Happy Holidays from the Holy Land!!

Thank you, faithful blog readers, for still being faithful after a seven week hiatus from writing! Obviously, the last two months have been extremely busy here in Jerusalem... so busy I haven't had time to let you know what I'm up to! My last two months' activities can be divided into several categories: fun school activities, visitors, holiday celebrations, fun extracurricular activities, and the most important if not the most fun... SCHOOL!! I am 16 weeks into my fall (?) semester, including the few days here and there for vacation and celebration of the High Holy Days. My 2nd Temple History class has ended, and while I haven't added anything in it's place, I still have 9 classes and lots of activities, including football, choir, my internship at the Kibbutz, and school trips, on my schedule. More on some of the exciting things that have happened here...

#1: Fun School Activities!
As part of school's liturgy workshop program, we are required to lead services (I'll be leading in February), give a d'var Torah (sermon or literally "word of Torah"), and chant and translate Torah. I gave my d'var Torah on Monday, November 10th, and discussed the importance of helping other people do good deeds... in essence, the necessity of enabling other people to make a difference, not just doing so ourselves (if anyone is interested, I'm happy to send the full version to you). The next week, on November 17th, I chanted Torah for the first time in Israel (though I've done so many times at home)... I did so again last week, and am up one more time this coming week!

Unfortunately, due to the budget cuts that affected HUC (just like everyone else), we had to cut our fall tiyul to the North a bit short, but we did spend a long day in Haifa and Tzfat. Haifa is a northwestern port city where we visited the Leo Baeck School, a K-12 school, synagogue, and community center associated with the progressive movement in Israel. After our visit with program directors, the rabbi, young students, and high schoolers, we moved on to Tzfat, the city associated with Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. There, we met with local artists, shopped around, and visited Tzfat's many old, beautiful synagogues. Before we made our way back to Jerusalem, we stopped in Tiberias, a city near the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) for the first decent chinese food I've eaten in Israel (coincidentally, at the chinese restaurant where my cousin Joel first learned to like chinese food)!

elementary kids leading and participating in prayers at Leo Baeck

Another great perk of my time here at HUC in Jerusalem is that our teachers are very warm and friendly, and have graciously invited us into their homes to meet their families, eat their food, celebrate Shabbat, and to get to know each other better. I have been to the homes of the Head of Student Affairs, Nancy, and one of the instructors, Rabbi Shelly Donnell, for reflection group meetings, to the home of my Israel Seminar teacher, Paul Liptz, for a social evening, and to Dean Rabbi Dr. Michael Marmur's home to celebrate Shabbat with his family!

My volunteer project at Kibbutz Gezer, working with Rabbi Miri Gold at Birkat Shalom (a progressive synagogue) and with David Leichman at Pinat Shorashim (an education center), has been going amazingly well. I am really enjoying the work that I'm doing there, and I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to become part of Miri and David's community and family- they are wonderful people to be around, give me great opportunities, go out of their way to help me and do nice things for me, and generally are there to come to when life in Jerusalem gets a little crazy. More on Kibbutz Gezer in a later post...

Finally, I am involved in Parallel Lives, the project that joins HUC students and Israeli soldiers in an effort to get to know each other, our cultures, and our lives. Jaclyn and LuAnne, our coordinators on the HUC side, planned an amazing Shabbaton for us all in Jerusalem at the beginning of the month. My roommates and I hosted two soldiers in our apartment, and we all spent the weekend together learning alot, making great friendships, and really getting to understand each other.

the Parallel Lives crew at the start of the Shabbaton (at school)

#2: VISITORS!!!
Over the past month, to the detriment of my school work but to the benefit of my overall happiness and well-being, I have had a slew of visitors!! First, Sean's mom Corinne, stepdad Jeff, and stepsister Shana came to Jerusalem as part of a performance trip for Jeff's choir. We celebrated Shabbat together at the Great Synagogue and at HUC, walked around the Old City, shopped ALOT, heard Jeff's concert, and ate wonderful meals together. A few weeks later, Rabbi Miri and David, the couple I work for at the Kibbutz, called to let me know that they were having dinner with a group from Kansas City that included my grandpa Sam's cousin, Rabbi Art Nemitoff... they invited me to dinner, and I got to visit with family! Last week, as the semester started to seem endless, Emily and Elle came to Israel on the OSU Hillel Birthright Trip and then extended their trip for four days to spend time with me! I got to meet their travel buddies, go with them to a truly obscure bar, and then play "sorority house" with them in my giant bedroom that all of a sudden seemed very tiny with all of us and all of our stuff! Together we celebrated Hanukkah, "celebrated" Christmas, toured the Old City, went shopping, ate alot, and reconnected... it was truly wonderful to have such close friends here with me. Finally, just tonight, I got to meet up with Brian, one of my best friends from high school, for dinner and shopping during his birthright trip! Next week, I believe I'll be meeting up with Andrea, another friend from both OSU and high school. Anyone else want to come visit? I have a comfy futon you can sleep on!!

#3: Celebrations!!

Not everyone would consider a football game a celebration, but when OSU beats Michigan 45 to 7 AND you get to watch that game via the internet with 10 friends in Jerusalem, you have to amend your definition a bit! My classmate Dan Geffen was kind enough to host the party, and I, along with other Big Ten alum classmates and some general football lovers, watched OSU pound on Michigan. Go Bucks!

Michigan Fans, OSU Fans, and a few football lovers together for the OSU Michigan Game!

Just a few days later was Thanksgiving in Jerusalem... the day I was looking forward to the least all year. Thanksgiving in my family is a huge deal- it's often my grandma's birthday, my entire family is in town, and I always spend several days cooking with my grandma and stuffing and sewing the turkey. This year, my family went on a trip (without me!!!) to celebrate my grandma's 75th, and needless to say, I was a little sad. Luckily, the Kef Committee (but really Leslie, the mastermind of meals and parties here in J'lem) put together a WONDERFUL school-wide Thanksgiving dinner. Four of us, including me, who had experience with turkeys, got elected to make the 15 lb "birds" (as my grandma calls them). After an hour of plucking pin feathers that made my index fingers bleed, I put my "bird" in a roasting bag with all my grandma's usual seasonings, put it in the oven, and hoped for the best... luckily, the turkey came out tasting just like it does at home- turns out I really did learn something!! The dinner at school was absolutely wonderful, with everyone coming through with wonderful dishes, a great talk about the Birkat Hamazon (the prayer after eating), donations to the HUC soup kitchen in NYC, and a great game led by Joel where we each wrote down what we were thankful for and then read another person's contribution. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, all things considered.

the Thansgiving Spread... don't worry, you can't even see the four turkeys!

here's my Turkey!!! I gave it a thumbs-up... hopefully Gram would have, also!

Now it may still be Chanukah here in Israel, and this may be a Jewish country, but yes, I still "celebrated" Christmas here! For starters, feeling nostalgic for Christmas music, Ari, Joel, and I found some internet radio stations and listened to it ALL of last Saturdy while we made a test batch of latkes! I also ventured into the Christian Quarter of the Old City, as well as Mt. Zion, with Joel, Emily, and Elle, to seek out a little Christmas spirit on Christmas Eve... we found some interesting stuff, including a parade of slightly-scary Santas!! Though I missed a bit of the music, I definitely didn't feel too bad about missing commericialized Christmas in the States!

a sign wishing everyone in the Christian Quarter a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in both English and Arabic!

And of course, we can't forget my very first Chanukah in Israel!! I made test latkes with Joel and Ari, shopped for a new menorah with Emily and Elle (compliments of my parents- thanks, Mom and Dad!), saw Hassidic rabbis light a GIANT menorah with the help of a cherry-picker truck in Zion Square at Ben Yehuda St, made latkes AGAIN with the guys, Joel's roommate, and Em and Elle, lit my new menorah several times with my roommates, my visitors, and Lisa's mom who is visiting, played Chanukah songs with Ari at our school party, participated in Mysterious Menorah (read: Secret Santa) with my classmates, and had a delicious Shabbat + Chanukah dinner at my apartment, courtesy of Lisa and her mom, with lots of friends. Everyone you look there is a reminder of Chanukah- it has been wonderful to celebrate with an entire country of people, and for the first time, to not feel on the outskirts of the holiday season but as part of the majority!

Joel and Ari doing the Latke test-run, complete with Christmas music!

Lisa and me lighting our new Chanukiot (menorahs) on the 5th night!

As a side note, I want to mention what's going on in Israel today... I won't go into the politics of it all, but if you'd like details, please read the news at www.haaretz.com. I can only hope that there will be peace here soon. Please know that I, along with the rest of my classmates, am fine and currently away from any immediate danger. School is monitoring the situation carefully, and we will be as safe as possible in the coming days. I will keep you updated should anything more happen here.

I'll be back in the State for three whole weeks (yay!) starting January 9th, but in the meantime...
Happy 7th Night of Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and (almost) Happy New Year 2009!!!