Pretty much as soon as we finished classes for Pesach vacation we mosied down to the Kibbutz. Most of our close friends and Matan's family was there, including his three nieces and newborn nephew! I've never spent significant time with a teeny tiny baby and it was really quite an experience. I was happily on baby duty quite a lot, and really became enamored with little Eitan who has an adorable old man's face on his itty bitty baby body. Yowza.
The seder itself was a blast - almost 100 people! - and I even read in Hebrew :)
Speaking of Hebrew, Matan and I have decided to seriously integrate it into our relationship and our life together. We realized that now that I can understand him, he should be empowered to talk in his native tongue! It's quite fascinating to see the ways in which he really is different based on what the Hebrew language allows (for example - straightforwardness) as opposed to his "English" personality. It's a bit of a challenge, and I still speak a lot of English, but I'm hopeful that it will help us both with honest communication and, crucially, with preserving and improving my Hebrew, especially next year when I'm not surrounded by it.
After Pesach I went to Paris!! I had a lovely visit with my dear high school friends Grace, Emily, and Natalia who are studying abroad there this semester. I have to apologize to my grandparents who might be ashamed of me, but I didn't set foot into a single museum! I've been to Paris before, and although you could spend a lifetime at the Louvre or the other amazing museums I decided that I had experienced the "art visit" to Paris and this time I wanted to have a "friend visit". So instead we walked around the entire city, ate unbelievably decadent and delicious food (none of which was kosher for Pesach. woops! But how can you go to Paris and not eat baguette, crepe, and pain au chocolat?!) and generally made merry. It was so great to see these friends who I haven't been able to spend as much time with as I would have wanted since we all left San Francisco, and spend some time in a new culture and a language I completely couldn't understand!
While I was gone Matan got his cast off! woohoooo!!!!! He's like a little boy released into the world for the first time, running around and swimming in the ocean (we went to the beach) even when it's cold and windy. Of course I went with him - we Nichols-Cohens mean business when it comes to oceans :)
I came back to midterm exam week. Great. I am chugging along.
I also came back to the beginning of two weeks of what are known as Israel's Secular High Holy Days - Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZicaron, and Yom Ha'atzmaut. Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, was yesterday here in Israel and I attended a moving ceremony at Hebrew University. The history of this day in Israel is incredibly fascinating and serves to illuminate some important aspects of Israeli culture, so if you will indulge me I will share a short history lesson:
When Israel was first founded shortly following the end of WWII, boats full refugees from concentration camps arrived to Israel, the safe haven. However, they were not greeted with open arms and open ears ready to hear their stories and elevate them as heroes. Instead, this young Israeli culture wanted to ignore the Holocaust, as it represented to them the image of Jews throughout history - lambs walking quietly to the slaughter, not standing up for themselves. These new Israeli Jews considered themselves fighters, and did not identify with survivors. Not until the pressure of other countries establishing days for Holocaust remembrance and the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem did Israeli leaders set aside a day for remembrance in the Jewish State. And even then, true to form, they chose the commemorative date on the anniversary of (the end of) the Warsaw Uprising, emphasizing their identification with the fighters of the Holocaust. Since then there has been much more space made for remembering the Holocaust and understanding survivors, and all Israeli teens visit Poland in 11th grade, but I think the history of this day is quite interesting indeed.
Next week we will commemorate Yom HaZicaron, a day to remember the soldiers who fell in the war for independence in 1948, and immediately following that is Yom Ha'atzmaut, or Independence Day. It will be interesting to experience the saddest secular holiday and then immediately (they share an evening) the most ecstatic. It will also be interesting to think about the meaning of April 1948 for Palestinians, and the always contradictory feelings that I hold within my heart about this place - both celebratory and saddened.
More another time!
Love from Jerusalem
There are many pictures from my trip to Paris, but my internet is slow and I am impatient, so here is one of me in front of the oh so famous Seine. Bye for now!
