4/3/2018 1 Comment Searching for peace in QatarThe travel blog is back and better than ever! After a brief 9-month hiatus, I am back to document my experiences across the globe, this time in Qatar. Qatar is a country in the Middle East in the Gulf, nearby Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and the Gulf Sea. It’s basically a little peninsula jutting out of Saudi Arabia. While Qatar is now one of the richest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita (almost $125,000 USD) with a beautiful skyline and constant construction, just 15 years ago that skyline was mostly orange, barren, desert sand. Just about 10% of the population is actually Qatari, while the rest is from various countries in the Middle East and Asia. Getting Qatari citizenship is quite hard, as pretty much the only way to become a citizen is if one’s father is already a citizen. This is similar to many of Qatar’s neighbors.
The trip was fully funded by NU-Q (Northwestern University in Qatar), which is part of Education City (EC) in Qatar, where six American universities (VCU, Carnegie Melon, Cornell, Texas A&M, Georgetown and NU) live more or less funded by the Qatar Foundation, a department of the government of Qatar. So indirectly, my trip was funded by the Qatari government, and boy did it show! The goal of the trip was not necessarily clear, but it seemed to be to see Northwestern’s campus in EC, meet our peers studying there, tour Doha, and see and experience the rich of culture of Qatar. Upon arrival, the 15 of us, along with 2 faculty, were escorted to a lounge to wait, snack, sip on some tea, and relax as our bags were retrieved for us. If only all travel was like this! I definitely felt like we were being treated as VIPs whom had to be pleased and impressed. I’ll take it. Greeted by the hot desert air, we set off to EC to meet our peers and see NU-Q and its beautiful dorms. It was amazing to be back in the Middle East – for whatever reason, this region always feels familiar to me, regardless of which country I’m actually in. It feels like I innately just understand in part some of the culture and more or less am meant to be here. This would be a thought that I would come back to throughout the trip, as the Middle East continues to be the most interesting place in the world – in my opinion. After getting settled in and dinner, the group, most of whom were strangers besides 3-4 pre-trip meetings, walked around EC to find a meticulously kept, well-lit open area called Oxygen Park. Consisting of about three main areas, the park was encircled by lights whose “bulbs” looked like air balloons getting ready to set off into the wind. Inside, the grass was incredibly green for fighting with the desert sun all day long, and each blade was trimmed to the same length. It looked as though this grass has not grown since being planted perfectly. There were soccer goals and a lane or two of a track, and although it was 9 p.m., the park was bustling with kids running around playing in the sand pits or soccer, couples going on a night stroll, etc. – all things that would seemingly not happen in America’s parks at night, which are often not well lit and carry a certain stigma once the sun goes down. Right off the bat, this country seemed like a utopia, a place that seemed just too good, too perfect to be true. We were lucky enough to sleep in the same dorms the EC students live in. Because each school is relatively small in EC, no matter what school you attend, all males sleep in one dorm, while all females sleep in another one 15 minutes away. Dorm does not do the building we slept in justice. Each of us got singles with a private bathroom, flat screen TV, mini fridge, and a lot of space. According to our peers who lived here, these were actually the worst rooms in what I thought of as more of a hotel than a dorm (it even had concierge and cleaning services daily). You can eventually get a full kitchen in your room, as well as other amenities. Of course, this is extremely different from our dorms back home, where most people are in doubles, share a bathroom with their floor, and could use a little bit more space. That being said, what comes with our dorms back at home is something some students in Qatar wished they had: constant socializing. The thought of all hanging out in each other’s rooms, with friends in your hall or in your dorm is not really a thing here. Privacy is often preferred, a trait that aligns with much of the Qatari culture. The next day we toured a few of the buildings in EC – each university gets basically one incredibly pristine, beautiful building where they hold all of their classes. Each college only houses majors which it is known for (i.e. if you go to Northwestern here, you are a communications or journalism major, if you go to TAMU you do engineering). Every single building clearly costs a huge sum of money which the Qatari government paid for, as all the universities had to do was provide the faculty and curriculum. The project, which was established by the mother of the current king, or Emir, of Qatar aimed to bring high-level Western education to the Middle East. While many Qataris are quite conservative, those in EC are seen as very progressive, as these universities are the only in the country that are not segregated by gender, can show lude material for education, can hire whomever they want (most companies here must have at least 40% Qatari employment), and teach in English. We then had a cultural session about Qatar, where we learned about the intricacies of society here and toured the souq, or market place. We learned about the cultural traditions of Qatari dress (men wear long, white dress called thoubs, while women wear long, black dress called abayas), of greetings between men and between women, and of the importance of Arabic coffee serving. The distinct dress makes it easy to see in the population who is Qatari (the people wearing the black or white long dress) and who is not. The coffee is served in small cups by one of the boys of the family in a very particular way, pouring just a little bit at once to avoid pressuring guests to drink more than they want to. It is seen as disrespectful to not finish at least one cup of the coffee, as this can be a sign of rejecting the hospitality of the host. So, a small cup is poured to allow guests to drink as little as they want without being rude. Spices are then lit at the end of a meal when the hosts want the guests to leave as a way of “smoking” them out. The market felt a little different than other Middle Eastern souqs. This was because it was actually built relatively recently, but in a way that gave it an ancient feel like other souqs. So, it was like fake ancient, yet still had all the little trinkets and souvenirs the other ones would have; it was still a tourist trap. One major aspect that differentiated this souq was its bird and other animal market. Countless birds were confined to smelly cages, stacked on squished into each other, living next to cages of bunnies, turtles and more. It definitely did not seem like these animals were treated very well, and I am curious how many people actually come here to buy them. One bunny in particular looked like it was barely moving and on the verge of death. In general, according to one of the faculty at NU-Q, the animals in Qatar are not treated so well, which she feels is one of the domestic issues in the country. The souq essentially shuts down from 12-4pm daily, as it gets to be too hot for the shopkeepers, and reopens until late at night, where shisha abounds. Consequently, many of the NU-Q kids often come to the souq to go out at night, although there is no alcohol sold here, as the only alcohol sold in the country can be found at hotels, albeit at very pricey rates. Because it is an Islamic country, Qatar does not allow pork or alcohol to be sold within its borders. We also had various lectures on the trip to get a better understanding of how Qatar functions. Specifically, we were given a lecture by a Northwestern professor on the blockade, which is the joint closing of borders from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain against Qatar. Once it was announced, Qataris in those countries were given 1.5 days to leave before flights would stop going from those countries, and trade was halted so much so that Qatar airlifted in 2,000 cows for a dairy farm so the country could continue having dairy. While some argue that the blockade came as a result of Qatar sponsoring terrorism, others think that it is because Saudi Arabia either thinks Qatar is getting too rich, too progressive, or too powerful for its liking, and wants to put sanctions on them to deter all of the above. Of course, it depends who you ask. We also met with the Supreme Council that is planning the world cup in Qatar in 2022, where we were spoon-fed a lot of government propaganda. While the U.N. has complained about humanitarian issues with migrant workers building the stadiums due to their slave-like status (the complaint was later dropped in late October of 2017), the person we met with highlighted the great conditions the workers had, citing the fact that they had a soccer league of their own that they got to enjoy in. Needless to say, she did not mention the fact that they were paid much less than they were promised, had previously been tied to employers so much so that workers had to get permission from the employers to leave the country (this was later prohibited), and lived 6-8 people in a studio apartment. When she was asked about these conditions and what the Supreme Council is doing to solve them, the rep we talked to explained that she was not authorized to talk about such issues. If that doesn’t raise a red flag then I don’t know what does. That being said, the Middle East has never hosted the World Cup, so this will be a big chance to show the world what that region has to offer, according to this rep. From there, we saw the incredible wealth that exists in the country, going to a place called The Pearl, which houses incredible apartments on the coast, with a beautiful view of the skyline in the city. We had dinner at the Dean’s house, who has been leading NU-Q for the past 7 years and looks like he is living the life. The catered meal was incredible and talking to him about why he came here was really interesting. It is a lot to come from the U.S. to live in Qatar, but he seems to like it here, as do many of the professors that have moved to Qatar to teach in these universities. One professor we talked to said that he moved here to make sure his kids didn’t get too comfortable just living the regular American life, growing up in rural Pennsylvania, going to Penn State and never challenging themselves. He gave up tenure at PSU for his kids to experience a completely new culture and broaden their horizons. He said getting used to the culture in Qatar has been difficult at times, but after a year he has started to learn how to get around in his industry and research. We also went to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) and shadowed various classes. The MIA was built so its outside looked like a woman wearing niqab. It had incredible art from throughout the Muslim world and its history. One of the more interesting things I learned there was that for one culture, the way tombstones with which they honored their dead had different levels to signify importance or wealth (the more levels the more important), which is the exact same tradition I saw of a Jewish culture in my travels last year. It’s really interesting to see how customs and traditions travel between cultures. The classes were cool to sit in on in that they were learning the same lessons we were in Evanston, and the class dynamic was more or less the same as we had, although it reminded me a lot of high school, as professors and their students knew each other pretty well and had their fun in class more than we do. It seemed a lot more laid back, which was really refreshing. Throughout the trip, each of us was paired with a “shadow buddy” that was a student in our same major who would show us around and bring us to classes. My buddy is an Egyptian who was born in Qatar and lived here his whole life (though he’s not a citizen), and is a journalism major. He brought me to his favorite spot in the city, which was a lookout in a beautiful, well-groomed park on the water that stared right at the skyline. We also visited the state mosque together, which fits 30,000 people in it, and discussed his practice of Islam and my practice of Judaism. I explained to him how Judaism worked, which he had never learned about and was a really interesting conversation to have. He had no idea of really any of my Jewish customs, and was astonished by how long Jewish prayer services can be every day, as he said the ones he is used to take 5-10 minutes. He used to be religious but no longer is. He also took me to his favorite restaurant in Doha, where I got to eat some local food at a little hole-in-the-wall. To be honest, I have no idea what I ate, but I do know that it was so good, and obviously the hummus was just a little bit better than the Sabra hummus I’ve been eating in America. At the restaurant, stemming from our conversation on religion, I asked him about his thoughts on Israel. This was a big topic, and for about an hour we explained to each other our views and what we were taught as children. He said that growing up, people would not refer to Israel as Israel, as that would be recognizing it as a legitimate state and entity. Instead, he was taught to call it an occupying force or oppressive power, etc., and didn’t necessarily love the country. The country was seen as a violent, militant group focused on kicking people out of their homes and destroying families. The Israeli people were seen as wanting collectively one thing, and that was against the Palestinians. As he grew up, he wanted to do some research on his own, and just relatively recently had learned about Israel’s economy, inventions, and I told him about some peace seeking, coexistence groups. It was interesting to hear his perspective and then give mine, which he labeled as pretty moderate. He also asked me if I had any pre-conceived notions on Muslims in general, and overall, I think we had a pretty enlightening conversation for both of us. I realized myself over the next few days trying to avoid saying I had lived in Israel if it came up, rather opting to say Jerusalem, which I hoped would be a more neutral connotation. That being said, I also realized that if I believe Israel is a state and should exist (which I do), then I shouldn’t shade my beliefs just because they might be an outlier here, though I didn’t want to stir up any conversation. It was a dilemma that I still haven’t solved. Finally, we also got to do some really fun activities on the trip, including taking a Dhow boat out onto the water, where we were given an amazing array of grilled meats that continued to show why food in the Middle East is just better than in America. We also got to swim in the sea, which was really welcome after weathering the desert heat. The combo of the swimming and actually unreal meat culminating in the sun setting over the skyline of the city proved to be one of the most fun parts of the trip. The sunsets in Qatar seemed to just be on another level, making me again think of this place as a utopia at times, which of course it is not. As soon as you drive around the city, you see the migrant workers working in the immense heat constantly cleaning or grooming the grass, sidewalks, and glass doors and windows, explaining why the Oxygen Park grass seemed so incredibly pristine. The workers clean and cut it every single day. We also went to the Inland Sea and desert on our last day, which was basically a desert that suddenly turned into a beach. One minute, there were dunes and nothing but sand in sight. The next, there was the giant body of water and what looked like our own private beach. We were split up into smaller cars, and my driver was hilarious. He was Qatari, so he was dressed in his Thoub and everything, and he loved American music. He got Wi-Fi in his car so he could watch music videos on the screen in his car, and we jammed out to everything from Rihanna to Tupac, who he said was his favorite. He just seemed to love his job, as he would swerve around the sand and every time we would go over a bunch of bumps he would make the sounds the car was making, his favorite one being “ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta,” which was accompanied by several different hand motions. He was just loving life, it seemed. Some NU-Q students came with us, and we all just chilled at the beach and had a fun last day before our early flight the next morning. Overall, this trip taught me a lot of things. I learned about the Qatari culture and it functions, I learned about college students from across the world liked to do for fun (hint: it’s pretty much the same as us), what their thoughts are on all sorts of hot button issues, and reinforced the idea that traveling to experience other cultures really rounds one out as a person and teaches you invaluable lessons. Although we are all different, we are also all the same. We experience joy in similar ways, want to have fun, but also want to be intellectually stimulated. We are curious and want to learn about each other. It is easy to think of there being a normal or better way to live life, and a different or lesser way to live life, but this is untrue. There is no best way or normal way, only what we are used to in our culture, in our society. Across the world, their normal is different, their good life is different but still good, and they are still people, still humans. For me, traveling is kind of like a reset on who I am, what I want to be, and how I want to spend my time. This trip reaffirmed for me in a big way the value of travel (doing it for free makes it that much better), as it keeps me super curious, constantly questioning and reflecting, and continues to better me as a person. There’s no learning for a test on a trip like this, but rather just learning because I am genuinely curious of what it is like in Qatar. I can’t wait for my next trip, wherever that may be, to experience the world and all its people has to offer. Thanks for finishing the blogpost, I know it was really long, but I’m just excited about sharing my experience with everyone, hope you enjoyed! Shout outs: TVA girls if they’re still reading this.
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Since October 13, just 8 months ago, my life has been changed, forever influenced by the places I saw, the people I met, the stories I heard, the questions I asked, and the relationships I formed. Far and away, the most important lesson I've learned from this year has been the power that one person has to affect change in entire communities and groups of people, that no dream is too big or too crazy. In Morocco, we met Rafi, who returned to his Jewish Moroccan roots after living outside of Morocco for an extended period of time, studying in England and Israel. Upon arriving to Israel, where his brothers had been living for years, both of whom he had not seen in a long time, he was questioned by a certain airport security official who asked about his Moroccan roots and his purpose of visiting Israel. Upon telling the security officer that he was trying to find his brothers, Rafi found out he had already bumped into one; he was talking to his brother at that very moment. Since that chance run in, Rafi has been the man behind the resurrection of the various Moroccan Jewish communities. He has found countless artifacts and reinvigorated communities with energy and the means to have active synagogues. He even found an 850 year old little synagogue that had not been in use for years but had been kept up by Harim. Harim was a local Muslim who had been given the key to the synagogue decades ago when the Jews left for Israel. He was told to hold on to the key until the Jews came back. After years of waiting for the Jews to return, Harim could have just taken the synagogue for his own storage place – who would have cared? But when Rafi eventually came to this small village to find the synagogue, Harim greeted him with open arms and returned the keys to the synagogue to the Jews. Harim not only shows the power of compassion that each human possesses, but also highlights the incredible coexistence that Moroccan Jews and Arabs and Berbers shared for years before the Jews fled to Israel. Because of Rafi, Jewry across Morocco, while still less active than it once was, is being resurrected. So Rafi is just one example of the power one person can have to influence countless lives, but there were countless more. Take the Rabbi of the orthodox synagogue in Berlin, the city that housed the Nazi headquarters, where they planned the Final Solution to the Jewish people. He was born in Israel, where his family had been living for over 200 years; he was the 7th generation born there. Instead of doing the easy thing and continuing the family legacy in Israel, living among many more Jews like himself, this Rabbi came specifically to Berlin because of the Holocaust. He would not let the Nazis win. The Jewish community, he assured, would come back and thrive in the very place that planned their demise. He had this sense of purpose that was as palpable as I have ever seen in anyone, and truly believed he was on a mission. He was doing everything he could to make the community more involved and feel welcomed in his synagogue. In Berlin, there are these gold stones that are a bit raised up from the regular stones on the sidewalk that are called stolperstein, or stumbling stones. These stones, which are all over Germany, and all over Europe, are placed in front of houses where Jews were violently forced out and often eventually killed in the death camps. The stones are ingrained with their names and their eventual fate. It has influence all over Europe as the world's largest monument, spanning 610 places in in eight countries, and is thanks to one person who started the project, Gunder Demnig. While some may have called him crazy for trying to do something so large, he still sought it out because he knew the power of one and the power of memorializing even just one name. Spain has not had a Spanish Rabbi in 500 years. At this point in time, it's down right crazy to try and make this happen, right? It's been too long and there's probably not a community to lead? Haim Casas will tell you differently. Haim is what they call a judeoconverso, meaning he had Jewish ancestry who had been forcibly converted during the inquisition, yet somehow they were able to pass on a certain detail generation to generation that Haim would later look into, a detail that made him Jewish. After converting to Judaism and being engaged to his future husband, who did the same, Haim, a young man, is about to be ordained this summer after years of study as a Rabbi. He is going to be the first Spanish Rabbi in literally 500 years. By just doing that, he has already done so much, much more than one person can be expected to do. He has opened the door to the resurrection of the once thriving Spanish Jewish community. Having a Rabbi that is homegrown is different than importing one from Israel. It connects the community in a way that only a local can. It gives the local community a sense of purpose and potential for who they could be. Only time will tell exactly what this ordination will do, but for the time being, Haim has already made history, and he's just getting started. In Bulgaria, Maxim is a 30ish year old man who is quietly and determinedly bringing the young Jews of Bulgaria back to their ancestral roots. He is the unofficial head of the Jewish community there that lived through communism and anti religion just a couple decades ago. How could one person return religion to a place where the parent generation had no practice or understanding of their Judaism, let alone their kids? By starting with the kids. The kids now know more than their parents and are bringing their parents along for the ride. He plans programs at the JCC and BBYO events. He knows how to connect with people and is doing everything he can to legitimize this community. This next year he will be studying in israel to return to Bulgaria the following year to bring back what he learned Jewishly to further his community. He doesn't have to do this, but he doesn't feel like he has a choice, it's his life passion and something larger than himself. It'd be much easier for him to just go about his life, and if he really wanted a thriving Jewish community, he could move to Israel, but that's not who he is. He, too, is a shining example of the power of one. Look at the leaders of the Women of the Wall, a group that is fighting for gender equality at the Kotel, or Western Wall in Israel, one of the holiest sites in Judaism. Once a month in the early morning, they hold a women's service at the Wall where they try to bring in Torah scrolls to the woman's side. They are met by ultra Orthodox Jews who spit at them, call them Nazis and try to rip the holy Torah scrolls out of their hands. They are not treated as a fellow Jew by these incredibly religious men and women, but as a disgrace to the Jewish people, yet they fight on amidst controversy. Going at almost every chance I got gave me just a glimpse at to what they have been able to do. It also showed me that someone had to bring all these people together for the common cause, and they succeeded in organizing events every month. Chances are, if you have a feeling that something needs to change, there exists a group of people who feel the same way as you do, which is why change is always possible; you just have to put in some effort. As David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister and founding father said, "In order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles." There is no such thing as impossible or dreaming too big. Click here to see a video of our year! Another great lesson I learned this year is that there is no such thing as a normal way to live life. There's the "normal" way we as Americans like to live our lives, but even that is regionally very different. And one way is no better than another just because it has more technology or is "more developed or civilized." In the Negev, the desert in southern Israel, Bedouins live a way of life that we might consider outdated and underdeveloped. They don't all have Wifi, TVs, and built up houses, and they cook differently than we do. That being said, the Bedouins we met are a close knit family, without distractions such as Snapchat or Spongebob to take them out of their surroundings. Instead, they are always present and conversing with the people around them, leaving unnecessary stresses and burdens out of their lives, while substituting in deeper bonds and connections. Some may call it a simple life. Others call it a better life. Again, there is no such thing as a normal or regular way to live life. Lastly, this year, I found out exactly how influential asking questions, especially uncomfortable questions, can be in every facet of one's life. At the beginning of the year, the founder of the program, Peter Geffen, asked us after days of being with him how no one could ask him about his prosthetic leg. It clearly affected his life, and while some would ask questions about his background or where he grew up, no one ever dared to ask such an uncomfortable question regarding an issue that affected every moment of his life. After learning that it would be okay to ask him about it, as he could just say I'm uncomfortable answering that question if he was indeed uncomfortable, our group took asking questions to another level. We would meet these incredible people that were once in a lifetime encounters and dared to ask them anything, whether it be asking a special adviser to the King of Morocco about the Western Sahara occupation or challenging our most respected teacher in front of everyone on if he was asking a fair, unbiased question. More than just asking the speakers questions, we interrogated each other every day about who we were and what motivated each one of us to be the way we are. It was not uncommon to be walking in the streets abroad and have someone on Kivunim come up to you and ask a question like, "what is your deepest insecurity?" or, "How do you think your relationship with your parents affects your relationship with other adults?" Or anything in between. And everyone was just so ready to fully go into the answer to whatever deep questions were asked. As a result, some of the deepest relationships between such a large group of 18-19 year olds were formed in a way I had never seen before. I learned that not only is asking teachers and tour guides uncomfortable questions incredibly rewarding because it opens them up to you, but moreover, asking peers and friends these uncomfortable questions builds a more intimate connection that is hopefully more lasting. These people know more about me, and I about them, than any other group. It is truly special. While seeing the Ganges and the Sahara and all these incredible landscapes would be amazing and memorable regardless of who you're with, the 45 members of Kivunim, as well as the staff of Jay, David, Dani, Barry, and Peter, made this year not just memorable, but life changing, and I could never thank them enough. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for making this year so special, I really can't imagine this year without any one of you. The memories we share will be something that will forever bond us. Kivunim did not end on June 13, it was just the end to chapter one, and this is a multi volume book that will only grow as our life does. I am beyond thankful for this year and excited for how it will affect my college experience and beyond. Thanks again to everyone who made it possible! Shoutouts: The 45 members of Kivunim 2016-2017 Our last trip was one of the most emotional, meaningful, interesting and fun trips we've had. After seeing different communities from around the world, including various Jewish ones, we visited the place that headquartered the systematic attempt to destroy Judaism, wiping out 6 million Jews in the process - Berlin. Over two weeks, we also went to Prague, Czech Republic, Budapest, Hungary, a quick drive-through day-stop in Bratislava, Slovakia, and finally Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, making it 5 countries in just 15 days. We visited Holocaust memorials, learned about the Nazis and their grandchildren today, saw the effects of communism, ate unreal food like bratwurst (bratbest*), and saw the incredible human ability to be resilient and overcome and grind through atrocities and come out stronger as a result. This trip was definitely more centered around Judaism, which made it the most similar to the first trip. Seeing sites such as the very villa where the Wannsee conference was held, where the Nazis debated "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question" blew my mind, in addition to a concentration camp that was a little nicer because it was used for propaganda. I definitely came out of this trip more than any other proud to be a Jew.
Berlin, Germany: Best food I ate: -Currywurst: a hot dog type thing but way better and sprinkled with curry spices. Often referred to as currybest -vienerschniztel- basically very thin big piece of breaded and fried chicken - beer! Beer was really cheap here and there was a 2,000 person capacity biergarten right next to our hotel which had the best draught beer. Half a liter was always less than $2 -struessel from a vegan bakery that was amazing -chicken tongue -arepas and rib eye sandwich from a food market we went to that could have been the best one we went to all year. We go to one in every country there is one Some phrases How are you: vee gehts Sorry: entschuldigung Thanks: danke Throughout this year, my favorite cities have almost all been from cities that we stayed in for at least 3 nights, which doesn't happen as often as you might think, maybe once per trip. We stayed in Berlin for 4-5 nights and it made such a difference. Not having to spend half of every day driving somewhere allows us to do so much more and really see the city, which we definitely did. The most striking part of Berlin was the sheer amount of monuments and memorials scattered in the city. It seems like the city is putting everything they can into showing they want to atone for what the Nazis did. At some point, the citizens of Berlin must get numb to all these memorials, because for example, on one of the morning runs, we must have passed a memorial every time we took a turn. Even by the end of this one run, I stopped trying to figure out what each memorial was for and just thought about how many there were. That being said, Germany committed atrocities in the recent past and must take responsibility for what they did. It is very clear that this thought is on the mind of at least the city's government or whoever is in charge of making monuments. One of the many monuments that is scattered around the city is something called stumbling stones. Stumbling stones are gold stones that are put into the ground, raised a few inches up from the sidewalk, in front of the houses or residencies of Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Their names are engraved on each stone. They are raised a little bit so that people will trip slightly on them as they are walking on the street, and subsequently look down at these names to remember those who fell. It's an initiative (I think but check this before posting) started by a offspring of a Nazi to try to atone for what his ancestor did. I thought these were the most powerful memorials because they are so ingrained in life and normal, which is what antisemitism and the Nazis were to Germany during WWII. (Somehow tie this together better.) This trip was very Holocaust centered, if you can't tell yet. We also went to the Wannsee conference villa, where the top Nazis decided on the final solution to the Jewish problem, I.e. completely wiping out the Jewish people because they were a cancer to society. The villa is absolutely gorgeous, with a magnificent yard, colorful flowers, freshly groomed grass, and a back yard that goes right into this lake. Sitting on a bench, with our backs to the villa looking out on the water, it was eerily serene and quiet. This would be a great place to have a summer home and go boating and all sorts of fun activities. Yet somehow this gorgeous place with an equally gorgeous house turned into the place that decided to efficiently and systematically try to wipe the Jews off the face of the Earth. Just like the rest of Berlin, the present day scene cannot escape its horrific past. Continuing the Holocaust memorials, we also visited the main Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, as well as track 17, where thousands of Jews were sent to various death camps by train, where many of them were murdered on the same day they arrived at the camps. The memorial was in this big courtyard or square, which was filled with giant blocks that said nothing on them, not even a Jewish Star. The blocks start out looking like a grave or tombstones, but gradually get higher and higher so that all you can see is the blocks to your right, your left, behind and in front of you. It could be quiet and powerful, yet many people there who might not realize the true meaning of the memorial treat it just as a place to take selfies and climb on fun structures. It became such a problem actually that one disgusted person created a slideshow called yolocaust, which put people's selfies with the giant blocks next to the bodies of the victims of the Holocaust, people who hadn't eaten sufficiently in months or years. Needless to say, many of us left this memorial angry that the other people visiting did not respect what these blocks were memorializing. Track 17 had two memorials, one of which is tiny and one of which is train tracks. The tiny one is a few pieces of wood slabbed together that no one would notice if they weren't told it was a Holocaust memorial. This was only put in recently and does not do justice to how significant and horrible track 17 was. The other memorial just a few hundred meters away, is the physical train tracks. These tracks are hugged on both sides by dates, numbers and destinations. The dates are the dates when trains left from this station to various camps. The numbers were the number of people who were in each "shipment." And the destinations are the specific camp each train was sent to, including Auschwitz, the death camp that killed 1 million Jews. Someone had, in rocks, made the Israeli flag at the base of the tracks and written notes in Hebrew to the victims. This was one of the more powerful memorials. We also saw other memorials that were more for World War Two and the Nazis in general. It was interesting to see the German perspective, especially quotes from offspring of Nazis who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, harbored no hate, yet still had to live with the family name and know their parents or grandparents took part in the horrendous killings. Another part of Germany's past that we made sure to see was the Berlin Wall, which is now used as a platform for graffiti and street art and is beautiful. There's every color and picture you can think of and it goes on for so long. Crazy to think that something that again looks so beautiful now made all the difference just half a century ago. On one side was communism and the other capitalism. Overall Germany was an amazing country to visit and really made me think. It made me think about my Judaism. It made me think about my ancestors. It made me think about people. It made me think about memorializing. Most of all, it made me think and realize how much the present is a function of the past and how long are we supposed to look back for. At what point can you say, listen that was x number of years ago and we know we messed up but we need to move on? Is it ever acceptable? Can we still blame the citizens of Germany, who have accepted 1 million refugees, on their ancestors past? It's a tough question that I don't have the answer to. I do know, however, that Germany really made me think. One of the most religious experiences of the year for me, up there with the Friday night in Córdoba, was when we visited the local synagogue in Berlin. The rabbi there was just such a good, genuine guy who really believed in his religion. He thought it was his duty, despite being a 7th generation Israeli, to move to Berlin and be the rabbi as a kind of duck you to the Nazis. He spoke to us about how much it meant to him that there was an active Jewish community and synagogue in the place that masterminded the Holocaust. During his speech, he would sometimes break into song that would go with what he was saying. In one particular instance, talking about the Holocaust he sang vehakadosh barchu matzeeleinu, the holy one saved us. Despite the horrors and otherworldly suffering our people experienced, here was this rabbi in Berlin trying to be positive and happy that the Nazis didn't win, that we're still standing. It was just a very powerful moment for me. From now on, that song will carry much greater meaning for me, I'll actually think about the words and how lucky we are to be alive right now. From Germany, we got our last beer and currywurst and drove to our next city, our first of real Eastern Europe, Prague. Prague, Czech Republic Best food Chimney cakes Pork shoulder Sausage Phrase Ahoy hello Thanks yakoor Good-dobre Prague avoided the bombing at the end of the Second World War and as a result has maintained its old city beauty. It was absolutely one of my favorite cities of the year. It just had that feeling to it. Just an incredible place to be, somewhere I would definitely spend a semester abroad. The nightlife was so cool, with different types of bars and clubs that were so unique and fun. The buildings were beautiful and hundreds of years old, as were the streets. We also did a lot of Jewish and Holocaust sight seeing here. We visited an 800 year old synagogue that is still active and supposedly holds the remains to the heroic golum, a clay statue turned defender that protected the Jews in their dark times hundreds of years ago. We also saw the Lennon wall, which I don't know the history of but has the same feel as the Berlin Wall, just on a much smaller scale. There is street art and graffiti covering it with different quotes and messages about life. The best one was, "for the nights I won't remember, with the people I'll never forget." I think that is pretty much kivunim in a sentence. We do so many incredible things and it's going to be impossible to remember every single experience we have, but we'll know we had them together and that's what really makes it that much more special. One of the more powerful days of the whole trip for me was when the day we visited Theresenstadt, a concentration camp, my first camp ever. Being so close to Poland, where 3 million Jews were killed, I had really been wishing our trip included visits to Warsaw and Auschwitz and overall Poland and its camps. Seeing this camp only made me want to visit the death camps and the nastiest part of the Holocaust even more. This concentration camp was where all the VIPs, elderly etc were sent. It was supposed to be a little nicer, which it definitely was, and was used as propaganda to show the rest of the world that these camps weren't so bad. They would make videos of kids eating bread looking happy. We watched one of these videos while we were there, and it was clear in the videos from how fast these kids were eating this bread that they were starving. This portion of food they received was not the normal amount, but just a show for the video camera. They also had fields where the kids could play soccer and really emphasized art. While this sounds fun and nice, even just a quick glance at this artwork, which is shown in the camp's museum shows how wrong this is. The kids' drawings depict their lost family members, their longing for freedom, and more. One poem read: A little garden Fragrant and full of roses The path is narrow And a little walks along it. A little boy, a sweet boy, Like that growing blossom When the blossom comes to bloom The little boy will be no more It's crazy again to think that such a nice looking place could be the origin of so much cruelty and deception. It also shows how smart the Nazis were in trying to make themselves not look so bad. It also raises the question which we talked about throughout the trip: are we all, each and every human, capable of such evil, of dehumanizing others and blindly following orders because so many others are? It's happened once and continues to happen across the globe. What compels someone to commit such evil acts? How are morals learned, through natural genetic DNA? Or through nurture and culture? The most striking story I heard from the camp was about the rooms where people slept, which fit 60-80 people on triple bunk beds. This was near the end of the war, so the Nazis wanted to avoid the Allied Forces finding their camps at night, so the curtains had to be shut and lights off well before the sunset and the night darkened outside. Every night, as the 60-80 kids turned the lights out and began to settle into their triple bunk beds, hungry, tired, overworked, weak, and overall suffering with barely any room to get a comfortable nights sleep with someone else trying to sleep right next to them, the darkness would be quietly illuminated by a slowly moving lamp. Every so often, the yellow lamp would stop for a second. The lamp's owner, a Nazi, would walk in the near darkness around the room and tap three or four bodies. This tap signaled that they would be shipped on a train to a death camp, where they would almost surely die upon arrival. Now, they didn't necessarily know exactly that the tap meant almost certain death, but they knew it was bad. That it was definitely worse than the propaganda camp. To think that every night, after a long days work and barely enough food and water to keep you going, where you probably just want to sleep and have your only few hours of peace, you worry in a way that is unimaginable to us today. If you don't get tapped, your friend might. Or the person sleeping to your left. Or to your right. Or above you. Or beneath you. Every night, three or four of the people you've suffered with disappear and you never see them again. All of this with the guilt that you're lucky it wasn't you, that you got to stay because your friends or family were sent away. And it's not like this was a infrequent occurrence. It happened just as often as we brush our teeth or read a bedtime story to our little siblings or the kids we babysit. While we get to put our kids to sleep today with bedtime stories, the kids in this concentration camp went to bed to a lurking lamp that could spell their quick demise. To me, this was unfathomable yet eye opening. Prague was also home to some of the best runs on Kivunim, along the river that split the city in half. Its beautiful architecture kept the runs exciting and having David Mendlesohn back made a big difference, as he wasn't there for the runs in Germany. Prague left me thinking about a lot of different things. I would definitely like to come back here for an extended period of time just because of the way the city feels; it's somehow modern and old at the same time. Communism had a far greater impact than we hear about in the US in school, as such staples like religion that were suppressed never fully recover. Presently, the young adults who are starting families now did not learn religion from their parents, but from their grandparents, if that. Instead of religion being led by parents like it often is in the US, it's led by the kids. Instead of parents dragging their kids to services, the kids here are trying to reconnect with their roots and as a result are bringing their parents back into religion. But the thought that most stays with me is this: how can so many people, so many learned, cultured people be at the heart of such heinous crimes against humanity? I just can't wrap my head around it. From Prague, we drove to Budapest, with a quick stop in Bratislava, Slovakia on the way. In Bratislava, we basically got gelato, had some free time to walk around the old city, and then saw a synagogue. It has the same old feel as Prague, as it too was not bombed in the war and preserved its old buildings. We got to see a glimpse of this culture and check another country off of our list. Now on to Budapest! Budapest, Hungary Best food Beef goulash "Cheeseburger"- literally just cheese not meat but one of the better sandwiches I've had, better than just a grilled cheese, had so much other stuff inside tasted amazing -lagosh: a kind of fried and breaded huge empanada-esque food, with often Paprika chicken stuffed inside -chicken paprika Phrases Seah- hello Hoys vayg- how are you? Kusi - thanks Botchy - sorry Egam - yes Naam - no Split by the river into two halves (Buda and Pest), Budapest is one of the more beautiful cities we've been to this year. While Buda is hilly and naturally beautiful, Pest contains the bustling city life, with centuries old buildings and squares. On one of Buda's hills, the one right across the bridge connecting the two halves, there is a monument that we ran up to one morning where you can see the whole city overlooking the river. After a whole lot of stairs and hills up to the top, we felt very accomplished once we could finally take in the view of the city from the top. On our last night in Budapest I would actually go back their for the sunrise with two friends. The river sits east of the hill, so the sun rose over the Danube and Pest, and we had the best seats looking down from the monument. Budapest is a city I wish we could have spent more time in, but in the little time we did have there we saw a lot. We went to the Lauder school to see the Jewish kids our age. Similarly to Czech, the kids in Hungary are often bringing their parents into the religion, not the other way around. On top of visiting the school and hanging out with those kids for a morning, we also met other Jews our age who took us out one night. Meeting the kids of the city our age gave me a much better connection and understanding as to what it's like to live here. Overall, it seems like most kids, at least the ones I met, want to get out of Hungary for university, whether it be in Berlin or even all the way to the USA. They are not trying to stay in Hungary, but actively trying to study somewhere else. One of the subtler Holocaust memorials we saw over this trip of central and Eastern Europe was the shoe memorial on the Danube river. Here, I don't recall there being a mention of the word Jew, which was a general representation of the way Hungary currently memorializes and deals with the Holocaust. Most passerby wouldn't know that this memorial stood for the thousands of Jews who were forced to take off everything, including their shoes, at the edge of the Danube river before they were ruthlessly shot and killed into the water. The shoes were what were left of these Jews. Back to the point about dealing with the Holocaust, after visiting each country's Holocaust museums, there wasn't much new information to be taken in from each one, besides that countries individual facts. But for the most part, each new museum shed light as to how each country memorialized the Holocaust and the responsibility they cared to take. Some museums, such as the one in Berlin, obviously took full responsibility for what happened, saying it was the Nazis who did everything, while others in other countries said the same thing; that it was the Nazis who did everything. The country downplayed its own part in systematically killing Jews. We also went to the great synagogue that attracts non Jewish tourists and has tours in so many languages. It is simply beautiful on the inside and has aspects of churches, making it more grand than many of the other synagogues we've visited. The nightlife in Budapest was also pretty cool, with interesting bars underground and cool food truck "karavan" markets. One thing that we as Kivunim participants have become very good at is finding these amazing food markets, where if you're smart, you share everything with someone so you get to try all sorts of food. We've done this in probably the past 5 countries. Going up to the monument at sunrise on our last night/morning was when it first hit me that Kivunim was actually coming to a close. And it hit hard. One of my friends mentioned that next year, we'd never have opportunities like this, to wake up for the sunrise overlooking the Danube river in a foreign country. We're just so lucky to be able to do what we're doing day in and day out, traveling the world like it's casual that we went to 5 countries in 15 days and 16 in a year. We'll never have an opportunity like this again, even if we travel like this, to be with 45 amazing people and an amazing staff. To have everything planned for us, so that we can just sit back and enjoy the ride. We meet incredible people who have resurrected communities and literally put the Jews on their backs. It was sitting there, on a ledge that looked out onto the orange and pink buildings reflected in the river like a perfect mirror, that I realized that four weeks left was not much time at all. Before I know it, I'll be back home, yearning to go to moments like these. With this in mind, I got on the bus to Bosnia looking to make the most out of our last country of the year. 11 hours later, after passing through Croatia (we just drove through so can't count it as a country visited) we arrived in Sarajevo, a city unlike any other place we've visited this year. Sarajevo, Bosnia Best food Veal strips Breaded meat Pepper stuffed meat Phrases Thanks- walla Bosnia is still feeling the effects of the Yugoslav breaking up only a little over 20 years ago. There are bullet holes in most main buildings and much of the population either fought or was victims of the war with Serbia. Serbia ruthlessly terrorized and massacred thousands of Bosnians during the war, which was depicted very harshly and opaquely in one of the museums we went to. This museum was actually designed by the victims of the event and not by professionals, and as a result had a unique feel to it that left many of us shocked. Bosnia is a majority Muslim nation, while Croatia to its west and Serbia to its east are Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, respectively. Many Bosnians who were born in Bosnia still today identify more with their religion's country than the country they were born into. For example, many Bosnian Catholics identify greater with Croatia than they do with Bosnia, which creates tensions to this day, some 20 years later. That being said, Sarajevo is a very predominately Muslim city with over 120 mosques serving a population of 450,000 people. Most restaurants are halal, but it doesn't feel like the other Muslim countries we went to. In Sarajevo, we also walked around the old town market, which has all the trinkets and everything that so many markets have had all over the world, yet with the Bosnian touch. The Winter Olympics also happened in Sarajevo in 1984 or so, and the ruins have now been turned into a platform for street artists and graffitiers to do their work. We visited the old bobsled track which was on the top of one of the many mountains that surrounded the city. Through so much green we saw the old city and could feel the still present pain of the war creeping into the life of so many Bosnians. It's clearly a soft spot for much of the population, yet it was a war and war crime that almost none of us had heard of before visiting the country. We wondered often why we never learned about such an event in school, and if this had happened in a western country, would it be in our textbooks and exams. It also further forces us to ask the question of: is every human capable of committing such atrocities? We consistently see it all over the world, regardless of cultural or socioeconomic differences, people find a way to be horrible. What can we do about it? Is it our responsibility to do something about it as fellow humans, or is it a too far away, not my problem type of thing. For most of us, it seems, we are largely apathetic towards others suffering across the globe. One of the more cultural immersion experiences we had this year came when a few of us went to a soccer game in Sarajevo between the two Sarajevo soccer teams, who are, of course, big rivals. One team's fans are largely from the working class, while the other's fans are largely from the white collar class. As one of my friends pointed out, many of these people's weeks depend on these games. If their team wins, it's a happy, celebratory week, and if they lose, they mourn for their team. They also are the most rowdy fans I have ever seen. The most rowdy section was on its feet literally the entire game chanting God knows what, but we would try to join when we could. Often, we would just make up English chants that went along with what they were screaming and would kind of make sense. For example, they were cheering something that sounded to us like "who the champion! Who the champion! Who the champion! We the champion!" Also, for goals, they went absolutely nuts, the whole section was clapping and jumping as one, the benches were shaking; it was a full out party. On the other side, when it was a bad call or something didn't go their way, a similar joint reaction would happen, this one including fans from the back of the sections running down to the bottom to field level and climbing on the fence, yelling at players, coaches and refs. To top things off, somehow each team's section had flares they would throw all the time. Sometimes it would be a flame into the crowd, other times it would be on to the field, where players would casually kick them out of the field of play and continue playing like it was nothing. They also burned the other team's scarves at the bottom of their section in a kind of ritual ceremony to declare their superiority. What really made it more exciting was the absurd amount of riot police in attendance that line the field. Each policeman carried a riot shield, heavy guards all over the bodies, and of course big ole guns. When one fight broke out across the field, at least 40-50 riot policemen with their shields ran over to the section to break it up and then sat down in the middle to make their own walls. Really incredible how much this city put into this game. There was enough entertainment surrounding the game that you barely had to watch it to have a good time. The working class team did win 1-0 though. The general feeling in Bosnia was one of resilience. These people fought through the war and we're going to continue grinding until they could grind no more. They wanted to have unity in their country, but this seems like it's far away. It doesn't have the same Eastern European feel that the rest of the countries we visited had, yet it still was old and beautiful. They would certainly benefit from more people being educated about their story. Overall, this trip was one of the best of the year and taught me a lot about the ability of humans to be downright horrific. Seeing the effects first hand of the Holocaust and the war in Bosnia will stay with me forever. As I've said multiple times above, it really begs us to ask ourselves how we can let this happen, and can any human do this. One friend pointed out that there is this study that (roughly) goes as follows: individually, ordinary regular people are brought into a room with a button and a man in a lab coat. They sit down and the man in the lab coat says that whenever they hear a certain noise or something, they should press the button. What they realize once they press the button is that every time they press it they are electrocuting somebody. They hear the cries of terror of this mystery person, yet the man in the lab coat says to keep pushing the button. With every push, the screams and cries get louder and louder- the person they are torturing is getting close to dying from the pain the person pressing the button is inflicting on them. Yet they don't stop, because the person in authority tells them to keep going. He doesn't threaten them or point a gun at their head, he just simply tells them to keep pushing the button. Eventually the screams get so bad that they stop; the person has died from the torture. An ordinary person has just been turned into a killer solely because someone in a position of authority told them to do it. After the screams stop, the person pushing the button feels horrible, and is told that there wasn't actually anyone being tortured, it was just noises and they didn't kill anyone. It was just an experiment. But the scary thing is, the experiment showed how easy it is to turn normal people into killers. The majority of people didn't even ask why or if they could stop pressing the button and torturing this unidentified person, they just simply did what they were told. There were some, of course, who objected and wouldn't do it, but not enough. To me, that showed that the majority of people are capable of doing such horrible things, which is downright frightening. That being said, I know I will always remember this last trip for its sites and sounds, for its nightlife and food, and most of all, for being our last trip as a group. It's crazy how fast this year has gone by, now with only a couple weeks left before we return home from this fantasy year that has taught me so much. We will return to the Negev, to Sde Boker, where we started the year, in about a week, for the last week of Kivunim, for the last week of being with the people who experienced so much together in such a short time. Here's to making it count. As usual, thanks for reading the absurdly long blog post! Expect a reflective final one in the coming weeks! Shoutouts: Adina Noble Over the past 5 weeks, I went to Morocco, Spain, Portugal with Kivunim, which went right into our spring break, where i went to Dublin, Northern Ireland and England, before flying to Thailand for a wild 10 days. It was an incredible 35 days that saw 3 different continents that were worlds apart. At the end of the day, one thing rang true of everywhere I went: there is humanity everywhere, even in the darkest places, humans are humans; just one person can make a world of difference.
Morocco: From the Sahara to the Atlas mountains, to an 850 year old synagogue kept up by a 70 year-old Muslim, to the only Jewish adviser to the king in the Arab League, to multiple 10+ hour bus rides, Morocco brought about a wide variety of opportunities. We met with Mimouna, an organization of Moroccans who feel that the Jewish culture predates their Moroccan culture that is predominately Muslim and has influenced who even Muslim Moroccans are today. As a result, they feel culturally Jewish and even visited Israel recently to finally visit the holy land. In the High Atlas Mountains, we stayed in or near a Berber village, the desert Bedouins of Morocco. That night, we had a drum circle and dancing with these people who we couldn't understand. Instead, we communicated through dance and song, through fire and through just being humans. For me, this was one of the coolest experiences on Kivunim because it really opened my eyes to the fact that at the end of the day, we are ultimately all humans and can have fun in the same way and have the same basic needs. The next day, we took an 11 hour bus and car ride to get to the orange sand dunes of the Sahara Desert, where we would see the sunrise the next morning. Seeing the natural beauty of both the green, lush, lively mountains, compared to the stunning nothingness of the orange, barren, yet magical desert was one of the lasting images of the trip. Meeting and trying to interact with the Berber tribes despite our small amount of knowledge of Arabic and their fluency in their dialect of Arabic, which was quite different, was difficult, yet their friendliness shined through our inability to communicate. Morocco Highlights/by the numbers of what we saw and did -Cities visited: Casablanca, Taroudant, Agradir, Marrekesh, Talouet (Sahara), Fez, Rabat, Tangier -Rafi, our tour guide in Morocco, was probably the best tour guide we've had this year and will have this year. He almost by himself helped to reseurrect and redefine Judaism in Morocco by uncovering such amazing finds as an 850 year old synagogue that was hidden in a small village. The key to the synagogue was kept by Harim, a 70 year old Muslim man who was friends with the Jewish communtiy 40 years ago before they left to go to Israel. For these 40-plus years, Harim, with no incentive but being a good neighbor and friend to the Jewish community that left, looked after his synagogue that he could have used for a garden or to keep sheep or for storage just waiting for another Jew to come to the village looking for the synagogue. Somehow, Rafi was in this village several years ago going person to person, asking if they know about the Jewish communtiy that used to live here. Eventually, he found Harim, who upon hearing the question brought out the key and told Rafi he'd been waiting for him for 40 years. He was also a really funny and charismatic guy! -1 Sunrise at the Sahara -1 drum circle and amazing star gazing in the Atlas Mountains -1 meeting with special adviser to the king, Andre Azoule, a Jew who often represents Morocco at the Arab League, the only one to do so in the region -1 Turkish bath/massage Food: -Couscous, couscous, and more couscous -Tagine: basically the dish used to cook meat and anything else that is one of the most common ways to cook in Morocco Words we picked up or knew: Merci/shukran – thanks – Morocco uses both its dialect of Arabic and French in daily use Marhaba – Hello Thoughts: For most of the year, as a group of 45, we've been told how amazing Morocco is for a number of reason, but primarily because of its acceptance of Jews as an Arab nation, how much our program's founder is in love with the country, and how much Morocco will change the way we think and will change our lives overall. Needless to say, everyone had some sort of expectations of this trip, more so than any other, at least that's the way I felt. It was much more developed as a country than I had expected after India, with pictures of their King all over the country. Immediately, we were introduced to how great Morocco has been to the Jews, and eventually we were made aware of a growing group of young people who feel culturally Jewish because of their Moroccan heritage, which dates back 3000 years to the Jews who lived on the very same land they live on now. They organized the first conference in the Arab world that discussed the Holocaust and acknowledged its truth. In fact, swastikas only started appearing in Morocco recently, as more Moroccans became aware of its symbol and meaning. Countless times we met or learned about people who welcome the Jews and didn't prosecute them despite the times, including during the Holocaust. King Muhammad the 5th, the king during the Holocaust, in addition to the current king of Morocco, time and again acted in ways which were irregular to their region and time period. The fact the Azoule is a special advisor to the king represents how welcoming to Jews the country of Morocco is. That being said, there has also been acts of hatred against the Jews, including against one of the Rabbis we met there who leads the Jewish education for one of the remaining Jewish communities in Morocco. He told us a story of how he got axed in the head because he was wearing a kippah and showed us the scars to make it real. His eye was literally dangling out of his head. Furthermore, everywhere we walked or drove as a group, we had a couple policemen/security guards not-so-subtley protecting us against who knows what, a sign to me that maybe everyone wasn't as kind to the Jews as they were telling us. We also went to one of the largest souks, or markets in Morocco and maybe in the region, with 10,000 turns and an abundance of everything and anything you could want. It was easy to get lost in this souk, but it was one of our great chances to interact with the locals and bargain. We went to different markets throughout Morocco, and often times we found that they sold random Jewish memorabilia, which struck me as odd. These local vendors had found these or were given them once the Jewish community was driven out or left for Israel or somewhere else in the world, a clear marker of the Jews' presence in the country. Morocco was also home to the 3rd biggest Mosque in the world, a huge structure that could fit 20,000 people in it at once, which further showed us that we were in one of the more important Muslim countries in the world. We also had what I thought was one of the most memorable experiences of Kivunim yet, when, in about a 36 hour period, we: danced and slept in the Atlas mountains among the local Berber tribe, singing and laughing like they were old friends, star gazed with almost no light pollution, making for a sky sprinkled heavily with stars and constellations, hiked with one of the Berbers as our guide, drove 11 hours in cars of 3-4 people, slept in a castle converted hotel, and finally saw the sunrise at the Sahara over the dunes we would later climb. The dunes were soft and easy to fall into, which led to many of us tackling each other down the slopes and somersaulting and rolling down the dunes. This combination and utter fun, combined with meeting people that live such different lives than we do yet were still open to connecting with us, made it a night and morning I hope to never forget. We finished our trip in Tangier, one of Africa's closest points to Europe, where we took a boat across the Strait of Gibraltr, leaving Africa and entering Spain which was just miles away yet its society was worlds a part. Spain I'm not sure if it was coming from two not fully developed countries (India, Morocco) to a developed one, finally getting to a Western European country, actually knowing the language of the people, or amazing food and Sangria, Spain was possibly my favorite country I've been to this year. There was such a strong culture, everyone was so nice, and tapas were so tasty. We met a Jew, Haim, who converted after he found out his ancestors were forcibly converted out of Judaism who is now in the process of being ordained as a Rabbi, while his husband also converted for similar reasons. He is currently working to resurrect the Jewish community. Also, everywhere we went in Spain had these crazy food markets that just had every type of food one could think of, for cheap and small portions, so we all got to try to much good food in such a short time. Spain was a great transition from the long bus rides and more rigidness of Morocco to a relaxed, beautiful developed country – being able to drink the tap water doesn't hurt either! We were in Spain for around 6 days, where we went to Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Toledo, and Madrid, a tour that left me wanting to return to España at least for another week, if not for a semester abroad. Spain by the numbers/highlights: -1 boat ride through the Strait of Gibraltr -1 Kabbalat Shabbat in Cordoba that was led by Haim in the Jewish Museum synagogue exhibit, which was attended by a Jewish woman who grew up in Cordoba. It was her first Friday night service in her life in her hometown, which made her cry and thus set the circumstances for one of the most spiritual and elevating Jewish experiences I've ever had. The 45 of us were in a confined space, facing each other in a city and country that has been yearning for Jewish existence since 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain. From the first prayer, everyone in the room knew it was going to be a ride and an amazing experience, and it really was. Haim led me to feeling closer to Judaism than I ever had before and will be one of the most memorable Jewish moments of the year. -3 food markets which had everything from burritos to Argentinian steak, to ham cut right off of the leg that was so fresh, to fresh fish of every kind, including sea urchin, and empanadas -1 Alcazar, which was where Dorne from Game of Thrones was filmed. It's a huge palace that has magnificent, colorful gardens and fountains and mazes and just so much greenery. It was a beautiful palace that was made even cooler by the fact that we recognized scenes from GOT as we walked through it -1 Al Hambra, another magnificent palace from centuries ago where the rulers of the Iberian Peninsula once lived. It was similarly colorful and fountain filled, but we had to rush through so we didn't really get to see the most impressive part. -Many Jewish syngagogues, some that were once turned into churches but were now turned back into synagogues and/or into a museum to showcase the building's Jewish background. One such synagogue was called Saint Mary's White Synagogue, which to me was a interesting name because Saint Mary's implies such a catholic place. -Real Madrid soccer stadium tour, which we did during our free time. It showcased all of Real Madrid's trophies and accomplishments and we got to go on the field. -1 overnight train to Portugal, which included rooms and beds for a number of us, as well as chairs for the rest of us. Best Food I Ate: -Emapanadas -freshly cut ham -croquettes -Spanish bread (for some reason this bread is just way better than regular bread) -Sangria -Paellas -Sea Urchin -Cured Meat Thoughts: Spain brought so much to the table in terms of everything Kivunim sets out to do. After the Jews were expelled in 1492, they have come back and have started to reinvent themselves on the coat tails of Haim, the judeoconverso who is trying to be ordained. Besides the Judaism, there is just so much to love about Spain. One night, we were treated to Flamingo dancing, seeing the more traditional culture, while other nights we got to see Spain's nightlife. In Cordoba, where we spent the weekend, we walked through the old city and across the river, seeing old synagogues, cathedrals and amazing food markets. In Seville, where unfortunately we only spent a day before sleeping in Grenada, we saw this amazing Cathedral that was where Christopher Columbus's Tomb was kept. This Cathedral had the high ceilings and sculptures all around. Some of us climbed 30 stories up to the top of the cathedral, where we could see the whole city of Seville, 360 degree view. Truly a gorgeous city. During our lunch break, the Game of Thrones fans sought out to go to the Alcazar, where Dorne in the show is filmed. We eventually found it, scarfed down a quick sandwich, and gave ourselves roughly an hour to see the palace. While I wish Kivunim had taken us to see this magnificent sight, it was really cool figuring out where it was and how to get there on our own, a preview of what it would be like to travel on my own a few weeks later. I really enjoyed being able to see the palace at my own pace and not have to worry about what the group was doing. We left Seville for Grenada, the sight of the Al Hambra, another huge palace that Kivunim would take us to. This one was with a tour guide and had military living quarters from when the palace was in use, as well as a beautiful garden that had a fountain running through its entirety. Toledo was our next stop, where we went to 2 Jewish synagogues and saw an El Greco painting. One of these synagogues was the Synagogue de Saint Marie, or the Saint Marie Synagogue, a clear indication of the Catholic influence to this Jewish temple. Still, it was interesting to see other tourists who probably weren't Jewish touring these places that would seem only interesting to Jews. After Toledo we drove to Madrid, which we were all excited to get to. We experienced the nightlife in Madrid after going to yet another food market, and ran into many Americans on college break. The next day we had a walking tour of Madrid before having time for lunch, which was when a few of us took a bus to Real Madrid's soccer stadium and took one of the coolest tours I've ever taken. They really know how to get you excited about Real Madrid and about soccer in general. It again got me really excited to travel on my own a few weeks later. Finally, one thing that really stuck out for me in Spain was how friendly the culture seemed, with an emphasis on sharing. I thought that this could be in part from the idea of tapas – everyone just orders food to split on principle and expects to share it with each other, something that is a little bit foreign in America. Food is always a big representation and influence of the culture at large. If one grows up sharing all their food and not worrying about just eating their own food, sharing and caring for others could be ingrained in said person early on, contributing to the larger Spanish culture as more and more children grow up with sharing their food. Spain was and still is one of my favorite countries I've been to this year, and I can't wait to go back one day! Portugal Portugal was the last 5 or so days of our over 3 week long trip, so many of us, including our staff, were exhausted, which definitley showed in our schedule. It wasn't as jam packed as before, with more relaxed days. Generally, in Portugal our days would be something like wake up, take a 3 hour bus ride, go to a nice park for a picnic lunch and just hang around, go to a synagogue or two, go to the hotel and go out for dinner to some really good food. While it was really nice having a more laid back schedule than our usual jam packed one, I didn't feel like I got as good of a feel for Portugal as I did for the other countries. Portugal by the numbers: -4 cities: Belmonte, Trancoso, Porto, Lisbon – we spent the longest time in Belmonte, where we spent the weekend and got to hike in the mountains for beautiful views -1 Lighthouse in Porto that had crazy waves, maybe like 20 feet high that would crash over the walls onto the walking path. Going there in the middle of the night with those waves was incredible -4 amazing picnic lunches filled with lap tag and cheese and peanut butter - food markets that had really good meat Portugal was a little bit of a blur, but Belmonte was a beautiful little town that had rich Jewish history. It literally means beautiful hill/mountain, so as you can imagine it is located in the mountains. On Saturday while we were there, we got to do a hike through these mountains to awesome views of the surrounding areas. In this little village, there is an active synagogue that we went to, and our hotel was in fact a kosher and Jewish hotel, which I would not have expected to exist in remote Portugal. Similarly to Spain, Jews were kicked out in the 15th century and are just really starting to make their way back. There is one man named Jose who is really doing a lot of work to bring back Judaism to this country. It feels like every country we go to that lost much of its Judaism that is resurrecting its Judaism today is doing so because of one remarkable man, Rafi in Morocco, Jose in Portugal, Haim in Spain, and Ralphi in India. It shows just how much one person can do to make a difference. Porto was a great city but we only got to spend one day and night there. It was beautiful and on the water, and had the incredible lighthouse waves that went 20ft in the air or higher all the time. They had really good food and beautiful architecture. Lisbon, Portugal's capital, was also a great city and had the biggest food market I have been to thus far. It is inside but still has everything you can imagine. To be honest, I spent probably 20 minutes just trying to figure out where to start because it all looked so good. There was seafood, there was pasta, there was meat, there was chicken, all small portions for cheap, and all looked so good. We finished the last night of our trip with hanging out by the water as a large group, reflecting on the last three weeks of travel. It seemed like there was a general consensus that there was a really great group dynamic and many of us were sad to leave each other for Spring break. Everyone was really getting along and was really comfortable with each other. Although we were sad to leave, many people were going to really cool places over break, including South Africa, UK, Ireland, Italy, Amsterdam, Vietnam, and Thailand! I will hopefully be able to get another blog post up soon about my adventures in Dublin, Northern Ireland, Manchester, and Thailand, but a quick overview of what I did: Dublin/Ireland: Game of Thrones tour in Northern Ireland to Giant's Causeway and Belfast, tour of the Guinness factory, Cliffs of Moher, live music pubs and amazing donuts Manchester: Manchester City soccer game, lost bag but got in back barely in time before I went to London to fly to Thailand Bangkok: Thai New Year big water gun fight with 50,000 people, awesome hostel, biking on nearby, carless island, National park tour, amazing street food, best being Mango Sticky Rice and Pad Thai Mae Sot/Umphang: site of where we started our 3 day 3 night trekking tour to the biggest waterfall in Thailand called the Thi Lo Sur Waterfall, next to the border of Myanmar Thanks for reading the whole thing again! We leave for our fourth and final trip, this one to Central Europe on Sunday! Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bosnia Herzgovenia. Shoutouts: TVA for reading my blogs 2/21/2017 1 Comment India! Kivunim trip #2As soon as we stepped out of the plane, it was clear we were in a place that was unlike anywhere I had ever been. We stepped down from the plane onto the tarmac to take a bus to where we would go through customs, baggage claim, etc. Already in the airport, the haze/smog/air pollution filled my lungs and nose, something I hadn't even thought about when picturing India. Outside the airport, the haze fogged up the city of Delhi, and our whole group was met by countless beggars as we made our way to the bus, most of which did not have shoes and were little kids. All probably homeless. Countless others tried to help with bags or sell us some little tchotchkes. Culture shock right off the bat. India, a country of over 1.3 billion people, has about 350 million Indians living below India's poverty line, which is defined as earning around $2 a day. Just to compare how many people this is living without homes and in horrible poverty, there are around 320 million people living in the United States currently, according to a 2014 census. This was just the beginning of a crazy 15 day adventure that would make me seriously question many of our Western ideals. Over the two-plus weeks, I experienced 6 Indian cities (Varanasi, Delhi, Dharmsala, Agra, Jaipur, and Mumbai) that were all so different from anything I've ever seen before, and were even so different from each other. Each had poverty and homelessness that is shocking and gut-wrenching, and is something that will stay with me forever. Each had a religious presence, albeit in radically different ways. Each had animals, including cows, monkeys, dogs, pigs, and donkeys, that walked the streets, freely ravishing through the garbage to find any food they could. Each had cars going all over the place, accompanied by taxis, rickshaws, motorcycles going in every direction. Despite all this, every place had its own distinctive features. Also, the food was like really spicy at times, and my mouth was constantly on fire, and I even ate some street food! In Varanasi, the sacred River Ganges, commonly referred to as mother Ganga by the locals, everything is done under a holy, religious light. In our first night in India and Varanasi, we took a boat onto the River to see how the people of Varanasi celebrate their dead and honor their gods. Hindus in Varanasi do not honor the dead the way do, by burying them in a coffin. Rather, they bring them to mother Ganga and cremate them so they can throw the dead's ashes into the Ganges. They also have many other ceremonies occurring on the bank of the River, such as dances and other rituals with fire, but the one that will stay with me the most is the 9 burning bodies I saw just yards apart. I just couldn't fathom honoring the dead like this. This was absolutely one of the first of many culture shocks in India. While the burning seemed so foreign to us, when guides of years past were asked about this ritual, they asked how we honored our dead ancestors. After hearing how we bury them in wooden boxes, the guide's reply was, "You mean you suffocate your dead??" Clearly, we come from such different places, and neither of us is right or wrong. We got up with the sun in our first morning in India to take a boat on the River Ganges to see what it was like during the daylight. In the same water that the ashes were thrown into and animals freely go in and out of, the people of Varanasi were washing their clothes and themselves in a ritual-esque way, dipping their heads methodically. While we were warned that the water was very polluted and would be bad for our skin, the Indians were using the very same water to clean themselves (look at pictures at the bottom). Varanasi is India's 75th largest city at 3 million people, which would make it the United States' third largest city after Los Angeles, although it seemed like a rural, small town at times despite the constant bustling of people and cars. Cows regularly walked across the street, though they didn't stop traffic, they just closed a lane or made an obstacle for Varanasi drivers. The first way I really took in how crazy the traffic/driving scene is was when we were on rickshaws to get to the River Ganges. It felt we were kind of like royalty looking down on the city, which was weird in a bad way, but it was a very effective way to take in everything. We routinely bumped into one of the many other cars or rickshaws or bikes around us, while seeing so many shops that sold almost the exact same things. However, some shops read "finest men's clothing," while many others read "best mean's wear," etc, all trying to convince potential buyers that their store was the best one out there. Traffic circles put Boston traffic to shame, as it was really every vehicle, animal, and person for itself despite a traffic guard's "best" efforts of controlling traffic. Vehicles routinely drove on the wrong side of the street, but somehow there were never any accidents, possibly because they are only ever driving around 15 mph because there are a ton of things on the road. The most lasting experience with Varanasi's roads was when my friend and I went on a run where we had to dodge cars and cows every 5 steps while breathing in extremely polluted air. We ended the run very, very out of breath, feeling sick and our nostrils were black from inhaling so much smog. Running through the dirt roads, through free-for-all traffic circles, in between cars, next to cows and their poop, I felt just a little scared of getting hit. It was one of the most memorable runs of the trip. From Varanasi we went to Delhi for a day, which was a blur. Delhi is a city of 25 million people, but as the capital of India is slightly more modern, but not fully industrialized. It too has cows and more, but we were only there for a day and missed some of the sights we were supposed to see. We went to a huge mosque that gets over 25,000-30,000 Muslims every Friday to learn about the Muslim community of India. From our tour guides and other people we spoke to, it was clear that there was still anger and hatred between the Hindus and Muslims, as one of our tour guides , a Hindu nationalist, said that he hated parts of Gandhi due to his sticking up for the Muslims in the country. This sentiment was shared among many other Indians we met. I had thought Gandhi was to Indians as someone like George Washington was to Americans, a unanimously loved national hero. In Delhi, there were also bazaars or markets for literally every thing you could imagine, from spices to sweets to optical outlets, which had every kind of sunglasses and glasses you could imagine. We then made our way up to Dharmsala, my personal favorite of the trip, which is at the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India and a refuge for many Tibetans who fled from China. Dharmsala felt like a completely new country, there was no air pollution, less poverty, and a different, yet still strong religious presence in Tibetan Buddhism. There we learned about the Tibetan struggle with China, met Buddhist monks who showed us their ways, and even met a former political prisoner of China for 32 years, Palden Gyatso. We also ran and hiked up and down the Himalayan foothills, seeing incredible sunrises and sunsets that could last an hour. Monkeys roamed very freely around Dharmsala, and had very little fear of humans, so we were able to get up close and personal to the monkeys as they ran around the mountains. Our tour guide in Dharmsala was a Tibetan refugee named Dammy who is a Buddhist monk and professor in the Buddhist university. He is one of the most interesting, coolest guides we've had and was very up to date in pop culture and with American movies/media. The Tibetans had moved to Dharmsala decades ago and had set up their community here, with Buddhist temples and flags of good vibes all over the place, because the Dalai Lama, their holy leader, moved here after he fled from Tibet. We saw his home from our hotel and just missed meeting him, as he was in Delhi until the day we left, when he went into a 14-day meditation. Dammy and his fellow Tibetans trekked through the Himalayas to make it all the way to Dharmsala by foot, while Palden Gyatso survived inhumane torture for over 3 decades, shedding light on the strength of the human mind and their incredible resilience. Gyatso endured torture that included electroshock shattering his teeth, eating the leather of his shoes because he was starving, and spitting in fellow prisoners mouths to keep them hydrated due to a lack of water. His survival and now ability to live his life in peace was truly inspiring. After going to the Tibetan Buddhist university and playing an awesome basketball game against some of the guys that go to the school, (just the first way sports united us to the locals on this trip!), and learning about their studies, and meeting an American who is now a Buddhist monk, we made our to the Taj Mahal in Agra. Incredibly, the Taj Mahal was made by a King for his wife after she passed away as a tomb for her. It took 22,000 people to make one of the 7 wonders of the world, a lot of marble and a huge plot of land. It was surreal to be at such a famous structure, and again showed another side of India. India is one of the world leaders in UNESCO heritage sites due to its incredibly long and storied past. After Agra and the Taj Mahal, we made our way to Jaipur, which looked like a city out of Game of Thrones, with fortresses on a hill and palaces and the pink city. We were only in Jaipur for a day as well, but the day was well spent seeing the majestic remains of the kingdoms of India's past. Elephants carried many tourists up the hill to the fortress, though our program opted to take Jeeps up an actual road. On the way up we saw boars scavenge with dogs to find food in the trash, and once in the city camels roamed around giving rides to tourists upon request. Jaipur, with its miraculous and pristine castles and remnants of kingdoms, showed how the current wealth gap that is present in today's India dates back thousands of years and is going to continue in the future. After the third city in the 3 days, we flew to our last and most modern destination, Mumbai, to experience yet another cultural aspect of India and finally met Indian Jews. Mumbai was much cleaner, yet still polluted with far fewer cows, than most of the cities we had gone to, but the poverty and homelessness here was just as prevalent, as was the children begging for just a few rupees to have something to eat that day. We spent our last weekend with the Jews of Mumbai, and our guide Ralphi and his whole family must have known almost every Jew living in and around the biggest city of India. On Saturday, after we went to synagogue, some of us wanted to try to play pick up cricket with the locals, so Ralphi brought us to this giant field that was at least 3 football fields in length, if not more, and there must have been thousands of Indians playing numerous games of pick up cricket, some competitive games with uniforms, and others friendly games with strangers with a wager attached. Because almost everyone spoke English, we were able to get a game going with these guys who taught us how to play and split us up into teams so they could split up among us. They were so friendly and just wanted us to play and learn the game so we could really experience their culture. After playing for about an hour, the guys we were playing with told us they had actually started this foundation called the Magician foundation, which takes kids from the inner-city of India and teaches them how to play Rugby. They said they had just finished their practice just 50 meters away from us, and wanted us to play rugby with them. Despite not really knowing how to play, we happily said yes and got to meet kids our age and play sports with them. It felt like we really immersed ourselves in the culture for those few hours, and the barriers that could have been built between us and the locals was torn down through sports so that we could become friends with our peers halfway across the world. It further showed me how amazing sports are beyond the fun of the game, as they routinely break down barriers and make friends out of people who would otherwise not have known each other, whether it be in India or even in school. This was one of the highlights of the trip, as I really got a feel for the culture of India and what people did for fun during their free time. It was also telling of Indian culture that people were so friendly and comfortable with each other that it was normal for thousands of people to play pick up cricket in a public park every weekend. That is something I'd like to be a part of. In Mumbai, we also saw the Jewish communities that had been here ever since a boat of Jews crashed ashore centuries ago. Since then, the Jewish population has mostly moved to Israel, though a significant population remains, with a few synagogues and a Chabad and a Jewish school. It was actually shocking how cool I thought it was that Jewish Indians across the world said the same blessings on Friday night dinner that I said across the world in America. It is amazing how unifying religion can be, as we immediately felt a connection to everyone in the synagogue despite having never known them and coming from significantly different backgrounds. We also took a boat to a smaller Jewish community that had 7 families total, yet had a cemetery that had within it close to 10,000 Jewish corpses who were buried rather than cremated, despite the overwhelming custom in most of India that we saw on the Ganges. The President of the 7 family Jewish community was moved to tears, which moved many of us to tears, as he looked out at the Jewish cemetery and saw so many of his own family's gravestones and told us where he hopes to be buried, next to his family. I gained a new perspective here, at this cemetery, on what Judaism is all about and just why Kivunim decides to go to a country that barely has any Jewry left. It made me prouder to be Jewish. TLDR (Too long didn't read): Through the various cities of India, a new sense of poverty, of homelessness, of water, of clean air, of cleanliness, of what is important in life, filled the minds of many of us on Kivunim. I was forced to question everything in my life and face more tragedy in person than I ever had before. It is hard to simply forget a three year old without pants or shoes, who looks hungry and tired, who has never known and might never know the most minor luxuries we take for granted like clean water, a toothbrush, shoes, a bed, etc. Small annoyances of daily life are nothing compared to what millions of people in India go through every day, making me more appreciative of life in general. It forces us to take a look at what we have and think about what we can do for our fellow human who simply wants to survive to live another day. Thanks for reading this long post! We go to Morocco, Spain and Portugal in about 2 weeks! To see more pictures, check out my Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/dan.rosenzweigziff) Shoutouts: Holdin, Robbie 1/23/2017 3 Comments The Dichotomy Here ISraelAfter two weeks of getting settled back into Beit Shmuel and Jerusalem after coming back to America for a couple weeks, we are now starting to look ahead towards India in 2 weeks. It was great to be home for a little while and see friends and family at home, but it is also wonderful being back in Jerusalem on the Kivu grind. The past few weeks have been filled with little sleep but a lot of great experiences.
Firstly, as we get more acclimated to Jerusalem – it's only our 11th week actually being in Israel because of our late start and international trips – we signed up for a basketball league that plays on weekends. 10 of the guys joined the team and we've played two games so far. It's great to be playing a competitive sport again and compete to win games, one thing that I do miss about last year. We play against different gap year programs who often play way more basketball than we do. Hopefully this week we will get our first win! Anyways, this past week alone I went to a sports bar called Mike's Place that is supposed to stay open for American sports with friends from Boston to watch the Patriots playoff games. Last week's game started at 315 A.M. on Saturday Night/Sunday morning. After playing our basketball game at 11 Saturday night, and a quick nap before the game, my friend and I went to the bar that was basically empty – only 8 people were there! A few minutes into the game, the owner came over to us and told us he wouldn't be able to stay open, it wasn't worth it for them. One of the other Patriots fans at he bar asked the owner how much he needed to make to stay open and quickly said he would cover the costs as long as everyone else ordered a lot of food and drinks. Basically, this guy paid for everything we ordered and kept the bar open so we could watch our team do what it does best – win – until 7 in the morning! We had some of the best, fall-off-the-bone wings in Jerusalem, nachos, some of the best apple pie I've ever had, and more all because of this guy who wanted to watch the Pats with fellow Bostonians. There was a tangible feeling and connection between everyone from Boston in this bar just because we grew up in the same area, despite never knowing each other, something that I didn't expect to feel in the heart of Jerusalem. Walking out of the sports bar to the blinding sunlight, we couldn't believe it was already morning and restaurants were starting to open up their places for breakfast. I got 1.5 hours of sleep that night before Kivunim went to the National Library to see the historical documents and history of Israel. This past Sunday night I was back at Mike's Place, this time just at 140 A.M. with a decidedly bigger crowd for their next playoff game. Again, being with Boston fans just made me prouder to be from Boston and made me realize how great Bostonians are. It was about more than just this playoff game – we all talked about going to see Patriots Day, the movie about the Boston Marathon Bombing – it was about Boston. I will actually have just landed in India for the Superbowl, but my friend is a big Falcons fan so we will find some way to watch that in what is going to be a crazy country. Besides watching football this week, I also went to the Women of the Wall early Thursday morning to see them try to exercise their right recently granted by the Israeli Supreme Court. I went with 3 others from Kivunim, but when we got there, the women were stopped outside the security gate holding their service there. There were somewhere between 20-30 protesters there, a much smaller number than the last time I went to see them. They were stopped outside the gate because the Kotel security insisted that they unzip their coats to show they weren't carrying any concealed Torah scrolls to read at the Kotel, something they argued was not allowed. The women insisted that this was never their security policy, that they were only doing this because the Women of the Wall were here; if they came tomorrow as individiuals they wouldn't have to unzip their coats. As a result, they just stood outside the security and actually tried to block others from getting into the Kotel because, they argued, if they weren't allowed in then why should anyone be allowed in. I felt this was a little bit unfair to those trying to get through this entrance because they weren't involved in the dispute and just wanted to pray at a holy place. I felt it angered people who otherwise would have been neutral or even for the cause. That being said, there are other entrances up a flight of stairs and a little bit of a walk away, but people could have gone in another way if needed. After realizing we weren't going to get into the Kotel, two of my friends and I realized the Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount area was open to the public for only a short time that day, and we were already there. We made the quick decision to go up to a sacred place that causes so much controversy for the people of Israel. Despite the incredible pressure this sanctified location faces, being up there was incredibly serene. It was a vast courtyard-esque area with almost no one there that could have been mistaken for a quiet park had there not been a giant mosque in the middle of all the serenity and emptiness. Before we went up, the Israeli security guards asked us if we had anything Jewish on us and asked us to leave our kippahs with them, which was kind of weird. We walked around for a little while, saw the monumental mosque that is seen in every picture of the Jerusalem old city, but couldn't enter. We definitely didn't see the day going from Women of the Wall to the Dome of the Rock, but it was a really cool dichotomy of controversy. We saw the strife both within the Jewish community and a major place of controversy between the Jews and the Muslims. This past weekend the crazy dichotomy that we saw at the Kotel only increased. On Thursday night, I went to a Hardwell (an international dj) EDM concert where 10,000 Israelis crammed into a space that was definitely over capacity in Tel Aviv. Apparently not many top tier artists perform in Israel, so when even a mid-tier artist comes, everyone flocks to go see them because they don't know when an artist of that caliber will return to Israel. I stayed with my friend's family friend who is in the Israeli army and was home for the weekend. It was a really nice apartment just a walk away from the beach and had everything we needed. We easily got around on public transportation and it was very luxurious. After feeling like we were spending way too many weekends just going to Tel Aviv, we were feeling adventurous and found this small, poor Arab village near Caesarea, which is one of the wealthiest cities in Israel. This Arab village had a small hostel that a bunch of us stayed at for Friday night. The hostel was actually started by an Arab and a Jew who wanted to bring tourism to the only Arab village left on the coast of the Mediterranean. The hostel does a lot for the community and tries to help their guests get to know the village by offering a few unique opportunities. From hiking to fishing with the local fisherman to eating dinner in a local Arabs home, there were so many different experiences to be had. When we got there, we quickly decided we wanted to explore the city just to see how different it was from what we've seen, and boy was it different! There was a mosque right near our hostel that was unlocked. We went in after taking off our shoes and meditated there, finding guided meditations and self-leading our own ones. After the meditation, we found – in a very roundabout way – our way to the beach, which was one of the windiest places I've ever experienced. The waves towered over the water and crashed harder than I had ever seen. It was so windy that if you jumped straight up in the air, you would land in a different place. It was a beautiful view of the water that was undisturbed by any development, as this village had not commercialized any of their beaches. On the way to the beach, through the village, we saw run down buildings, a truck that read in Hebrew "Chickens of the village" that was carrying chickens that appeared to be for delivery. We also saw chickens and hens roaming the village, as well as swans and ducks closer to the Sea. Amidst the bottles, cans, plastic, wrappers, and other trash, and amidst the dead grass and small houses, emerged a greener than green soccer stadium that was the gem of the village. Sports often have a way of unifying people, and I wondered if someone could have donated the field to the village to try to raise the children up and give them something fun to do. Every person we saw on the walk to the beach, whether it was a small child to a old man or woman, greeted us and welcomed us to their village; they were clearly happy to have us. It was one of the warmer (in terms of welcoming) places I've been to in a while. We took advantage of the opportunity to have dinner at a local Arabs house to get to know the locals and were greeted by an incredibly hospitable family. Unfortunately, they had already eaten before we got there, so we sat down to eat while they were in the room next to us. However, every need of ours and more was met happily by them, despite them not knowing us at all and coming from such a different background. The 13 year-old daughter set the whole meal up after her mother did the cooking, bringing all the dishes and clearing everything. She was one of the most mature 13 year-olds I have ever met, perhaps more mature than a lot of us. The family had at least 7 kids plus the father's mother living in their home and loved just hanging out in their living room with each other. Despite their unfortunate financial circumstances, or perhaps because of it, their relationships were strong and their family was tight. They clearly loved each other a lot and cared deeply about anyone who stepped into their home. The next day, we walked over to Caesarea along the Israel national trail and saw the scene change dramatically. We went from run down houses and paved roads that had okay side walks to magnificent houses with beautifully paved sidewalks and wide roads. It made me realize just how much we take for granted even more than usual. Also, how much there is to chance for being rich or poor. Here were these two cities literally right next to each other, same resources, same access to the water, the only difference being one was Jewish and one was Arab. The Jewish one was rich for its various reasons and the Arab one was poor for its various reasons. It left me wondering how come they weren't the same? was it really just because of their different faiths? That seemed too simple. To cap off the weekend, today we went to the West Bank, to the Gush, and met with settlers and Palestinians. We met with this guy named Myron, who actually was my dad's neighbor back in Minnesota, who has helped create this program called roots which brings in families of Arabs and Jews to talk to one another, especially those who have suffered losses at the hands of the other. We also met with a Palestinian and a Jew who also work with Roots. The Palestinian's brother was ruthlessly murdered for talking back to a soldier at a checkpoint and was also in jail for 10 years, as was his mother. Despite all the harm he felt at the hands of the Israelis, he wanted to make peace instead of avenge his brother's life through violence. He said that both sides are victims and if both sides wanted to constantly return violence with violence peace will never be attained. His Jewish partner said the same thing, asserting that both sides think and know they are right, and both sides actually do have rights to the land. He thinks they can live in harmony as long as they agree that the other side has valid concerns. It was refreshing to see how much of a difference people can make on the ground, even if it is not talked about in the news or in politics. These people who could have continued the killing and the violence and the hatred took an active stance to say, "Hold on, let's actually do something and take steps towards meeting the other and making peace." Finally, with all the turmoil going on in America, with the Muslim ban, there was a protest held in Jerusalem just blocks from Beit Shmuel. After a quick run, we joined the crowd and joined the world in fighting Trump's Executive Order. After seeing Muslims today who are so often portrayed as terrorists making very hard decisions to choose peace and friendship instead of violence and hatred, it felt only right to do my part in protesting the disgraceful stance Trump has taken against Muslims entering the country. We are all people, and all people deserve human rights. Over the past three weeks, Kivunim went on its first international trip, spending just over a week in Greece, including Athens and Thessaloniki, and 5 days each in Bulgaria and Azerbaijan. The three weeks were filled with meeting people that lived differently than us, seeing the various communities and Jewish communities, including their synagogues and Jewish communities, eating incredible food, and learning and experiencing something new every day. Greece We arrived in Greece late Sunday night on November 20, and after an amazingly packed week, we took a six hour ride to Bulgaria the following Tuesday. Over the course of the week, we met incredible people, saw life-changing views and communities, and heard inspirational stories of resilience during the Holocaust and more. By the numbers of what we saw and what we did: -Runs every morning we could with David Mendlesohn, where we got to explore the city or run alongside the Aegean sea -4 synagogues, 2 are used regularly, 1 is used for high holidays and bar mitzvahs The last one is not used but is kept up by a Christian pastor for Jews to visit -3 cemeteries 1 in Chelkita had caskets from the third century BCE that were uncovered in 1960 by a Holocaust survivor who hid in the mountains to escape the Nazis at 9 years old. 1 in Thessaloniki from before the Holocaust that now only consists of several tombstones tucked away next to kids playing basketball and soccer on courts and fields next to it. The Jewish community has fought hard to keep those tombstones where they are. 1 that was almost entirely destroyed in the 1940s and is now only symbolized on the campus of Aristotle University with a big Jewish star and casket and a couple of gravestones, and a message from the University in various languages. The Jews had 6 days to save this cemetery and managed to save 1,000 graves, which left 100,000 graves left that were destroyed. -1 Train station where Jews were sent from Greece to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where the train station has been kept and a memorial still stands today. It brought many of us to tears as we sang memorial prayers and songs in their name. -1 Chief Rabbi of Greece, Rabbi Negrin who is one of the youngest Chief Rabbis in the world at 28 -1 Parthenon -1 remains of the Oracle at Delphi, and the stadium there -1 vegetarian :( Thanksgiving dinner -1 monastery in Meteora that is perhaps the most beautiful view I have ever seen. It is a group of monasteries built literally into the mountains and on mountain peaks overlooking a breath-taking valley -4 hotels in Athens, Delphi, Kalambaka/Meteora, and Thessaloniki -1 Aegean Sea -2 Syrian refugees that a few of us met while we were getting our last gyros. One spoke English and said that both of them were smuggled out and had gotten to Greece with one of their grandmothers. After a few months, he said the government still didn’t let him get a job but that life in Greece was better than it was in Syria even if it was hard. He also said he was meeting with the government in early January for an interview regarding employment -A country in the midst of its seventh year of a recession, which meant many stores were closed and everything was very cheap and every store owner tried their best to get you to go buy something. Some of the best foods I ate: -Greek Salad, which actually had no lettuce and the best tomatoes I’ve ever eaten -Greek Yogurt, which was available at every hotel breakfast with honey, that was on another level of Chobani -Gyro, like shwarma, was shaved off pieces of meat that would go in a pita -Souvlaki: consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer -Moussakka: eggplant- or potato-based dish, often including ground meat -Tzatziki: a yogurt dip that was put on all of the above that goes with everything and is amazing -Lamb kebabs -Fried Cheese with honey, called saganaki -Seafood Greek survival during the Holocaust was miraculous, as someone whom we met was 9 at the time the Nazis came in 1943. Other families hid his family, the Greek policemen stood up to the Nazis when they tried to come to their house, and perhaps the most astounding, he spent 18 months sleeping in the mountains to escape the Nazis. He slept in snow, he slept piled on top of his brothers, he slept through everything. After his amazing survival, he came back to his town, Chelkita, and uncovered a cemetery there of Jews that dates back to the third century BCE. Speaking to this man was absolutely the most inspirational part of Greece. One of our amazing tour guides, this one in Thessaloniki, talked not only about the genocide that is the Holocaust, but the "memocide" that occurred within it. Greek Jewry was one of the hardest hit of all European countries in terms of the percentage of the Jews that were murdered. In Thessaliniki, 96% of the Jews were murdered, meaning the Greek traditions were almost completely wiped out and barely anyone was left to remember who was killed. The memocide that occurred, though, took this a step further, according to our guide. There was a Jewish cemetery that held 350,000 corpses of Jewish mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. During the Holocaust, Nazis told the Jews at the time that in just a few days, they were going to destroy the cemetery, wiping out these people's memories forever. The Jews acted as swiftly as they could, but managed to only save 1,000 bodies. As a result, the Nazis successfully wiped the memory and ancestry of the Jewish people here, so much so that currently, on the land that was the cemetery, Aristotle University stands with its thousands of students learning every day. Many students may have no idea exactly where it is that they are. The only reminder to those passing by is a small yet powerful monument that was only erected after the year 2000. The monument has tombstones around its edges with the message written in various languages, including Hebrew and Ladino, about what happened here. In the center of the monument there is a casket made out of stone, with a Jewish star tilted on its side sitting in front of it and a menorah pushed to its side sitting behind it. It gives the whole monument a disheveled feeling, a feeling that goes far beyond the monument for the Jewish community here in Greece. Thessaloniki has worked hard to revive its Jewish roots, and as warm the community was to us for Shabbat, the community is still small and working to get back to where it was. That being said, the values and closeness that this smaller community fosters cannot be fully understood when trying to compare it to our own larger Jewish communities in the US. These Jews need each other to simply just continue the tradition and the faith. There's more to going to synagogue, to being Jewish, a sense of a larger belonging that makes the sum of these Jewish parts powerful. Earlier in the trip, in Athens, we got to meet the Chief Rabbi of Greece, Rabbi Negrin, who acted as our tour guide at all the important Jewish places in Athens, from the Jewish school, to the Jewish museum, to everything in between. What is most impressive about Negrin besides his young age, is that he is a homegrown Rabbi, which cannot be said about any other Rabbi we met on this trip. Everyone else is imported from either Israel or Moscow, making it harder to really get close with the community and gain trust. For Negrin, however, the entire community watched him grow up and knows the education he got and what his values are. He knows all the kids and their parents, making the community more willing to follow him. He is a very modest chief Rabbi, and he even came running with us and showed us the President's house among other government buildings during our run. He inspires the Jewish kids in Athens to become professional Jews, one of the most helpful ways to ensure the strengthening and continuation of Jewry in Greece. We also visited the Parthenon and the Oracle at Delphi, two centers of the Greek Empire during their reign. What was so mind-blowing being at these two places was that Greek civilization was just so advanced for their times. They made huge advances in medicine, technology, architecture, etc. and everyone was expected to be multifaceted and not specialize in one thing. Everyone was supposed to participate in the democracy, no matter who they were, so much so that the word idiot stems from the ancient Greek word idiotes, which means private person or self-centered person who does not care of the matters of society. To paraphrase, Greek society considered people who didn't care for others idiots. They paved the way for philosophy, but Greece's greatest philosophers were not solely thinkers, but also doctors and play writes and anything in between. The Oracle at Delphi also dates back thousands of years and was seen as the center of the universe at its time. Kings from all over the world came to ask the Oracle their biggest questions/problems, to which the Oracle would respond in almost a riddle that the King would not understand until it was too late. We also saw one of the first stadiums where track and a type of olympics was held at the top of Delphi, which was really cool. There was seats and the field spanned about 170 yards on the straightaways. That night, we made a 4 hour drive and arrived for Thanksgiving dinner late. While it was weird having Thanksgiving in Greece, especially with having a vegetarian, Turkey free meal at the hotel, we all talked about what we did at home and some even went around the table and said what they were thankful for. Even though it wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving to remember, there is no doubt I'll never forget Thanksgiving in Greece. Before we left for Bulgaria, a few of my friends and I got our last souvlaki. As we were waiting for our food to come, my friend started asking people in the restaurant if anyone spoke English. One person pointed to his friend, and so we began to talk to him. We eventually learned that he was a Syrian refugee who had been smuggled out of Syria with his Grandma and eventually found his way to Greece. Though he didn't ahve a job, he was just happy to be out of Syria and be in a safe space. We practiced a little bit of our Arabic as we rushed back to make the bus to Bulgaria. We learned the next 5 days in Bulgaria would be similar yet different to Greece. Not only did Bulgarian Jewry have to survive the Holocaust, it also had to survive communism. In Bulgaria we would focus much more on meeting our Jewish peers, the 17-18 year olds that were beginning to make up the next generation of Bulgarian Jews. A few Greek words we picked up Kalispera: Good afternoon Kalimera: Good Morning Kalinichta: Good night Posise: How are you? Bulgaria highlights: We spent our week in Bulgaria staying in its capital, Sofia, where we met the Jewish community and got to know the kids and our peers living and learning in the Jewish community that is small but gaining momentum. We got time to explore the night life in Sofia and eat a lot of meat. We also went to Plovdiv to see one of Europe’s oldest cities, where we saw the JCC, shul and a beautiful monastery and learned about how the Bulgarian Jews were saved from the Holocaust by two influential members of the patriarchy. By the numbers of what we saw and who we met: -1 Lauder Jewish school that has about 1000 kids but is only 30% Jewish and is legally only able to techinically teach Hebrew and not really other Jewish studies according to Bulgarian law. Hebrew is allowed because it is recognized as a mother tongue -2 synagogues, 1 of which we prayed at on Shabbat, which is the 3rd largest synagogue in Europe. -1 monastery -1 Bulgarian rap concert(!) -1 Bulgarian Holocaust survivor who lived through communism and the antireligion mindset it fostered in Bulgaria -1 Laughing Yoga session with the elderly Interesting foods I ate: Duck Heart Lamb stomach Ox Tail Thoughts: Communism almost completely wiped out any real trace of religion in the country, and as a result, the Jewish community has had a hard time flourishing in the recent past. However, led by the young people in the community, through youth groups and the JCC, the Jewish community is becoming more and more involved. Many grandparents made sure that their grandchildren knew what Judaism is all about before passing, and so the kids feel a real familial connection to their Judaism. The big problem in Bulgaria is that they have been unable to have a homegrown Rabbi, and instead have only imported Rabbis from Israel. As a result, the Rabbi that is supposed to be the leader of the community does not actually know what the community is really about and often leaves once his kids become old enough for day school, since there is no day school for the kids to learn at. Overall, the city of Sofia was pretty booming, especially after being in Athens. Maxim, who is about 30 and is the head of the JCC in Sofia, has high hopes for the community and says that it is going to get better as the current kids become adults. BBYO, an international Jewish youth group, has a very strong presence with the kids here, and it was clear that these kids are pretty proud of their Judaism. This is definitely a city worth coming back to, but having said all of this, there was something off with Bulgaria. Something just didn't sit quite right here, whether it was seeing swasitkas in train stations or hearing what the communists did to the religion here or the effect they still have today. It was inspiring to see the efforts of Maxim and a women our age named Alexa who were reviving the community through JCC and BBYO activities for the youth; however, the Jewish community has a long way to go. At the Lauder school that we visited in Sofia, they are not allowed to teach religion as said above, but the 9th grade Hebrew class that I visited looked and felt a lot like my 8th grade Hebrew class back in Boston. The only difference was that instead of explaining Hebrew in English, the Israeli teacher explained it in Bulgarian. Besides this detail, though, the class was learning in the same style through similar books that many of my friends on Kivunim had read in high school. It made the world seem pretty small, especially the Jewish one. We also learned from Maxim, 30, about how it was really his grandparents' generation that brought back Judaism to their kids after communism. The parents' generation didn't really have much religious background and, as a result, didn't always practice so much in the home. This left the responsibility to Maxim and the JCC to provide Friday night dinners and such to the community to instill Jewish traditions in the youth outside of the home. It made me wonder what is more important in creating Jewish traditions and values – Jewish education or practice in the home? Practice in the home really solidifies it as part of your own tradition, whereas learning it in school might just make it another fact. Later in the day after visiting the Lauder school, we were split up into groups of 3 plus 1 Bulgarian teen and visited the elderly. The woman I met with asked us at the beginning if we spoke any other languages besides English in Bulgarian, and we all thought we knew Spanish so we said Spanish. As a result, she started speaking Ladino, a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish (the Spanish equivalent to Yiddish) which we could not understand at all. It definitely felt like a missed opportunity to hear an amazing story and ask the elderly about communism and the Holocaust all due to a language barrier. What was very cool to learn about, though, was about how Bulgaria saved its Jews from the Holocaust. Two bishops basically saved the Bulgarian Jews by sticking up for them in the Bulgarian Orthodox community. They made sure the Nazis didn't touch the Jews by not sending them to the death camps. At the monastery we visited, they even have a plaque as a memorial to these two bishops and the amazing feats they accomplished. They are also buried at this beautiful monastery. The night after the monastery we tried to go to a club, but they charged us 5 times the amount they were charging Bulgarians, so we decided to just go to this Bulgarian rap concert. It was one of the most bizarre experiences I have had. The rappers were all dressed in lab coats as scientists, and I had no clue what they were saying but the whole crowd was getting really into it. It felt like one of the most uniquely Bulgarian experiences I could have had, yet it also felt like I had been to the American equivalent. This opened my eyes again to the globalization of the world today. This was reenforced by seeing all the McDonalds, Subways, and KFCs that were in Sofia. American influence definitely reaches far across the world. I saw this even more in Azberaijan, a country I really didn't expect to see these American companies in. After an interesting week in Sofia, we boarded a plane to Baku via Istanbul. We had no clue just how different this third country would be. Azerbaijan Azerbaijan highlights: Azerbaijan and its capital Baku were definitely the highlights of this three-week adventure. As soon as we got off the plane, it was clear that this country was very different than the other countries or anywhere else I’ve ever been. Every single building is majestic and lit perfectly in the night to make the city look rich and powerful. After all, it is an oil-rich country, and as a result it has as someone told us, they have too much money to know what to do with. It was surreal walking around and felt like we were in the capital of the Hunger Games. The crazy thing was that the buildings we did go into were actually pretty run down inside, and as we got out of the city the wealth gap was very easy to see. Buildings became smaller, way less nice on the outside, let alone the inside. It also seemed like everyone we met with was feeding us propaganda, and we somehow got access to a ton of government officials, including the assistant to the President. We were also on national TV and on the front page of the big paper there. For the first while, no one would give us a straight answer about what Azerbaijan’s biggest internal problems were; it seemed like they wanted us to believe they had no problems and was a utopia. All they would tell us about is their conflict with Armenia that they said was their national tragedy, and everything related back to this. This was definitely an eye-opening experience. By the numbers: -3 meetings with government officials, including the assistant to the president, officials at the multiculturalism center, which boasted about Azerbaijan’s culture of tolerance, especially in religion, that has allowed the Jews in the country to never have experienced anti Semitism, and finally the head of the ministry of religion as well as heads of the Jewish and Christian religions in the country. All of them were photographed and videoed and had some press presence at. -1 Carpet Museum: the hand-made carpets take 6 months to make working 8 hours a day and is one of the things that the locals are most proud about. -2 synagogues, one of which was in Quba, the only solely Jewish town outside of Israel in the world. -1 Temple of Fire that was built by the Zoroastrians that used to live in Baku. Azerbaijan translates to “land of fire” and fire has become a huge symbol to them just as it does to Zoroastrians. There is also natural fire that burns on a mountain in Azerbaijan due to the gasses released by the Earth. Cool food I ate: Sajj: a meat dish that comes on a metal pan Plov: a pilaf dish that is mixed with a meat or chicken Gutab: basically a meat or vegetable stuffed flatbread Baklawa: a tasty dessert Even on the plane ride to Azerbaijan it felt different than the other countries. I sat next to a little boy and his mom, and despite our huge language barrier, using the maps on the plane tvs, we were able to communicate. I showed them Boston, and they showed me Baku, where they were from. They were returning from a mini-vacation in Istanbul and tried to teach me about their country. When that was hard, the little boy started teaching me how to count to 10 in Azeri, which was one of the cutest things ever. I taught him some English words as he taught me more Azeri by explaining with his hands. This encounter gave me a positive outlook before I even got off the plane, which was reinforced again by these majestic buildings. It just felt like this was the place to be and everything was perfect in those first few hours. It began to feel a little fishy the next few days. In our first full day, we met with the multicuturalism center, which is part of the government. There was press on hand for what they called this international conference. They told us about how tolerance was a huge huge deal for them in this country, and that everyone lived in perfect harmony with each other, especially among different religions. Despite the country being 95% Muslim, the minority groups have never felt any type of discrimination. There has never been any anti-semitism, which was incredible to hear. However, once we started prodding a bit more with our questions, it was clear they were not painting the full picture of Azerbaijan. While it does seem like there is complete religious tolerance among the people, other forms of tolerance that we, as Americans, take for granted, were not seen. When one of my friends asked them to explain what other tolerance there was outside of religious tolerance in the country, for example about gay and women's rights, they gave a very vague answer. One of the women leading the meeting said that they basically had a don't ask don't tell policy, where people can do whatever they want behind closed doors in private, but she did not say what that meant in public. After the meeting, I asked one of the other leaders of the meeting, and he said that same-sex marriage is not legal in the country. Also, the women said she did not believe in the need to advocate for women's rights because, as she said, women already had equal rights. She referenced herself being in the position she was in in the government to argue that women have equal rights here. The rest of our trip begs to differ, though, as she was one of the only women we met that was part of the government. Almost every other government or significant official we met with was an old, white male. She also argued that it is the fault of the woman in domestic violence issues because, as she said, the woman should be able to defend herself or not piss off her significant other so much that he moves to violence, which definitely shocked me. It showed the culture of the country was still trying to shake off its communism just 20 years after becoming a democracy. When I asked one of the meeting leaders after the meeting to expand on what their tolerance policy was – they were very vague with it during the meeting – he said that people don't really know anything else in the country, and so their policy is a "ignorance is bliss" approach. Basically, they just don't do anything to incite discrimination, making it seem like it is more because of the people than the government that this place is so "tolerant." We also went to the Jewish city of Quba, which, as I said above, is the only completely Jewish city outside of Israel, but as our tour guide kept telling us, it is not a ghetto. The Jews here are called Mountain Jews, but their religiosity has almost vanished because of communism. Many of them don't know any of the Jewish laws, but interestingly enough, a good portion of them go to synagogue every single morning, despite not really knowing the prayers. They also have a tradition of taking off their shoes before entering the prayer space, which one of our teachers said was probably because of the Islamic influence in the state. They said they kept kosher, but when someone asked them what that meant, their definition of Kosher was different than the traditional definition. According to the woman we met with at the synagogue there, the Mountain Jews have been in Azerbaijan in Quba for over 2600 years, making it one of the places the Jews have been for the longest. We didn't get to meet with the Jewish school there, though we did get to have a great snowball fight among ourselves, including our director! We went to the memorial park in Baku as well, which had memorials for their biggest tragedies, including the one with the Armenians. At the end of it, they had an eternal fire, which is a big deal in Azerbaijan, as the name literally translates to country of fire. This was one of the most influential places for Zoroastrianism back in the day due to its propensity for natural fire. There is a mountain in Azerbaijan that has had a natural fire due to the gasses it emits for over 60 years continuously. This fire was also lit during the time of the Zoroastrians, which the religion cherished, as they found fire sacred. As a result, they built a fire temple which we visited, which felt like it was straight out of Avatar the Last Airbender. There was fires all around the temple with mini rooms that told their stories. We also were told we were going to be meeting with the Vice President of Baku for 2 hours during our trip, but when we quickly found out at this meeting that it was actually the "assistant to the president" which some said was his second hand man, while one of our tour guides said he was actually a lot farther down the ladder than that. Either way, there was a crazy amount of press there, and this man called this meeting an international conference with Masters and PhD students from leading American universities and top representatives from Baku. This was obviously false, as none of us is even in college yet! But for propaganda's sake, on this day we were. He again told us about the conflict with Armenia and it still felt like everything he was telling us was not real. He wouldn't say anything negative about the country, saying again the country's biggest internal problem was the Armenian occupation of their land and left it at that. While it was very cool to meet with a government official who may or may not have been really important, it still felt like we were being lied to. This began to get cleared up once we visited the Chabad a day after the assistant to the president. The Chabad Rabbi met us outside the Jewish school, and from there right when we walked in we saw what were basically shrines to Heydar Aliev, Azerbaijans first president after Soviet rule some 20 years ago. These shrines are found all over the state, and the airport, train station, business center, mall, etc. are all named after him as well. While they country supposedly has a democracy, his son quickly was elected after Heydar with 88% of the vote. According to one of my friends, though, the election results were released accidentally by the government before the actual election, which would seem to say that these elections may have been rigged. Also, next to the usual Rebbe that is pictured in Chabads was Heydar Alieve's photo, again showing the culture here that no one could be above this president. The Chabad Rabbi explained to us why everyone was telling us lies; it was because it was their custom as hosts to just say positive things to their guests. This meant that everything positive they were telling us, he said, was actually true. They just didn't like saying the negative things. This Rabbi was also imported from Israel but has been living here for 7 years. He has fostered a strong Jewish school in Baku that gets around the laws of Azerbaijan that prohibit teaching religion. The government is afraid of Islamic radicalism, and as a result, he said, it prohibits any religious education, despite it being a Muslim country. He added that the government doesn't really care too much that they are teaching religion as long as they don't see it. At the Chabad school, we walked into a room where there was a girls choir singing songs in Hebrew that many of us knew from camp or school, so we promptly joined them for an impromptu song sesh. It was really cool that even though we didn't know their first language, Hebrew united us, a language we both knew solely because we were Jewish. This, and this trip as a whole, definitley made me prouder to be Jewish. One of our tour guides was named Cameron, and he offered one of the more realistic points of view that we got. A little background on why we were able to meet with all of these government officials: There is an Israeli-Azeri named Aryeh Gut who has helped bond his two countries to become closer Allies, and Kivunim brought him in to give us a lecture because we were going to Azerbaijan. He has high connections in the Azeri government and so he arranged for all these meetings. He even came to Azerbaijan with us to meet these officials with us. Needless to say, he was more a part of "old money" than new money, aligning more heavily with the government. Cameron, on the other hand, was a young 20-something who has a boyfriend of 8 years. In one of our reflection sessions, we had both Cameron and Aryeh join us help us figure out what were some of the challenges the citizens of the country face. While Cameron started to try and share his point of view, Aryeh would interrupt with his point of view. We could see the difference in opinion, but more than that, I thought it highlighted what maybe is one of Azerbaijan's biggest challenges: the disconnect between the government and its people. Our tour guide said he likes the president, but he has a problem with the government as a whole (sound familiar?). He pointed to teacher salaries, medical treatment, and more. Past the problems and challenges both these men told us their country faces, it is clear that there is a huge gap within the country in many different aspects of life. Before we left Azerbaijan, we had our final big meal all together in the old city of Baku with plov, a pilaf dish that they cooked inside squash. At this dinner, we listened to traditional Azeri song and saw traditional Azeri dance. After having most of our dinners out and in smaller groups the past few weeks, it was nice to have everyone together to reflect on a life changing three weeks. We said goodbye to our new Azerbaijani friends and had one last dance party dancing to whatever was playing. (Earlier in the trip, when we had a group lunch at a local Domino's, we basically turned the restaurant into a dance club by blasting Taylor Swift and having a dance party. Anytime there is music, we all get up and dance.) Boarding the plane and then finally arriving back in Jerusalem, I was happy to come back to my home for the year and have some time to digest what we just saw. We met people who looked, thought, and lived differently than we live, yet at the very core of everything we did, there was always some type of connection that could be made with "the other." Although we have experienced vastly different lives than those of the people we met in Greece, Bulgaria, and Azerbaijan, we could connect with one another because at our core, we are all human. No matter what separates us, whether it be physically living somewhere else or psychologically, it seems that if we just make the effort, we can make "the other" our friend. It was a crazy three weeks, and a great start to what has been and is going to continue to be an enlightening year. Check my Facebook for more photos! Thanks for reading this really long post! Shoutouts: Avi Wechsler, Ben Neumann, Max Melamed 11/7/2016 0 Comments Settling InAfter weeks of ever-changing schedules, I am finally settled in Jerusalem, taking classes with a regular schedule. On Monday thru Wednesday, we have classes in the morning and afternoon. In the morning, we have three periods, where we take Arabic and Hebrew and have a free. Usually during my free, which goes right into lunch, I go to the Y, which is less than a 5 minute walk away. It's been really cool to learn a new language, but it is definitely going to be challenging to learn all the letters and subtleties of the language. I also haven't taken a daily Hebrew class in years, and I have loved relearning the language and using it in daily life. These language classes are pretty small, with around 10-15 people per class. In the afternoons, we have two types of classes that are with the whole group called Jews in History and Land, People, Ideas. JIH is about the Jews of the countries we visit and their history, how they lived, who they were, etc. We have specialists for every country, so we never have a consistent teacher for this class. LPI is about the history of Zionism and is taught by a consistent teacher. LPI is closer to a class than a lecture, with discussion and a response paper due before every trip, while JIH is mostly lectures. There are usually three periods in the afternoon, so we often double up on one of these classes. Every now and then, a singer named Hadas comes in and teaches us songs about the cultures we will be visiting on our upcoming trip. Then we usually have a two hour break from 530-730, including dinner, which Kivunim either provides for us at Beit Shmuel or gives us money to go out to the amazing restaurants near us so we can explore the Jerusalem cuisine. So far, I've had amazing Hummus, falafel, Shwarma, Iraqi food, a middle eastern dish called Malawach, and so much more. There are a surprising amount of amazing burger places nearby, and even a Chipotle-esque Mexican restaurant. After dinner, a few times a week we have another lecturer at night. These lecturers range from professors at American colleges who Skype in to a former assistant to a recent Prime Minister of Israel to an author of a renowned book on coexistence between the Arabs and Jews in Israel. On Thursdays, I volunteer at a school for refugees from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Philippines. There is one group of 4 from Kivunim that goes to this organization in the morning, and another group of 5 that volunteers in the morning, and you switch off every week. In the mornings, I volunteer from 9-12 and work with mostly babies. Last week I basically held and played with a baby for at least an hour, then switched over to toddlers who are just learning to walk. With these toddlers, we went on a little trip/walk to the grocery store to buy jelly and other fillings for the crepes that the kids were going to make after we left. When I am there in the afternoon from 230-530, the older kids come. With the 9-10 years old, we all play basketball and other sports, we help them do homework, and we make sure they are eating their snacks. Besides for volunteering on Thursdays, the rest of our day is pretty much free! Fridays and Saturdays are usually left pretty much empty, as they are the weekend in Israel, instead of Saturday and Sunday (Sunday is a workday and a school day in Israel). This past Friday was different, though, because an artist from New York named Tobi Kahn came to Israel for literally the weekend just to teach us about visual art. Because of this, we woke up at 4:45 a.m. and left Beit Shmuel by 5:15 to walk to the shuk (market) called Machane Yehuda, which a huge outdoor market with a wide range of food and other stuff. Usually on Friday morning, the shuk is packed as everyone gets ready for Shabbat, but because we got there so early, there was only a few merchants setting up their vegetables and no customers yet. Tobi pointed out to us the different colors of the sky due to the different variations of light in different places; some lights, or lack thereof, made the sky a darker or lighter hue of blue. We then saw the shuk begin to come alive as we left to go to a Jewish village right next to Machane Yehuda. After getting yelled at a few times by the people who lived there for waking them up, we got the most amazing pastries from a pastry shop called Marzipan, which just opened as we were leaving. This meant we got some of the freshest, warmest pastries we could get there. They were delicious! After a quick nap, we went to the Israel Museum with Tobi, who taught us about a lot of the art there, which gave me a greater appreciation for art than I have previously had. It also made me realize that I really don't get modern art at all. There was a piece of artwork that was an upside down urinal, which I found pretty hard to appreciate! But besides a lecture Saturday night, we had the rest of Friday and Saturday free. A few of us even went to the Kotel (the Western Wall) Friday night, which is always quite the scene. We played ultimate frisbee for hours on Saturday in what seemed like it was a horse park, as we saw three separate horses accompanied by their trainers/owners. One of the horses ended up running through our game a little bit as its trainer tried to corral it. This was definitely something I was not used to. Sundays are usually jam-packed days, as we travel around Israel doing whatever makes sense to do that week. One week we went on a hike and saw monestaries, one of which was located on the Jordan River at what is believed to be the spot where Jesus was baptized. This past Sunday, with Tobi, we met with various Israeli artists and saw their studios. One renowned artist is very good at wheel throwing, and she gave us all a quick lesson in how to do it and even let us try it out! In general, there has been about one time a week where I wake up early in the morning to go or watch something. We watched game 7 of the World Series at the director of the Israel program's house at 3 in the morning and woke up to watch the election at 5 in the morning. Overall, sleep isn't really a thing here and that's okay! This week I started going to a running group called Runners Without Borders, which is coexistence running group that both Arabs and Jews participate in. It was awesome to get to practice my Arabic with the Arabs and meet the amazing people that live in Israel. I am also going to start being in a flag football league this Friday with a lot of gap year kids – should be a lot of fun! We are now getting ready to go to Greece, Bulgaria, and Azerbaijan on Sunday until December 9. Somehow I'm going to try to pack for 19 days without laundry, but I am so pumped to finally go on our first international trip. It's going to be an incredible 3 weeks with incredible food, people and cultures. Check back soon to see what it's like! 11/3/2016 3 Comments The Wailing WallSome say the biggest existential threat facing Israel right now is not Iran, not terrorism, or anything of the like, but Jew on Jew hatred and violence. When we, as Jews, are not unified, our enemies will destroy us. On Wednesday morning, 30 of us from Kivunim went with the Women of the Wall to the Kotel (the Western Wall) at 6:30 in the morning with several Torahs. This marked the first time in history that multiple Torahs were brought to the Kotel, to the women's side to be read. As we walked through security behind the Torahs, the 200-some people sang their hearts out, singing ya'aseh shalom, He will make peace, and other songs of strength. Led by both American and Israeli leading non-orthodox Rabbis, the crowd burst past security to be met by Haredi (ultra orthodox) Jews, who tried to grab the Torahs from those holding the holy scrolls. One burly supporter of the Women of the Wall movement literally stood in front of some of the Torahs and acted as an offensive linemen, moving the Haredis as nonviolently as possible who were yelling and grabbing the Torahs. The Haredis were saying that these weren't real Torahs because of what they were being used for, which in their eyes was a giant middle finger to their religion. Once the Torahs made it into the women's section, constant Haredi whistling and yelling tried to drown out the women's prayer and torah reading. What was perhaps the most frightening part of the whole experience was that the loudest, angriest Haredis weren't old Rabbis, but young kids, sometimes younger than 10, who were yelling and screaming as loud as they could. They had no idea, it seemed to me, what exactly they were doing, but it was clear they were told what to do by their elders. In particular, one 20-something Haredi man would pull kids aside and point them where to go and what to scream, whether it meant going in the middle of the prayer circle or sliding between the police trying to block them off. The kids just yelled and whistled as loud as they could, running around with stickers; they looked like they were having a blast. When one little kid was asked why he wasn't at school, he said that his Rabbis and teachers told him to come here and protest what was going on. I would call that brainwashing young children. From the men's section, many Kivunim kids looked over the barrier to try and witness history. One friend, Matt, asked a girl on the Women's side to pass him a siddur because he didn't have one. One of the so called security guards, who could be seen in videos doing much of the shoving that occurred, quickly snapped, "assoor (forbidden)." When Matt asked why not, why he couldn't practice his Judaism, the security man quipped, "You are not Jewish." When we fight internally as a religion, when we call each other names and say this is the only way to truly be Jewish, we cannot do much of anything, let alone successfully run our own state. We must be accepting of each others' differences. My way is not the only, correct way of practicing Judaism. Just because you are secular does not mean you are not Jewish. Many of the Kivunim girls got a chance to hold the Torah during the service, some even carrying it out of the women's section into the main area of the Kotel. During the Egalitarian service, the police had to form a wall so that the kids and other Haredis wouldn't disrupt the service. When that same 20-something Haredi man showed the kids how to slip through the cracks of the police's wall, the little kids were met with a giant arm and shove from one of the police officers. The kids quickly toppled over each other and broke a chair, yet another example of Jew on Jew violence that should never occur. Of course, all of the blame does not fall on the Haredis, as the Women of the Wall knew this would provoke them, and the police also participated in Jew on Jew violence. We shouldn't have to be fighting amongst each other trying to fight for rights. Dialogue and conversation in theory should be enough; we should be standing side-by-side with our fellow Jews. After finishing the Egal service, the final step of the experience was to get the Torahs back out of the Kotel. As we walked out, each person carrying a Torah had what was more or less a body guard to protect their Torah from the Haredis. Ironically, the Haredis live every day of their life swearing by the Torah, yet there they were, trying to tear apart the very same words they hold so dear. One man carrying one of the Torahs didn't have anyone standing next to him to protect him, and the kids quickly took notice. After no one came to help, I quickly took action, walking next to the Torah and acting as its body guard and offensive linemen. It was a crazy rush of emotions as I was doing this: fear for my safety, pride in my protection of my fellow Jew, and most of all frustration that I had to protect a fellow Jew from another Jew. It's 2016. The Jewish nation has had its own democratic state for just under 70 years. Throughout its history, Israel has experienced hatred from all over the world, yet it has survived and even thrived. It has found a way to keep going, to modernize while keeping close ties to its incredible history. We cannot continue with the status quo, with fighting one another. Not now. We are at a tipping point right now in Israel, in America, and in the world. It's time to make friends and throwaway all the politics and media publicity. As the Torah says, it's time to love your neighbor as yourself. 10/26/2016 7 Comments Finally in JerusalemThanks for checking out my kivublog! I'm gonna try to update this blog every so often and definitely after every international trip. I'm with a group of 43 18 year-old living in one of the most important cities in history for the year. Since getting off the plane on a Friday morning two weeks ago, I've done a lot (Orientation). We went straight to Midreshet Ben Gurion on that Friday, which is in the Negev (desert) near David Ben Gurion's grave. We hiked through the Negev and met so many people who lived so differently than us. We met a Bedouin woman named Magdalena, who lives with her husband and daughter in the middle of the desert. She brought us into her home and made us lafa, which is like a thicker, Middle Eastern burrito. She told us in a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic that anyone who comes into her home, she is like a mother to them, no matter their race, ethnicity or religion. In a country filled with so much turmoil, it was inspiring to meet a person who could be angry at her situation but instead chose to be happy and embrace it with all her heart.
Aside from Magdalena, we met one of the first Bedouin women PhDs ever, as well as a Bedouin woman who fought against her arranged marriage and instead opened her own cosmetics company that uses solely ingredients that are permitted within the Islamic customs and laws. The PhD is a lawyer attempting to fight polygamy in the Bedouin culture, while the cosmetics owner, who recently married a man whom she chose, set her goals of the year at making $250K and having her first kids. Both of these women were so inspiring and showed that we are not a slave to the situation in which we are born, but can do a lot to make significant change in both our lives and others alike. We also stayed at a Bedouin man's tent, which wasn't one of the tourist attractions that many programs stay with during the course of their Israel experience, but was actually where this guy slept. We slept on the ground in the very same tent his family slept in. He showed us his 200+ sheep and goats and even planted trees for us in honor of our staying with him. He lives in an unrecognized Bedouin village, and yet despite not being required to join Israel's IDF, he signed up anyways. He is another person who could be angry and upset with how the government treats him, and yet he is proud to live where he does and live his life the way he does. Besides the incredible views of the hikes, we have been learning about ancient, ancient history, like 40,000 years ago cave art, while being challenged to think about how and why we ask the questions that we do. I went on runs with one of our teachers and a few other kids every morning, where we explored the canyon our hostel overlooked. This teacher is also a world champion in Jujitsu, so after every run, we would have a mini-lesson on a move or two and the science behind it. We celebrated the holidays at a Sephardi shul on the kibbutz we were on, meeting the Israelies who lived there and prayed there. We also met our peers in Israel who are taking a year before the army to gain experience and knowledge to better prepare themselves for the army. Meeting fellow 18 year-olds who are getting ready to enlist, while we all go to college next year, really gave some perspective on how fortunate we are, but also on how different Israeli culture is to ours. Almost every 18 year-old in Israel knows that they will be spending time in the IDF, risking their lives for their country, a truth that is not the same in America. Overall, everyone who we have met has shown me how different my idea of a happy life is to theirs. While it might be hard for me to live in the desert all my life, so many of these people do it lovingly and happily, forcing me to look at what I consider is a happy life. The kids have been amazing, smart and thoughtful, and we all couldn't wait to get to Jerusalem after climbing Masada and swimming in the Dead Sea almost 2 weeks after arriving in Israel. With everyone's laundry and clean clothing running low, we all loved getting clean clothes and finally settling into Beit Shmuel, where we will be staying for the year. We are (finally) back in civilization, though we will be returning to the very same place we stayed for Orientation at the end of the year. Formal classes start on Monday, where I will be taking Hebrew, Arabic, a class about Jews in the countries we will be traveling to, as well as a history of Israel and Zionism. Can't wait to get settled into a schedule! We have our first free weekend this weekend, I'll be chilling by the beach in Tel-Aviv. It's been an incredible start to what will be a memorable year to say the least. We leave for our first international trip to Greece in a little less than a month. |
AuthorDan Rosenzweig-Ziff Archives
June 2017
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