LifeList

Hi folks!

סוף סוף אני פה or, I'm finally here. Apologies again for being out of touch.

Here is a list of what this post will include in case you want to skim to "the good stuff," whatever that might be..

1. A hiking weekend in Sde Boker!
2. A meeting with the kids of Kibbutz Ketura about possibly one day returning there
3. A visit from Carleton students!
4. Hannukah
5. Wrapping up the semester -- going home!

I do realize that many of these topics have exclamation points, making it difficult for you, my devoted reader, to determine the aforementioned "good stuff." Ha ha you'll just have to read it all :)

Sde Boker --

As many of you know Matan has a number of siblings, including an older brother named Oren. Oren is doing his master's degree at Ben Gurion University which is located in Sde Boker. (Side note: Mom - Sde Boker means Cowboy Field in Hebrew). Aaanyway a couple of weekends ago a bunch of us went down to visit Oren and spend the weekend hiking in the beautiful Negev desert. It ended up being me and the crew of boys which was quite a lot of fun. I was under the impression that we were going on a short jaunt in the desert, but this turned into an 11 km hike to a spring, up and down cliffs and across valleys. I'm only slightly embarrassed to remember how sore I was the days after the hike, but we had a great time. Here are some picture highlights, more can be found on facebook!:

Lovely Spring - the halfway point

Boys being Goofy :)

This is me at the end of the hike at Ben Gurion's Grave.

Kibbutz Kids Meeting --

The following weekend a large number of people who grew up with Matan on Kibbutz Ketura convened in Tel Aviv to talk about the possibility of forming a Garin (basically a group) to return to the Kibbutz and become members. I am obviously not at the point where I can even truly entertain this idea for myself, but it was very interesting and exciting to hear what people had to say. Mostly I was inspired by how close this group of people are, and how they can't imagine living their adult lives apart. It's pretty special. People raised all sorts of concerns (like whether or not they can find challenging, inspiring work in the middle of the desert, and not wanting to simply follow their parents' dreams) and excitement/hopes (like being able to raise their children together and living in an intentional community). It was very much a preliminary meeting, but it was exciting nonetheless, and very exciting to consider these people my family here in Israel. So that was good.

Carleton in Jerusalem --

Then some students from Carleton College came to visit! They were on a winter break trip through the college and were quite busy, so I only got to see them for one night but it was really nice. It really struck me how seeing people from a past chapter of life puts into focus the ways in which you have changed. I also did some neat stuff with them -- they were here during Hannukah and I went with them to a protest-like thing at the Western Wall that was part of a larger initiative called "Taking Back The Wall" which aims at making space for secular Jews at this holy site which some people feel is being taken over/monopolized by the Ultra Orthodox. So a bunch of people from different walks of Jewish life got together at the Wall to light the Hannukah candles and sing songs. There were a handful of speakers, including a guy who was in the unit that took Jerusalem for Israel during the 1967 war. Pretty crazy. Then we went to a Catholic Mass. I don't have so much to say about this other than that it was kinda weird but reminded me that I should be taking better advantage of the various interesting religious communities here.

Hannukah --

was great. It's lovely to be here where literally everyone says happy hannukah (חנוכה סמח) and there are menorahs in every window. Matan's family came to visit for a few days which was nice, and we spent the past weekend (including the last nights of the holiday) on the Kibbutz with many of our friends.

Coming home! --

so sooooonn!!! The semester is winding down (but first it has to get crazy and stressful and finals-like, because why would school ever be kind and conducive to relaxed learning?) and a week after my last finals I am coming home for three weeks! Here is a list of what I'm looking forward to about home:

1. The Nichols/Cohen Fam. Wow can't wait
2. ManyaGEllenberg visiting. omg. And any other friends I will see but I'm trying not to get my hopes up because people might not be around
3. Gordo's Burritos
4. Sunday Thai Brunch @ the Thai Temple in Berkeley
5. Sushi. Everywhere.
6. Indian. Also everywhere.
7. Maybe I should just say food. There are many people here who don't understand why I miss the food at home so much. They say "it's just food." They OBVIOUSLY have never eaten at these places, and I pity them for that.
8. Ice in my drink at a restaurant. Israelis defy the "cheap Jew" stereotype in one very interesting way -- they refuse to put ice in your cup even though it leaves less room for drink! And if you ask for ice, which I always do, your drink will be delivered to you with 2 sad pieces of ice floating at the top.
9. Lot's of other things but this list is getting long and might make it look like I hate it here which I don't.

I will miss Jerusalem and my friends for those three weeks, but I am so pumped to relax at home with the fam and eat eat eat! When I return I will be traveling with my friend Fran throughout Israel and the West Bank until Spring Semester begins. Speaking of Spring Semester I must go register online for my classes now - more on that later!

Thanks for tuning in!
xx's and oo's

Kate

Winter has arrived and with it beautiful sunsets. Here's me outside the Old City with the fiery sky. Love you all!

i'll be with you all shortly

hey guys

just here to apologize for the extended hiatus. We're going to the kibbutz this weekend and I had planned to blog from there, but I've decided to leave my computer behind in Jerusalem and have an "unplugged" weekend of sorts. So I will be back soon to fill you in on what's been going on, as a lot has transpired since my last post!

Wishing you all a happy hannukah
xo

Kate

lifeinpictures

I'm baaaaack!

I just wanted to share some pictures from recent everyday life:

This morning we had breakfast on the porch (the first warm day in a while) It consisted of: scrambled eggs w/ toast, labaneh and black olives. Fruit salad and apple sauce. Delish

Matan on porch

Me on porch, laundry drying behind me :)

Hahahaha so this is funny and needs an explanation. Through the railing of our balcony you can see our neighbor standing on his balcony and looking at the street. He is yelling. Which is what he does every Saturday morning. He leans over his balcony (as do everyone else in the building) and yells down at the people on the street. He yells "AAYYY!" but it sounds unbelievably like he's yelling "KAAAATE!" I've gotten used to it and usually we just laugh at the stranger screaming at me, but this morning Matan was arranging breakfast on the porch and I was in the bedroom and neighbor man was yelling and I thought it was Matan trying to get my attention so I yelled back "WHAT?!" Matan came in cracking up and we had a good laugh about it. Gotta love silly stuff like that.

Usually Matan does all the cooking. I have become tired of being useless and have decided to start helping. He is not the best kitchen-sharer but he will learn. Here I am making mashed potatoes for dinner. Yum.

We listen to music while we cook. I like to dance. ("DO THE BOB!" if you know, you know)

This one is for the Nichols-Cohen fam: I FOUND HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS WITH ALMONDS IN ISRAEL!!!!! They are overpriced but it is one thing I get to take off the list of daily culinary tragedies in Israel. YAYHONEYBUNCHES

Hope you enjoyed. okbye!

Field Trips Galore and the Latest News

Shaloooom!!

Today I woke up early, in spite of a killer sinus headache, and took the 30 minute bus ride to the kindergarten for a day of volunteering. I got there to discover that today is an important Muslim holiday and therefore there is no school. I probably should have known about this holiday on my own but it also would have been nice to have been informed of the school holiday. Bummer. So I took the bus back home and am lying in bed with nothing to do --> perfect blogging opportunity!

Last week I went on two, yes TWO fun-filled field trips!

The first one was for a class I'm taking called (try saying this in one breath) Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs: Identity in Conflict and Dialogue, a Social-Psychological Perspective. The field trip was titled "Side Seeing around Jerusalem" (hardiharhar) and we did just that - saw the different sides of the story of Israeli Independence as it relates to Jerusalem.

Our first stop was to an abandoned town called Lifta. Lifta is situated at the very entrance to Jerusalem, between two important highways. It is wedged into a little valley and people pass it every day without knowing it's there. I sure didn't. Its placement at the entrance to Jerusalem made it a crucial stronghold in the 1948 War and from the Jewish perspective it was very important to capture Lifta. Eventually they did, and the residents of Lifta both fled and were expelled, some to neighboring countries and others to a new neighborhood in Jerusalem, coincidentally exactly where the Hebrew University is located.

Here is a view of Lifta and the abandoned houses

We were walking around old Lifta and learning about the history when we happened upon an interesting sight: A previous resident of Lifta was talking to a group of young lefty-looking Americans while standing on what used to be his family's home. It turned out the Yanks were from San Francisco (surprise surprise) and were representatives from a group called Dialogue Against Militarism and Iraq Veterans Against the War. They were making a movie of this man's story, and we were lucky enough to hear the story of Lifta from a genuine Lifta resident. Because of my experience at the Arava Institute I was pretty familiar with the details of Palestinian Refugees, but many of my classmates were raised with mostly a Zionist narrative and it was powerful to watch as they realized some realities about the founding of their beloved Israel that had remained in the shadows for them. Tough stuff to say the least.

A native Lifta resident on the ruins of his family's home

After this visit we went to see the other side - what's left of a small Jewish village on the outskirts of Jerusalem that has been there since 1860. Similarly, we were spoken to by a man whose grandparents had come to this village in the 1880's or 90's and lived there harmoniously for years with their Arab neighbors. He speaks Hebrew and Arabic because his family worked with and learned from their neighbors, and until the 1948 war they coexisted and even cooperated to live in the harsh circumstances of pre-state Palestine. Fighting broke out here during the war and, as per usual, neighbor turned on neighbor. :(

On the left is the man whose family is from this village,
on the right our fearless guide Chen

Then we went and ate delicious Hummus in Abu Ghosh, one of the only large, thriving Arab villages that remained in this area after the war. Yum.

The gang enjoying their Hummus

We also went to a military cemetery and an amazing look-out point in Har Adar. Here I will interrupt the field trip recounting for what I think is a fun little photo experience: Har Adar is one of the first places I went when I came to Israel the first time two years ago with my friend Dana Bar-El. Here are two pictures of me in the same place, two years apart. Fun, right?

Now

Then

We learned a lot of history on this field trip that I won't bore you with, but it was quite informative and eye-opening in many ways. When we got back we had the first of a two-part lecture on narrative. The first lecture was "The Palestinian Narrative" as told by a Palestinian professor from Ramallah, the second was "The Jewish/Israeli Narrative" as told by a Jewish professor at Hebrew U. In a lot of ways I think the effort to hear THE SINGLE NARRATIVE of each side is futile - there isn't one. And I won't go into the details of what was said by each side, but suffice it to say that each time I hear these opposing narratives I feel less and less hopeful about ever finding a resolution to the reality here. I also find myself more and more confused about how I feel - both sides infuriate and inspire me at the same time. Ugh.

I don't think I can write about this anymore without driving myself crazy, so let us move on to the second field trip. This one was to Har Herzl, or Mount Herzl, also in Jerusalem. This field trip was for my class entitled From Pioneer and Sabra to Contemporary Israeli Identity. This class is really remarkable, and the field trip was also quite neat. We visited Har Herzl to learn about the Civil Religion of Israel. Many of the important leaders of early Zionism are buried there, as are most of the past Prime Ministers and Presidents, including Golda Meir and Rabin. There is also a military cemetery for soldiers who are from Jerusalem and fell during their service. We witnessed an interesting phenomenon - recently the families of these fallen soldiers have petitioned to be allowed to add a personal plaque in addition to the uniform army gravestone. These plaques include writing that ranges from quotes from the Torah to information about how the soldier was a great brother or loved the Phillies. We talked about how this signifies the increasing importance of individualism in Israel, a country that was founded with Socialist ideals, and how some critiques say that these details make it difficult to mourn for every soldier equally. Interesting stuff.

What else? Oh, we had a lovely Shabbat dinner with tons of our close friends from the Kibbutz at my dear friends Katie and Gil's house. Katie and Gil are recently married as many of you will remember and it was really nice to join them at their new Shabbat table and enjoy the meal with close friends.

I must admit I'm getting rather homesick with today being Thanksgiving and all. It is easy for these important-to-me holidays to go by unnoticed in this foreign place. Luckily, Matan and I have been invited to a dear friend of the Hoffman family's house (people who are from the States) to celebrate. While it won't be the same as celebrating with my family (i miss you guys!!!!) it will be nice to have someone's family and the delicious meal to enjoy.

Before I go I will take a minute to be publicly thankful: I am thankful for my family, for the joy that I get from sharing life with them, how proud I am to be a part of them, and for how supportive they have been of my journey over these past years. You guys are seriously out of this world. I am thankful for my dear friends, near and far, and to those of you who are reading this - I am so lucky to have you all around. I am thankful for Matan for both the basic (cooking every night, studying massage and needing to practice) and the profound (helping me become who I am, sharing each day). And lastly I am thankful that I have been privileged with the ability to decide who I want to be and what I want to do in my life. What a blessing.

I wish you all the very best during this, my favorite of Holidays. Remember that this girl who is somewhere around 7,000 miles away is thinking of you all and missing you very much.

Kate

P.S. For my dear mother, who has been begging me to take pictures of school since I got here. Sorry mama, I just took the one, but this is the view from where I study. Pretty nice if I may say so myself.

haha Israel is ridiculous

Hello dears!

Last week was quite eventful (two field trips! A big Shabbat dinner with friends!) but this week I have midterms and just don't have the energy or time to write a big post at the moment.

Hooowweever, two things happened today while I was volunteering at the integrated kindergarten that I wanted to share in a jiffy.

1. This will illustrate to you two very central aspects of Israeli culture that continuously prove to be difficult to get used to. Today, while standing at the playground watching the kids go crazy, the head teacher in the kindergarten next door (there are 3) said to me (in Hebrew) "My daughter has a nose ring, too. Don't you know they're not pretty? They're really not pretty. I don't like them. Why do you have that?" Thanks, other teacher that I don't know. I think this clearly shows that Israelis 1. have no understanding of being polite or politically correct. They call this "speaking directly" and think it shows that they're honest and forthright. This may very well be true, but they're also mean and 2. that everyone thinks they are entitled to an important opinion about your life. That lady probably thinks I was gonna go home and take out my nose ring, like all of a sudden I realized that I had made a terrible mistake! Hah.

2. Hhhahahahha. I can barely start this story I think it's so funny. First some background. Strangely enough (to me at least) the kindergarten has a full-time maid. By this I mean that the kids make a mess (they're 5 after all), the teachers ask them to clean up but might as well whisper it, and then usher the children outside to the playground so the maid can clean up after them. I think this is weird. It also means that we're outside at the playground quite a lot - after every messy activity of which there are many. At first I would run around with the little munchkins, throwing them around and playing hide and seek. Then I realized 1. that all of the other teachers take kiddie chairs out of the classrooms to sit and watch the munchkins (and look like giants in a toy house) and 2. they're not paying me so I really don't need to go above and beyond the call of duty. So now I sit and watch too.
Aaaanyway today, during one of these sit and watch moments, a little boy was talking with the teacher who told me my nose ring is ugly. She was giving him addition problems to do and he was doing them. And getting them all right. He's 5, and could add all sorts of double digit numbers in his head. I was impressed. Then he ran away and was stirring up some kind of trouble so the teacher wanted to get his attention and proceeded to yell "NIMROD!!!!!!!" Bahahahahha. This is an Israeli name!! (Oh no I just realized someone named Nimrod might stumble upon this blog one day. Just in case: Here in Israel this is a perfectly fine, not at all laughable name. My apologies that in English it is downright hilarious). Granted, it is pronounced nimrOD, with the Hebrew R (think somewhere between French and Spanish, but with phlegm in your throat) and emphasis on the second syllable. Either way, the sight of this teacher calling this tiny math genius a nimrod just about made my day. I also think that in the highly international age we are in, naming your kid Nimrod is a cruel, cruel joke.

And with that I return to writing my bagillion page paper about female pioneers in 1920's Palestine.
Bye!

Ice Age 2

I have another fantastic frozen food (oy what alliteration) to share with you!

Before you get too concerned, I am happy to report that the electrician is scheduled to come fix the fridge at the beginning of the coming week. However, for now, Matan and I are pretty content with the current situation because it provides us with some pretty neat food experiences.

Like this morning, when we were making omelets for breakfast (deliciously filled with local Israeli cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, garlic, olives and pesto) and discovered an egg that had a crack in it. Surprised that it wasn't leaking out, I picked it up and noticed that gooey eggness had frozen to the crack. Excited and curious, I peeled the egg to discover that it was totally frozen, slushy on the outside and hard on the inside. Check out the pictures which we happen to think are pretty darn cool:

mid-peel


no drip!


sushi? no, frozen egg


Click on the pictures to make them bigger, the detail is rather remarkable.
Tata for now!

A Frozen Fridge

Last week, our refrigerator froze. This is probably due to the fact that our temperature dial is missing its dial, and is therefore just a peg sticking out of the fridge wall, making it impossible to know what temperature the fridge is or which way to turn the peg to make it colder or hotter. So while we were busy living our lives, our fridge was busy freezing. Eventually there was a block of ice that built up against the back wall of the fridge that was at least 4 inches thick. Matan is apparently a frozen fridge master with a plethora of fridge unfreezing experience from his days in the army and on the Kibbutz, so this was not a tough challenge for him. With a combination of pick-axing techniques and splashes of boiling water he was able to remove the ice block and return the fridge to normalcy. But before he did so, we discovered our leftover soup in quite a hilarious condition. The true purpose of this blog post is to share these photos with you, which I hope will make you giggle!

A lovely view of the tuperware marks out the window:

Perfectly frozen noodles and veggies!

Yummmm

I must admit it was pretty fun to hold a block of soup. Oh and Matan is pretty cute, no?:

A New Phase

Hello and Shabbat Shalom!

I hope that you all are having a weekend as relaxing and needed as mine. Somehow even before a heavy workload, the first week of school is always the most exhausting. And that, dear readers, is what I have just completed - my first week of school!

After some intense schedule-tweaking I am now happy with the outlook of the coming semester. I will pause to comment about said schedule-tweaking and the hilarity (if you're a masochist) of Israeli bureaucracy. At the end of the summer I completed level Bet of Hebrew, putting me in level Gimmel for the current semester. I went to class on the first day and found out that I was accidentally placed into Gimmel Intensive, which requires 2 extra hours of Hebrew class per week. I gave this class a try but found that waking up early to fit in the extra 2 hours per week was just too much. I figured switching from Gimmel Intensive to regular Gimmel would not be too much of a problem, and with this naive nonchalance I went to the Office of Academic Affairs to make the switch. I was then informed that there is only one woman in the entire university who can perform such a change, and that she only works 2 days a week. What a joke. I was about to leave with my head bowed in disappointment and suffer through a few more days of early mornings when I remembered that I was in Israel, the land of endless, completely breakable rules. I then proceeded to bug everyone who's office door was open, asking if they had any authority to switch me to my desired class. Eventually, a lovely man who works on Student Visa problems overheard my griping and asked if he could be of assistance. He then proceeded to shuttle me from office to office until we found a woman who was willing to make the switch. This is just one of many examples that here in Israel, if you bug the right people, anything can happen. This fact is both liberating and terrifying to us folks who are used to rules being rules.

Anyway, I finally made the necessary switches and here, for your viewing pleasure, are my classes this semester:

1. Hebrew (it never ends)
2. Jews and Palestinians in Israel: Identities in Conflict and Dialogue - Social-Psychological Perspectives. This class should be pretty neat because it is basically the academic, theoretical version of what I did at the Arava Institute. I'm really excited to learn about the psychological mechanisms behind ethno-national conflict and how we might use that understanding to resolve said conflicts.
3. Israel Case Studies - Academic Internship. This is the class that goes along with my internship which I will speak about shortly. The course seems to be focused on Organizational Studies, or gaining an understanding of how organizations successfully operate. The professor is a retired helicopter pilot from the Israeli Air Force which means he's brilliant. Unfortunately, he is really boring and talks at the speed it took for frogs to evolve into humans. So that's a shame, but hopefully it will be interesting to hear about the experience of the other interns.
4. From Pioneer and Sabra to Contemporary Israeli Identities. This course starts at the foundations of Zionism, explores the idea of the New Jew in Israel, and concludes with the question of whether there truly is an Israeli Identity today. It's not necessarily the subject that I would gravitate towards first, but the professor is hilarious and British, and clearly quite brilliant. So I'm very excited about that.

Before I speak about my internship, I will take a quick break to tell you all about the adventures of riding the bus to school. Each day I walk to the crowded bus stop across the street from my apartment and wait. Without fail and regardless of what time it happens to be, 2 or 3 #19 buses (the bus that goes to Hebrew University) pass by that are so full of people it would be physically impossible to get my body onto them. When the 3rd or 4th bus arrives and I am starting to panic about being late, I resolve to get on the bus regardless of any possible losses of limbs or backpacks. I run to the back door (don't worry folks, I have a yearly bus pass so I've already paid for my rides), elbowing others out of the way, and hurl myself into the sea of bodies. We're talking about the kind of bus ride where you don't have to hold on because the smelly bodies around you are keeping you quite snug and safe. This is what it's like. Every day. Twice a day. And it will be like this for the rest of the school year. So that's great.

One other comment about transportation in Israel. I've noticed this thing about the traffic lights here that I think is quite clever: the light turns yellow before it turns red AND before it turns green! So you know when it's about to be green, which is nice because you can be prepared to go. There are only two minor problems with this situation. The first is that if you aren't already driving at full speed when the light turns yellow before the green, someone will be honking at you as if you just ran over their child. The second is that even though they have some innovative traffic light engineering going on here, the color of said traffic lights doesn't seem to matter to anybody. After the light turns red there are usually 2 if not 3 rows of cars that continue through the intersection. I don't know if this will make you all feel more or less nervous, but the number one risk living in Israel is traffic accidents, which far surpass any conflict-related violence. Good thing I don't drive, and the bus drivers seem to be as close to superheroes as one could get.

Now for news about my internship, which is really pretty fantastic. I'm working at an integrated K-12 school that is sponsored by Hand-in-Hand, a non-profit organization here in Israel. By integrated I mean that each classroom has both Jewish Israeli and Arab Israeli students, at least one Jewish teacher and one Arab teacher, and that starting in 3rd grade they learn both Hebrew and Arabic, about Judaism and Islam, and about the culture and society of Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis. They have one Jewish principle and one Arab principle, and they get vacation for all the holidays. This idea is extremely rare in Israel, where most Arab children go to separate schools that are taught using the Jordanian system (some have recently switched to a Palestinian system) and Jewish kids go to national Israeli schools. So in general, this school is quite amazing and right up my ally as it believes coexistence and learning about the "Other" every day. I was assigned to work in the kindergarten (which is called the גן or Gan) with a special-needs girl named Yana. When I got to the classroom I was told that Yana is not "100%" but that when she works 1-on-1 she can be quite successful. Right away she started speaking to me in Hebrew, so I threw myself right into it and started speaking back. That's one of the best things about this internship placement because I am forced to speak Hebrew for 8 hours a week with kids who don't speak about politics but instead give me a chance to practice practical, useful language. I'm also learning a bit of Arabic! Anyway, I assumed that Yana was Jewish because she spoke to me in Hebrew, until her older brother came to pick her up and he spoke to her in Arabic. It turns out that she's an Arab Israeli, and that at home she speaks both Arabic and Russian, and that she learned fluent Hebrew from watching TV!! I seriously think that this girl is a Savant, because she's obviously developmentally behind but also clearly a language genius. Either way, she is totally adorable and told me that she loves me, that I'm her best friend, and constantly kisses me on the cheek. What a cutie. Overall, I am super pumped to be involved in a school that is putting the ideals of coexistence into practice and to really get to know this little girl and the other cute kids in the Gan.

And that, avid readers, brings us up to speed with the activities and observations of the first week of school. Other than that, a lot of our friends from the Kibbutz have moved to Jerusalem for this school year which has been really fantastic - we had a lovely Shabbat dinner last night for my dear friend Tamara's birthday and it's been great to have everyone around. I look forward to what this school year has to bring, and will be back soon to share it all with you.

Many נשיקות (that's kisses),

Kate/ קייט - my name in Hebrew, which I realize I've never posted here. Goodbye for now!

A Lot to Say

Hi folks,

I know I've been M.I.A. for a little while, but I'm back and have a lot to talk about. We'll see how much stamina I have this afternoon, but if I tire of writing I'll be back soon to complete the update. First and foremost: I FINISHED ULPAN!!! It ended quite well and I'm very pleased with my final marks and everything, so that's great. I've been on הפסקה or break. And this is what's been up:

Let's start at the beginning (two weeks ago) and work our way to today. As many of you know, my dear friend Katie has recently moved to Jerusalem and is getting married in a little more than a week! Last week our friend Elana was also in Jerusalem, and the three of us hit the town getting ready for the wedding and setting up Katie's new apartment. (She lives about five minutes by foot from my place, which is really fantastic) Katie recently converted to Orthodox Judaism and is marrying one of Matan's best friends Gil who has also become more religious in the last year or so. It has been very interesting and fun for me to tag along with Katie to the various religious neighborhoods of Jerusalem getting everything you need to be an Orthodox family - we went to the Sheitel Gamach (basically the wig lady) where Katie bought a beautiful wig and I tried on a bunch of new funky hairstyles. I was touched to see how the people in the English-speaking Orthodox community here really go out of their way to help people, especially if they're Calas, or brides-to-be. It has been really neat. On Friday we're going to the Kibbutz along with Katie's mom who just arrived to start getting things ready for the big day. I have the honor of being Katie's Shomeret (which translates to guardian) for the full 24 hours before the wedding. As Shomeret my duties basically consist of not leaving her side on the day leading up to the wedding. Orthodox brides have Shomerets to 1. make sure they are staying in a good mindset and not freaking out too much and 2. because it is believed that brides are very emotional and therefore vulnerable to demons, but if they have a friend with them the demon won't be able to get to them. Whatever the reasons, I'm excited for a pre-wedding slumber party :) Katie is the first close friend of mine to get married, and while navigating all of these changes can be challenging, I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

Next up is a lesson of sorts in Hebrew. Since I've been here I've been collecting a list of funny/interesting Hebrew sayings and phrases. Here are three that I think are worth sharing:

1. די - This is pronounced "die" and it means "stop, enough". Anywhere you go in Israel you will often hear parents yelling this at their annoying bratty children, kids yelling it at their brothers and sisters who are pulling their hair, and husbands and wives yelling it at each other in heated argument. It basically means "stop being annoying" but when you hear moms and dads yelling "DIE! DIE! DIE!" at their children it's pretty strange and hilarious.

2. לשים לב - This is an infinitive which is used as an expression and means "notice" or "pay attention". However, it directly translates to "put your heart". I think that's pretty neat.

3. בית - This means "house", but it is used quite interestingly in a number of noun-noun combinations (called סמיכות in Hebrew). High school is called בית ספר which means "House of Books", not to be confused with library which is ספרייה, or "Bookery". And a hospital is called בית חולים which means "House of Sick People".

Also, you'd think I would be used to the fact that I live in a Jewish Theocracy, but I keep being shocked by little things that happen and illustrate that Judaism is the majority here. For example, the TV stations turn off a few hours before the fast comes in for Yom Kippur. You couldn't even watch TV if you wanted to! Also, there are Sukkas EVERYWHERE, outside of almost every restaurant, so people can sit and eat in the Sukka when they eat out. It's kinda like the Christmas trees in all the stores, but from my religion! It's kinda exciting. Also we were driving on the highway the other day and the big sign that usually says where the accidents are said "Happy Succot Holiday!" It's kinda nuts.

Now on to a more somber subject. I imagine that many of you have probably heard about or seen the newly released video of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006 and held captive since then. The video is obviously a hot topic of conversation in Israel these days, and the newspapers have been printing detailed analysis of his body language and facial expressions. This is all quite interesting, but I am perturbed by something much more basic in this situation: Hamas is holding Gilad in order to convince Israel to release hundreds of militant Palestinian prisoners. The longer they hold him, the more prisoners they will likely receive. What drives me completely out of my mind with frustration and anger is why aren't they demanding something else??! They have an incredible amount of bargaining power (Israel will do nearly anything to get their soldiers home) which they could be using to get all sorts of basic human needs filled for the citizens of the Gaza strip! Were I Hamas, I would, for example, ask for access to clean drinking water. Or infrastructure so that people could get to hospitals when they need to. Or movement towards a viable solution in which Gazans were not confined to the Gaza strip and treated like zoo animals. Just for example. I understand that they're a terrorist government and that these things are not high on their agenda, but it makes me so sad and frustrated. Watching this unfold makes it much easier to understand why Israel refuses to hold proper negotiations with Hamas, who are making it clear that they don't care about their people, only about releasing extremist prisoners. Overall this situation is yuck.

Enough with the sad stuff. I just got back from a fun three-day trip to the north! On Sunday I drove north with Matan, his dad Yoram, and his niece Mai, to visit the Kibbutz where Yoram grew up and meet his sister and brother-in-law. Yoram was born right before the war for independence in Israel in a small village. This village was surrounded by small Arab villages and when the fighting started they were subject to constant bombing, and had to flee in the middle of the night to a brand new Kibbutz where they lived in tents for the first few years. This Kibbutz is called גשר הזיו pronounced Gesher HaZiv, which means Bridge of Splendor (which I think sounds HILARIOUS in English!) Yoram told us about his childhood there which is pretty stereotypical of a childhood at the early Kibbutzim: the area surrounding the Kibbutz was all wild trees and olive orchards left by the Arabs who fled after independence, so the kids spent all day running and hiding outside, only coming home to eat and sleep. The Kibbutz is located minutes from the Mediterranean Sea and near underwater caves (which are now a tourist attraction that we visited) but Yoram said they used to spend all day swimming from the beach to the caves and exploring. Sounds like paradise. The main industry on Gesher HaZiv is field crops, in particular bananas and AVOCADO!!!!! We had an endless supply of avocado the three days that we were there, so you can understand why this Kibbutz has quickly made it onto my list of "places to live one day". We visited old forts and castles, and spent an afternoon at the beach. It was a really nice trip and a lot of fun to meet this side of Matan's family and learn about Yoram's childhood.

I think that might be all I've got for now. Classes start in a little less than two weeks, which is really exciting. I got the internship that I wanted (yay) so I will be working at a school with Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli kids, as well as conducting interviews and writing articles about the school and this movement. More on that and classes when things actually get moving. It's so strange that it's October, almost my birthday, and I haven't started school yet. I'm excited to get started.

Here are some photos of our trip. Enjoy!

Matan and I on top of an old fortress

Me and my new red hat at Monfort, another old fortressy place
Mai and endless Avocado
The gang (minus Yoram) in Old Akko

Rosh HaShana

Hello dear ones!

As you probably know, the Jewish New Year - Rosh HaShana - is quickly approaching and I wanted to share some things that the impending new year has brought up for me.

First is a reminder that despite my ongoing Hebrew frustrations, I really am learning a new language. This became evident to me when I realized that until this year I knew that Rosh HaShana (pronounced Rush-uh-shun-uh by my friends and family) was the new year, but I did not know that in Hebrew Rosh means "head", Sha means "year" and Ha means "the" - Head (beginning) of The Year! This is obviously just a small example, but I'm starting to see it everywhere. Another example: my iTunes library was on Shuffle the other day and an old Hebrew camp song came on. In the place of the foreign sounds that I used to mimic from hearing the song over and over again were actual words that I understood! Pretty exciting.

The second thing has more to do with the meaning and traditions of Rosh HaShana:

The past month that I've been here I've been participating in a Jewish learning program that consists of lectures and one hour learning sessions with a partner. It is organized by a lovely Orthodox couple and they basically pay you to come learn Judaism. Now I know that this likely sends up the "Brainwashing Potential" red flag for a lot of you, but I'll remind you that my atheist upbringing has created a veeerryy thick wall of skepticism, and that my private school education has instilled in me the importance of critical thinking. So fear not, I am simply trying to learn more about Judaism while I live here in the Jewish homeland.

So. Last week we had a lecture about Rosh HaShana, and I learned some new and interesting things. Forgive me for the lesson on Talmud that follows, but it is essential in order for me to explain what I am thinking about regarding the new year. Important note: I do not claim to be an expert on Jewish text or interpretations of the Torah. What follows is my best effort at paraphrasing what this particular woman taught in her lecture, which I'm sure is one understanding of many. Okay. The lecture started out with the teacher explaining that Rosh HaShana is not only considered the first day of the new year, but also the first day of all of creation. This is to say that the Earth is created over again every year on this day. Insert skepticism here. Anyway Rosh HaShana also happens to be the day on which G-d passes judgment on all people. This leads us to the baffling question: "On what can we be judged on the first day of the year and of creation? We haven't done anything yet!" And the question: "Why is the first day of the new year BEFORE we repent for our wrongdoings of the last year (Yom Kippur)? Isn't that backwards?!" The lecturer explained that on this day G-d is not judging us on what we've done in the past year, but rather on what we plan to do in the coming year. She explained that on Rosh HaShana G-d asks us to momentarily put aside the wrongs that we committed in the last year and start with a fresh planning slate. She said that this is important because if you go to the planning stage with the burden of your various failures from the past year, you'll think to yourself, "Well I clearly screwed it all up last year, I'm obviously a loser, what's the point in making a wonderful plan this year if there's no way I can succeed?!" I like this idea. Put aside your failures for a minute, give yourself the benefit of the doubt, and allow yourself to think about who you want to be, how you want to behave, what goals you want to reach in the next year. Then, in the days between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, pick up your bag of wrongdoings and repent, apologize, make good on your mistakes. Kinda neat.

The problem with this particular lecturer is that she wanted us to plan our entire lives. She asked us to think about where we want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years and analyze whether or not our current actions are helping us get closer to those goals. To me, that's nuts. My lovely mother prohibits me from planning too far in advance, she says it makes us anxious to do this and prevents us from being present in the here and now. I think my mother a very wise woman, and try not to let every daily decision be dictated by how I think it will effect my life in the next 5 years. However. I do think it's cool to think about your goals and whether or not the way you're living is helping to bring you closer to them or farther away from them. So this is what I plan to do, and encourage you to do if you're so moved, in the days leading up to Rosh HaShana:

Make a list of goals. They don't have to be the Big Goals, but they could be. Beneath each goal, write the simple things that you could be doing to help move towards the desired outcome. Then evaluate whether or not you're doing those things. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to change your behavior and do all of the things you think of on your list, I just think it would be pretty neat to be intentional and informed about what I'd like to do and who I'd like to be in the coming year.

If I feel so inclined, maybe I'll share my list with you when it's completed!

שנה טובה לכל אחד וחג שמח!!!!! (happy new year to everyone and happy holiday!)

Lots of Love

Kate

Everyday Happenings and Brand New Hobbies

Greetings from J-ru! J-lem? Jru seems to be the more popular with folks around here.

At any rate, hello! I have been getting asked (more like bugged!) a bunch about when this new blog post was gonna hit the cyberwaves, so here it finally is. Up until now I have been waiting for exciting, noteworthy things to happen so that I would have something "important" to blog about. The problem is, as I'm sure you all know well, usually life is kinda mundane, and when the routine takes over it might be weeks before anything unique occurs. So I've decided to change my tactic and use this blog as a place to write thoughts and feelings that arise while I'm living here in Jerusalem as well as the standard travel blog. Sound good? I hope so.

As for what's been going on lately:

Ulpan is ulpan. It's going well, I'm learning a ton, and my Hebrew seems to be improving every day. The only problem is that it's painfully boring and tedious.

I will interrupt this paragraph of complaints to say one thing that has struck me as quite interesting in my Ulpan experience: My Ulpan class has 7 Arab Israeli students who grew up in Jerusalem, and make up about 1/3 of the class. They have lived in Jerusalem all of their lives and for the most part understand Hebrew perfectly, but they are in Ulpan in order to improve their reading/writing skills so that they can go to Israeli universities. I didn't expect this to be the case, but our Ulpan book is full of texts and stories about Judaism, both Biblical and contemporary. We've read about the sacrifice of Isaac, different rituals of the Ultra Orthodox in Israel, and many other similar things. Maybe this shouldn't surprise me, after all I am living in a Theocracy, but somehow I didn't expect that a textbook so full of religious studies would have found such a welcome at Hebrew University, the nation's most prestigious academic institution. Then again I guess I understand that it is in the best interest of the State to include Jewish education when it comes to teaching new immigrants, the majority of Ulpan students. Aaaanyway, I can imagine that if I were one of the Arab Israeli students it might strike me as a bit strange. In addition, our teachers always ask these students to tell something about Islam when we read about Judaism. This is a great idea because it shows that they're trying to be inclusive and sensitive. The only problem is, all but one of them are Christian. For some reason none of them have chosen to tell the teachers that, and nearly every day we have awkward moments of our teacher asking, "So how is the Ramadan fast going?" and the students looking at her with blank faces. This is just a small example of the incredibly complicated, interesting dynamics of this region.

Okay, back to the complaining: While I'm certainly emotionally invested in learning Hebrew, the act of learning it all day every day is not the most spiritually stimulating of tasks. This situation along with the fact that the "oh man I'm living in a new place and everything is so exciting!" feeling was quickly turning into the "oh yeah, this is where I live" feeling were kinda getting me down. I was feeling a bit bored and very antsy, so I decided that I needed a new hobby! On the evening of a day when I had been feeling particularly glum about the routine, I found myself singing in the shower and feeling happier than I had in days (I think I really missed being able to sing all summer because I wasn't able to work at Camp Tawonga this year) and thought it time to finally take up guitar. Let's be honest with ourselves here. Who HASN'T dreamed of sitting in the grass under beautiful oak trees playing their favorite (insert famous classic rock band here) song? So I was walking around mulling this idea over when I ran into my friend Aucher after a long day of Ulpan. Aucher (pronounced Oh-Share) grew up in L.A. the daughter of Israeli parents, and is simply my kinda girl. It turned out that she was on her way to, you guessed it, a guitar lesson! She had stumbled upon a jam session in a basement coffee shop in downtown Jerusalem and asked one of the guys if he would teach her to play. When she found out that I had been thinking of picking up the guitar that very same day she invited me to come along, and I went! The guitar lesson was held on the roof of Daniel's (the hippie bohemian Israeli dude) apartment, and it was conducted IN HEBREW. AND I UNDERSTOOD IT!! This, my friends, was a big deal. So now it looks like I'm picking up a new, fun hobby and getting additional Hebrew practice out of it as well as fun time with a new friend. I must say I am rather pleased. In general I've realized that I need to start being more proactive about hanging out with the friends I've made at school because I don't live with them, and I think this is a good start.

In other news, it is finally starting to cool down in Jerusalem! For this I am very thankful. Matan and I had a lovely picnic yesterday and there were (gasp!) clouds in the sky and (oooh!) a nice breeze. I really can't wait for Fall to begin.

Ah, I have just heard the lovely call from the kitchen that dinner is ready, so I must bid you farewell. Like I said, I think you can expect more frequent but probably shorter blog posts about the smaller goings on here in Israel.

Love to you all,

Kate

P.S. If anyone could Express Mail over a Gordo's burrito that would be great. Thanks.

Here are the photos for your enjoyment:

beautiful day at the park - clouds!

log rolls are harder than they first appear

yeeeee!

A Spontaneous Adventure and Getting What You Ask For

Shalom Chaverim!

It's Thursday afternoon, which is like Friday here, and I am sitting in my apartment eating lunch and unwinding after a long week. Seems like a good time for some blogging action.

In my last post I complained bitterly about how my Ulpan class was not challenging enough and how I felt like I wasn't learning anything new. With this in mind I moved up one class level at the beginning of last week. For the repercussions of this decision to make any sense, I need to first explain the structure of Ulpan, and specifically the Hebrew University Ulpan: Within Ulpan there are 6 levels: Aleph, Bet, Gimmel, Daled, Heh, and Vav (named for the first 6 letters in the Hebrew alphabet), with Aleph being for beginners and Vav for people who are reading and discussing literature, politics and the like in Hebrew. At the Hebrew University summer Ulpan there are 14 levels WITHIN Aleph, starting from people learning the alphabet. I started out in Aleph 13, the second highest Aleph. When I moved to Aleph 14, I jumped 200 pages in the textbook that we use. This corresponds to about 400 vocabulary words that I missed out on. The moral of the story is that I asked for a challenge and man did I get one. I have a LOT of catching up to do. Despite being overwhelming, my new class is great. We actually finished the Aleph book and started Bet last week, and we are scheduled to finish Bet by the end of the Ulpan which is great. I already feel like I'm understanding muuuch more Hebrew when I eavesdrop on the bus and am becoming increasingly comfortable responding to strangers as well as holding conversations with acquaintances and friends.

Some other cool school-related things have transpired since last I wrote. First, registration has begun. I have a meeting with my academic advisor Wednesday of the coming week so nothing tangible has happened yet, but it's exciting to peruse the course catalog and start planning a schedule. I am looking forward to studying more than just Hebrew. In addition, we had an orientation for the Internship Program which I am hoping to participate in. The program consists of a class (case studies of different non-profits and other service-providing orgs in Israel) and 8 hours a week at your internship placement. There's an interview process and the like, so we'll see what happens, but some of the jobs and organizations sounds pretty neat. I'm particularly interested in the positions where I can either 1. go to events or workshops sponsored by an organization and blog/photograph/write articles about it or 2. tutor Ethiopian students or kids who go to schools with both Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli students. More on this to come as it pans out, but I'm looking forward to pushing myself to speak Hebrew and get involved in Israeli society in a deeper way.

Now onto the fun stuff. Last Thursday Matan and I were sitting in our apartment looking ahead to a long, quiet weekend in Jerusalem (where everything is closed and there's little to do). This was a depressing prospect - sometimes you just have to get out and do something new, ya know? - so we decided to call our friends Ayelet and Yoni who live on a Kibbutz in the Golan. Ayelet grew up with Matan on Ketura and Yoni is her husband. They were thrilled to have us come visit along with Ayelet's sister Aynat and her husband Uri, and one of Ayelet's friends from Germany named Tim. The Kibbutz where they live was founded by a group of people from Scotland (including Yoni's parents) so it's a unique place to say the least. Every year Yoni's mom throws a huge birthday party for his dad, called Lenny Fest, which happened to occur on the very Friday night that we arrived. Lenny Fest consisted of a HUGE Scottish-style bbq (good thing I've started eating chicken again!), more Scottish whiskey than you would know what to do with, and Scottish folk music all night long (Mom, you would have lost your mind over this). It was quite the party, and we had a blast.

The next day we woke up and went to visit the cattle farm where the Kibbutz raises cattle for beef. The drive there is along a dirt road with barbed wire on each side because the surrounding fields are full of old land mines because the Golan has been the site of many wars in Israel. Yikes. Anyway we got to the farm and Ayelet and her friends had cooked a delicious breakfast. We ate and then walked around visiting the different animals, at which point I SAW A CALF BEING BORN! The Kibbutzniks around me thought this was no big thing, but to a city girl like me it was pretty neat. I also rode a horse and bottle-fed a calf.

After breakfast we drove to a natural spring and hung out there for the early afternoon. It was beautiful, the water was cold and refreshing, and we had a great time. Here are some pictures of the adventure:

Ready to hit the road! Hah!
The Kibbutz

Gotta love driving next to land mines. Sorry worriers of my family :-/

It turns out Matan gets along quite well with horses

Mmmm breakfast

plop! out comes a calf! (sorry if this is gross)

bottle feeding
a beautiful afternoon

Other than that, it's mostly been business as usual. Which now that I think of it is really nice to be able to say: I feel like I'm finally falling into a routine here where my bus rides each day are no longer a hassle, Ulpan feels like a normal school day and not like a struggle for survival, and I get to come back to my apartment which truly feels like a home. I'm still struggling a bit with how to negotiate my social life, as I don't live in the dorms and therefore am obviously going to have different kinds of friendships with the other students, but I'm being patient. I'm here to live in Israel, not to hang out in the dorms, right? Right. And tonight my friend Katie arrives from the States (!!!) which I'm sure will help.

And that my friends is all for now. xo!

New words, New friends, and New (in a while) Food!

Helloooo! How is everybody? All is fine and dandy around here after my first three days of Ulpan and it seems a good time for an update, so here it comes:

Ulpan is pretty crazy. It's a 5 hour day (with a 30 minute lunch break and 15 minute stretch break) that is conducted only in Hebrew. I know that this is the best way to learn a language, to be explained new words in Hebrew and be constantly berated with repetition and practice. I like it a lot, but it's exhausting. It takes all of my concentration and focus, no zoning out allowed as you might be able to pull off in a class conducted in your native tongue. The only bad news is that my level seems a little bit too easy right now. I think the first week is meant to be review which is great, but many of my classmates are finding the review difficult, and I'm afraid the class will have to proceed at the pace of the students who are struggling a bit. However, I hear that Ulpan is pretty merciless, and that they go the pace that they're gonna go. So hopefully I'll be inundated with new verb tenses and the like very soon. My teachers (we have one in the morning and one in the afternoon) are both very kind and smart, and I like the students in my class.

As a matter of fact, I like EVERYONE that I've met so far. We had some orientation events (a wine and cheese reception to mention one) and every person that I have gotten a chance to chat with has been so friendly! It's really neat to hear each person's stories, find out what brought them to Israel and what they hope to get out of their experience. Last night the Madrichim (kind of like social life organizers) threw a huuuuge Shabbat dinner at one of the nice hotels in Jerusalem. Nearly everyone came, and we ate, talked, and sang Shabbat in. Needless to say it was superbly fun. I've met a few girls and guys in particular that I feel like I'm really starting to become friends with. Oddly enough the majority of them are from Canada (Toronto and Winnipeg) and the others from various states back home. On the one hand I feel like I'm having to scramble a bit on the friend front because I don't live in the dorms, but everyone has been really great about inviting me over to stuff and making sure I stay involved. I also happen to live blocks away from all the bars they go to which 1. gives me street cred that I certainly don't deserve and 2. means that whenever anyone goes out I can meet up with them very easily. So that's great. I'm so happy to be starting to make community here and I really am so looking forward to the year ahead with most of the people that I am starting to call friends.

In possibly bigger news, I HAVE STARTED EATING CHICKEN AGAIN!!!! This announcement requires a back story: As some of you may know, I have craaaazy dreams and nightmares almost every night. About a week and a half ago I started having dreams about chicken sandwiches. In the dreams I would be in some sort of crisis (stranded by the side of the road, or lying in a ditch with a broken leg, or some other unpleasant nightmarish concoction my subconscious cooked up) and I would be saved by none other than a chicken sandwich. This was weird. But I decided that maybe my body was speaking to me, trying to tell me something about a need that wasn't being fulfilled. So I decided to listen, and I ate a chicken sandwich (that btw was beautifully prepared by the one and only Matan Hoffman). This sandwich all but changed my life. Before any of my die-hard vegetarian friends freak out, I will say that I have no plans of chomping down on steaks and hamburgers any time soon, and I surely intend on continuing to eat in an environmentally responsible way, but MAN DID I MISS CHICKEN. Since that fateful evening I have also eaten Matan Hoffman Chicken Schnitzel (with mashed potatoes) which also resulted in euphoria. We'll see what happens with this entrance back into the poultry-eating world, but for now I'm pretty pleased. What follow are pictures of the chicken meals and of me consuming them, I hope they provide a laugh or two :) :)

yummmm. that is a sandwich with chicken breast, lettuce, grilled onions, and ketchup! straight from my nightmares, care of Matan Hoffman

this is me, very scared (of getting sick which luckily didn't happen) and excited.

chicken schnitzel! mashed potatoes and salad.

no longer any fear, just pure joy!

The last thing I feel compelled to share is what I have done so far today, the first weekend that I have been exhausted enough to truly appreciate since finishing up at Carleton in June. First, I slept until 11:15. After waking up, Matan cooked us (does anyone see a theme forming? Hah) egg fritata which we ate with toast and salad with tahina. Then we read in bed for about half an hour. Then we fell asleep. For two hours. Now we are sitting around while we wait for the banana bread that we're baking to finish. Then we will watch a movie. I have yet to change out of my pajamas and I think I'm the happiest girl alive.

I will conclude with things that I am looking forward to (and therefore that you can look forward to reading about)

1. The arrival of my dear friend Katie who is moving to Israel in less than 2 weeks! I can't wait!
2. Ulpan getting hard! At which point I will probably complain about it to all of you. When this happens, you should tell me to suck it up and that I asked for it.
3. Spending more time with the friends that I've made and getting past the small-talk stage. I really hate the small-talk stage, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
4. Getting a chance to travel in the country a bit more (hopefully to the Golan soon!) and back down to Kibbutz.
5. More exploits into the wonderful world of chicken!

Okay now I'm just blabbing. I love you all dearly, and hope everything is going swimmingly with each and every one of you. I want to ask everybody to keep my wonderful Ima (grandma) in their thoughts as she recovers like a champ from a knee replacement. Love you Ima!

All the best from Jerusalem,

kate

the quiet before the storm

hello again.

I realized this morning that I start studying on Wednesday (shortest summer vacation of my life) and thought it a good idea to post about the happenings of this, my first full week in Israel, before the craziness begins.

On Sunday Matan and I went to the Old City in Jerusalem. It's about fifteen minutes by foot from our apartment to the Jaffa gate, and then another few minutes through the twisting and turning market to get to the Western Wall (Kotel) and all the rest. We had planned to make a day of it and visit many of the historical sights in the Old City, but it was so unbearably hot that after a visit to the Wall we were too fried to continue. Those of you reading this know me well and likely know that I am not particularly into religious belief and practice. It might then surprise you to learn that I love visiting the Kotel, but I really do. Whenever I'm there I get a profound feeling of history and connectedness, like touching the stones that have been caressed by so many hands is linking me to generations and generations of people, of Jews, that have visited this most important place. In a strange way I feel like I can pull their strength and wisdom out of the stones. Here is a picture of Matan at the Wall with the Dome of the Rock in the background and one of me as well. I also bought a modest skirt to wear when the occasion calls for it, and now I fit in (at least a little) with the rest of the women walking around :)

l





I think it's time for a little update on Matan. He is doing well. On Monday he took a job doing gardening work with a nice guy in and around Jerusalem which he really enjoyed. How one could enjoy manual labor in this heat is beyond me, but I don't argue. As many of you know, he has been planning on going to Culinary School here in Jerusalem this Fall, but it looks like he's changed his mind! He found out about a school that teaches Massage Therapy and Holistic Medicine and got really excited, had a meeting with the people who run the place and really loved it. He can do 3 certificates in one year which I think is pretty neat - 1 in Swedish Massage, 1 in Spa Therapy, and 1 in Integrative Massage (I have absolutely no idea what that is, but sounds good). People ask me which one I think he should do and all I can say is 1. whichever makes him happy and 2. how can I complain? I'm either coming away with a chef or a masseuse for a boyfriend - not bad! :) So that's Matan.

On Monday after he worked and had this meeting we took a bus down to Kibbutz Ketura (where Matan grew up, where I studied after high school, and where we met) for a visit which is where I'm writing from now. The ride is long but beautiful - they drive alongside the Dead Sea and then down into the desert. As we drove into the Arava Valley, winding our way through the crevice wedged between two mountain ranges - the Adom mountains on our left in Jordan and the nameless Israeli peaks and plateaus on our right - I let out a comfortable, familiar sigh: This is the Israel that I know. Being on the Kibbutz has been really nice. It's also unbelievably hot here, but they have a pool which is delicious. Each afternoon Matan and I have been playing in the pool with his niece Mai who is almost 6, which has been a ton of fun. It's a great place to relax and hang out with friends, and also to FINALLY overcome my jet lag.

So I think that's all from here! Like I said, I start my Ulpan on Wednesday (eek!) which I am excited and nervous about. Mostly I'm excited to meet the other students in my program, hang with people who also feel like fish out of water, make my own friends, and have a purpose/schedule to my days. I don't register for my actual classes for a while, so more on that later. Like I said before I am eager to hear news from home so let me know what's going on with all of you! E-mails or comments on the blog are very much appreciated.

Love love love (ahava ahava ahava),

Kate