class Schedule

2009-10-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I've been asked to post my schedule online for Hebrew U, so here it is!

Sunday: Silicon Wadi 12:30-4:00

Monday: Ulpan 8:30-10:00

Talmud 2:30-4:00

Society and Politics: 4:30-6:00

Tuesday: Ulpan 10:30-12:00

Wednesday: Ulpan 8:30-12:00

Talmud 2:30-4:00

Society and Politics: 4:30-6:00

Thursday: Freshman Writing 1030-12:00 (but only until Nov. 26)

Update about my weekend in Bat Yam coming soon!

Josh

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!

2009-10-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

Shalom K'vutzah Josh (Hello Josh's group)

Two days ago was my official first day of being a "college" student. I use that term lightly.

I woke up on Sunday (the first day of the week) at 10:00. Seffi and I got ready, and walked out of Beit Nativ at 10:35. Unlike the mini-mester where there was a bus for us everyday outside of Beit Nativ for free, we have to use public transportation to get from base to school and back. We knew we needed to take either but 19 or 4aleph, but we didn't quite know where to pick it up. We walked up Agron street and instinctivly made a right onto King George Street, which heads towards downtown Jerusalem and many bus stops. We firgured it would be that way. After about 10 minutes of walking, looking at bus stop signs, realizing we were wrong, and continuing walking, we called the Israeli staff member who told me. "No no Josh, get onto Gaza street." So we walk all the way back to Gaza (pronounced "aza") street, which happens to be the continuation of Agron, and made it finally to the right bus stop. We arrived at school by 11:40, 50 minutes until Silicon Wadi, our first and only class on Sunday began.

We went to our favorite cafeteria, Frank Sinatra, for lunch. We enjoyed a delicious Frank Sinatra lunch, something we had been deprived of since mini-mester ended, and strolled towards Rotherberg for class with plenty of time. We arrive there at 12:25, 5 minutes before class started. We took our seats, and at 12:29, six of our fellow Nativers run in flustered and out of breath. They made it just in time to the computer lab, where our class for some reason takes place. They left an hour later than we did, and didn't even get a chance to eat. Good planning on Seffi and my part :)

4 long hours later, class was finally over. Silicon Wadi is a double period, so it only meets once a week. After class we went to the forum, the center of campus, went downstairs and caught the bus back to King George. We got back around 5. It was a good first day of school. In Silicon wadi, we learned about our teachers own personal business, a little bit about the economic history of Israel, and what we're going to do in this class.

The next day, I have Ulpan, which is just a continuation of mini-mester ulpan, same book, same class, just a different teacher and a different classroom. Plus, its 1.5 hrs of class as opposed to 4. Nothing special, just a muchhhhhhhh better teacher. Yay!

Talmud as a Cultural Adventure: awesome so far. We need to have a CHevrutza, or partner, with which we do all of the homework and discuss Talmudic ideas with. My parter is my friend Rachel. She's one of the five that I watch LOST with. (Seffi, Rachel, Adina, Debbie and myself) We're good partners so far, and I'm really loving studying Talmud. The teacher, Rabbi Pesach Schindler, is a fabulous teacher so far.

Freshman Writing hasn't started yet.

That's two updates in one day! rock and roll.

With love,

Josh

Free Weekend at Beit Shemesh

2009-10-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I would like to personally welcome any new readers to my blog; I recently sent out an email to many different people telling them a little bit about life in Israel and about this blog. So for those that are just starting to read my blog, thanks! Hope you find my stories fun, entertaining, at times educational and enjoyable to read. With that, let's get to the summary of Beit Shemesh!

(In English, Beit means "house" AKA Beit Nativ, or "the house of Nativ" and Shemesh means "Sun", so the name of the town is "House of the Sun."

Thursday afternoon: MDA retest, and as I said I passed! Yay. I went shopping at Mr. Zol's (super market, near Ben Yahudia Street) with Seri, our MDA instructor, Jesse and Jonny. We bought burgers, hot dogs, chips, and other stuff like that for our MDA BBQ. Then I met up with Judah and we went to the shook to buy food to bring to the beach so we would have stuff to eat over shabbat. That night, Thursday, we all took a bus to Talpiyot and had our MDA bbq. Talpiyot is this cool park about 20 minutes outside of Jerusalem, but you can still see Jerusalem really well from it. We played games, cooked food and just had a good time. Around 11:00 we boarded a bus back to Jerusalem and met up with the rest of our Nativ friends who were hanging around the normal area in downtown Jerusalem: sabbaros, Yeruchalme and other places like that. Around 12:15 I was tired so I went back to base and called it a night. I had to prepare for a big day the next day. I set an alarm for 9 AM and went to sleep very excited for the weekend ahead of me.

I woke up before my alarm went off. Yossi, the director of Nativ, sent out a mass text to everyone on Nativ warning us of a heat wave that was in effect in Israel until Monday, warning everyone that hiking was advised against by the Israeli government for the upcoming weekend. Luckily, we were going to a beach with water so it didn't concern me. I couldn't fall back asleep so I took some time to pack up and get ready to leave. Seffi wasn't feeling well so he didn't come with us. We ended up changing plans at the last second, and instead of going to Ashkelon, the original plan (which is in the south) we went north to Beit Shemesh. Beit Shemesh is about 20 minutes away from Tiberous.

We took a bus to Tiberous and a taxi to Beit Shemesh. We ended up at this Kibbutz thats owned by a fellow Nativer's uncle. Ana, the Nativer, was enough to set us up at a good price and get us in contact with him. We arrived at the kibbutz beach, and there was about 80 people already there, with their tents set up and fires burning bright. We arrived around 2 in the afternoon. I went with Tyler, Judah, Marc, Haley, Shira and Rachel. It was a good group of people. We put our tents down and got ready for the evening. We put on our swim suits and went straight into the Kineret. The water was beautiful, and it was such a better beach than last time. This time, there was actually sand and it was legal to swim. We swam for a little bit, then dried off and got ready for shabbat. We took out our pita, hummas, apples, tangerines, assorted nuts, bamba, chocolate spread, pretzels and water. That was our meals for the next day and a half. We made kiddush, motzi, and did all the other prayers. By the time we were finished it was already well into the night. We decided to take our watches off before dinner and leave them off for the rest of the weekend. We turned in shortly after dinner, singing and one more swim session. I checked my watch. It was 9:05.

It took a good amount of time to fall asleep. Obviously, all of the Israelis there had no intention of falling asleep until the late hours of the night. It was not easy sleeping on the hard ground and having a lot of loud Israelis yelling and doing other obnoxious things. It wasn't that big of a deal because I still slept pretty well all things considered.

We woke out around 8:45 in the morning, and it was already hot and sunny. Our day consisted of this: swim, eat breakfast, sleep (that was the morning). Swim, eat Shabbas lunch, sleep. Swim, eat dinner, sleep. We literally did that cycle three times, and it was amazing. It was so nice to finally just get a chance to relax and take it easy. All day consisted of just swimming, eating a sleeping. It also consisted of some light davening.

By the way sorry I haven't written in 5 days, I've been doing a little of this every day.

We made it back to Jerusalem, and I basically just went to sleep, preparing for the first day of school the day, on Sunday. That's to come in my next post.

Thanks for reading! They come more frequently than this promise. Talk soon. For my family at AIPAC, I'm really jealous that you guys are there. Thanks for advocating for the best country ever.

Josh

Here's some pics from the last day of MDA training and Beit Shemesh! Sorry I don't have more it was Shabbat so I didn't take pictures until after it was over.

Final day of Magen David Adom Training

2009-10-15T04:12:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Yesterday, Wednesday, I took the final for my 60 hour MDA course.

MDA in a nutshell is the Israeli version of the American Red Cross. I've learned so much about medical studies. For example, I have learned what is, what the signs are and how to treat the most common non-traumatic situations/conditions such as strokes, concussions, diabetes, etc. I also learned the same things about traumatic situations such as head/abdominal/chest/spinal injuries and the five different types of shock. I learned how to administer CPR to adults, children and babies. I also learned PHTLS (pre hospital trauma life support) which entails keeping the patient alive until we transport him to the hospital.

I took the exam yesterday, and passed everything on my first try except for PHTLS, which I took today and passed! I am now officially a MDA first respondent! Today we went to the MDA central station and learned all about the inside of the ambulance. We saw where all the bandages were, the IV's, the collapasable beds and chairs, etc. It was really cool. I'm really looking forward to actually volunteering for MDA in the near future.

Tonight I'm going to the MDA barbeque for our class and instructors. It should be a good time. After I'm meeting up with one of my friends on Young Judea Yearcourse and Kevonim. That should be fun too.

Here's some pictures from MDA class:

From Left top- Seffi, David, Me, Noah Seth
From left bottom- Kay, John, Sophie, Steja, Seri (the teacher)

This is my roommate Seffi with the thumbs up, David in the backboard, Me and Noah my staff member.

John, Sophie and I backboarded David all by ourselves in under 3 minutes!

_______________________________________________

This upcoming Shabbat, I will be traveling to Ashkelon to camp out with about 10 other Nativers. I just got back from the Shuk, where I bought a ton of food with my friend Judah, and we only spent about 35 NIS per person (roughly 9 dollars) for pita, apples, tangerines, grapes, marzapan (rugalach, the best sweet food in Israel), Pringles, peanut butter Bamba, 2 different kinds of nuts and a bag of dried apricots. And that will be our food from Friday afternoon until Saturday night. As my dad says, "food fit for a king."

Shabbat Shalom, have a good and restful one. I'll be sure to give a good update when I get back from Ashkelon!

Josh

I love my room

2009-10-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

right now i am sitting in my room watching lost with the most amazing crew ever-

rachel, adina, seffi and debbie!!! and sometimes gabe comes too.

i love lost

-for the record that was Adina who posted that while watching season 1 of LOST.

I just took my MDA final. The test part was pretty easy but the Hebrew part was really hard. I hope I do OK, I'll let you know after I do the practical this afternoon. Then I'll give a good summary of what MDA really is.

Talk soon,

Josh

Simchat Torah!

2009-10-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

Good evening,

As I mentioned before, it was just chag season here, and chag season ends with the last day of sukkot: simchas Torah! Simchas Torah is a very unique holiday in which everyone basically just parties at shul for 4 hours at night, and 6 hours the next morning with the Torah. There are seven Hakafot (torah blessings) that we say, and after each one there is about 20 minutes of dancing and singing. As we get closer to the 7th blessing the dancing and singing get longer and longer. We sang all kinds of songs, many of them I didn't know but some of them I did.

On Friday night, Aaron, David, Tyler, Seth, Max, Brian, Asaf and some others went to Kol Rina. If you remember, Kol Rina was the shul that we went to the first weekend but couldn't find for almost an hour. This time we knew where we were going and it only took 15 minutes. It was a good service, and after Ma'ariv the leader of the shul (I don't know if he's the rabbi, or just the Chazzan, he's American and speaks both English and Hebrew perfectly) stood up on a chair inbetween the Machitzah and basically asked people if they wanted to pay over 1000 Shekalim for the honor of reading one of the Hakafot out loud during the upcoming dancing/song session. After about 40 minutes of 3 takers, some of the people pledged over 2000 Shekels, he got fed up with waiting and started the dancing.

They took out 4 Torahs from the bomb sheltered and locked ark. We danced with them for about 2 hours before we had to leave and get back to base for dinner. I actually ended up having the honor of reading one of them out loud. It just so happened to be the longest one and I definitely made up my own tune that made no sense because I didn't really know what I was doing.

I just got my ulpan grade. 83. not bad, not great but in Israel that's a B+. So, I'll think B+, and since I got a 87 on my Jerusalem final as well, that's a A-. OK sorry for getting distracted.

It was a really great night. We danced and sang and ended up getting back in time for dinner and the Nativ Tish. That's just a sweet song session.

The next morning, I went to Shira Chadasha with Seffi and a bunch of other people. I was there for about 5 hours, dancing with the torah and whatnot. It's a tradition in Israel that everyone in every shul in Israel on Simchat Torah morning gets an Alyehia (blessing over the torah). So I had one of course and it was great.

OK I really got to go to sleep. It's after midnight and I'm tired. Sorry... :( but by the way our mini fridge broke again and I lost 18 shekel on Shock chocolate milk, aka "shoko". that was lame

OK time go to, talk soon. Unfourtunately there's no pics from simchat torah, sorry :(

Talk soon,

-Josh

Desert Survival

2009-10-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

So I havn't written in over 10 days, and I think I have some explaining to do. Here in Israel, from Rosh Hashana to yesterday is considered "Chag Season," where there is a new chag every few days. I have decided that, at least for my time in israel, not to break shabbat and that would limit my writing to 6 days a week. Between rosh hashana and now there was 2 days of rosh hashana, yom kippur, sukkot and simchas torah. but that's no excuse. i owe you guys a huge update. so here we go:

October 4th (Sunday): I wake up at 545 in the morning and board a bus with my track (Yerucham) heading due south to "the negev" aka the desert. after an hour and a half of riding the bus, we arrived at a synagogue in Be'er Sheva, the 'capital' of the negev. we daveded schacrit there, with our lulav's and everything, and had some pretty decent breakfast. i had a bagel, the first time (and last so far) since I left america. Sad :(. we then got back on the bus and headed more south. after another hour and a half, we found ourselves on a really random highway literally in the middle of nowhere, in the bus that was driving off of the road and into the desert. it then stopped after about 10 minutes of driving into the desert and dropped us off. thus begins the 3 day DESERT SURVIVAL ADVENTURE

DAY ONE: We started the hike around noon, but we started it off with a huge uphill climb. Our tour guides name is Michal, and our security guide's name is Tamir. they were both really cool, like 21 years old. the first day we hiked 5 kilometers (3ish miles?) up and down mountains. I was with my friend Adam for most of the first day. Adam and I were getting a little frustated with the slow pace of the group and the numerous amount of stops, so during most of the breaks we decided to hike up our own mountains. Some of the pictures posted are from that intense climb. while everyone was playing some stupid game with a stick, Adam, Seth Miri and I climbed up one huge mountain, then at the top we found another one, and got halfway up that one before Noah yelled at us to come down. It was right around sunset time, and it was absolutely beautiful. We kept hiking until we made it to the campsite. Night came and it quickly got dark and COLDDDD. We were expecting to have even worse food than we usually do back at beit Nativ, but it actually was unbelievable. We then made a campfire, and I played guitar for like two hours. it was amazing. once it was over, we were all absolutely exhusted. it was about 930 when we decided to call it a night. That night, the moon was unbelievably bright. We started calling it the nightlight because it really wasn't that much darker than it was during the day.

DAY TWO: Wake up at 530 AM. Davened schacrit in the desert as the sun was coming up with lulav's and all. We hiked 14 Kilometers that day, and went up one absolutely enormous mountain. We hiked up, and we ended up overlooking the biggest crater in Israel. It's a naturally formed crater, but its still really cool. We passed the Kibbutz group about halfway through the day. they told us the hardest part was still to come. We passed them and finished the final 8 KM pretty quickly, because it was all downhill. I guess they didn't realize that uphill for them was downhill for us! We arrived at the campsite and similarly to the night before, we made a campfire and I sang some songs for it. It was a really good time.

DAY THREE: Yea i realize that my summary's aren't the best, but I'll show you guys a lot of pictures in a second to make up for it. Sorry :/ It was a desert survival hike, walking over a lot of mountains, very hot sun beating down on my crispy body all day, very sweaty and dehydrated all the time. the usual. Day three ended with us reaching our final destination and getting into jeeps! the jeeps drove us for 30 minutes out of the desert and into a rest stop where we got cold cuts and juice for lunch. We made it back to base around 530, I had the best shower EVER and got to sleep around 10. I was gearing up for what was bound to be a very excited few days ahead of me: MDA TRAINING. That will be the next post, but until that goes up here's some pictures from the desert survival adventure!

Sept 30- Oct 3rd

2009-10-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Its currently 430 on Friday afternoon. I'm sitting in the Pirates Cove, aka room 611 with LeeAnn, Gabe and Seffi. In about 45 minutes I'm going to start the hike the Linda Gradstein's house in Arnona. I'm excited for Shabbas/Sukkot dinner!

Let's start on Tuesday night. Every Tuesday we have a mandatory evening program called erev Nativ. This time, we had a guest speaker. Some of you may know him, some may not. Rabbi Joel Roth spoke to us on Tuesday night. Rabbi Roth is one of the most well known and influential Rabbi's in the entire conservative movement. It was truly an inspiring speech. He talked to us about the failings of the conservative movement in israel and in america. he talked all about what the conservative movement actually is and why it is "Most authentic Jewish religious movement in the world today." He talked about the why orthodox and reform Judaism are the way they are, but why, in his opinion, they are wrong and the conservative movement is right.

He says there in the reform and orthodox movement, there isn't a big religious gaps between the rabbi's and his members. Orthodox people aren't any more religious than their rabbi's are, and same with the reform movement. but the conservative movement has a huge gap of religious observance between the rabbi's and his people. rabbi roth told us that the conservative movement is a movement dedicated to halacha, such as keeping shabbat and keeping kosher, but for some reason conservative jews don't understand that.

Let's start on Wednesday. Wednesday I took an ulpan test and ended up getting a 98. but it totally wasnt my fault i didnt get 100 because the font the teacher used was really confusing so i confused a kof and a final tzdik so it wrote the wrong letter. unfair.

OK so they turned off the internet as I was writing, so sorry I didn't get to you guys before shabbas. now i need to update about shabbas as well. ill make that a new post. until then let's cover thursday

Thursday was the ulpan final. it was ok, i'm pretty sure i passed, not sure about having an A but for sure in the B range, which is fine because that should get me to ulpan aleph plus plus which was the goal.

after the test, we had the first week of the NBA, the nativ basketball association at liberty bell park. we got the good court, i brought my speakers and we went. asaf, aaron and i organized the league, there's 5 teams of 4 guys on a team. my team is me, brian, tyler and ethan. we went 2-2, as in 2 wins and 2 losses. i played pretty well, getting better as the night went on, which is pretty normal. after intense basketball, we showered up and got ready for a good thursday night.

after the test we all went out on thursday night, it was pretty fun. what's lame is that all the nativ people don't congregate together in downtown jerusalem, we tend to spread out a little bit which is lame because i would rather spend time with nativ people than random americans/brit's that are roaming around ben yahudia street. that was fine, nothing special, lots of random israeli's playing music and lots of people. pretty standard thursday night.

Friday! friday was free, i woke up at 1145, the latest i've woken up since i've been in the holy land, it felt greattttt waking up that late. we just hung around before shabbas, and then i started to type this blog. then the internet got turned off.

last night, i went to a family friends house, Linda Gradstein, for Shabbat/Sukkot dinner. It was about a 45 minute walk to her house from beit nativ, but since i got lost about 4 times it took around an hour. there were a ton of little kids there, which was super fun. they were all around 8 years old. some were a little younger, some were a little older. after a nice shabbat dinner i walked back to base with two families that i met there and that was pleasant. i got back to base around 1130, hung out with some people for an hour and ended up getting to sleep around 130. i set a mental alarm clock because seffi and i both forgot to set alarm clocks.

i ended up waking up at 750, perfect timing. seffi i went to shira chadasha, a nice service. got back to base, hung out, did some work on my ankle, did mincha, maariv and sutff

going to burgers bar now

talk soon,

josh

KIRYAT GAT!!

2009-09-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-09-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

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