I Got to Keep up with the Lerers

Joe and Lilly have been posting like crazy lately and I feel like I ahve to keep up with them. And they deleted their facebooks so everyone bug them about it so they will reactivate them. =)

Quick Updates: Tomorrow we go leave for Masada. We hike up Masada at 4 in the morning so we can see the sunrise and have services. Sick, I know. Then we are in the desert for a little bit chilling with some Bedouins I think. I'm not quite sure. And then we are in Gadna, the army, for a week.  I am not excited about it. We don't get that much sleep, its supposed to be freezing in the barracks, and I can't do pushups anymore. And I don't speak Hebrew so I'm not gonna know whats happening most of the time. But its whatever. And afterwards we go to Eilat for a day which is supposed to be awesome. Eilat is the resort of Israel. Its on the Red Sea and really nice. So I will be away from Tzuba for about 10 days which means...... No School! Yay!

About the Hmong people Joe and Lilly talked about. The only thing I know is that those were the people on Gran Torino that Clint Eastwood became friends with. 

The Rabbis conference is this week and people aren't going to be able to see thier rabbis. Some of the parents who are rabbis are coming early and seeing thier kids. Two of my friends parents are here and I'm going to see Rabbi Kaiserman after I get back from Eilat. I'm very excited about that. And Rabbi Stern and Rabbi Kasten are coming back to Israel in May and I might be able to see them then. So its all good. 

I have to finish some English homework and study for APUSH, but I just wanted to get a blog post in before I leave for a while. I don't know if I have internet and I wont be bringing by computer. Sorry it isn't longer. They've kept us busy these past couple days. 

Expect a post in March!

Joey B.

Hey!

It's late and I already had part of this blog written so I'm just going to finish it up. Its Tuesday night by the way. 

I'll start with last Friday. Every Friday we have a tzedekah project or something special and last week we went to a preschool and hung out with little kids. They were all really cute except that we don' speak Hebrew and they didn't speak Hebrew. It was fun anyway. Me and my roommates, David, Aaron and Alex, walked into the room and the kid was having a birthday party; he was turning 3. We were pretty lost with all the singing in Hebrew and various birthday festivities. It was really funny. We were al smiling awkwardly because the whole situation was funny. Then we went and played with the kids and there was one kid who we were having a conversation with somehow. It was really funny. One kid really liked Aaron. That was just cute. Then we wandered into another class and there was an adorable Ethiopian kid who wanted to play with my camera. I had it on a lanyard deal around my neck and he was tugging at it and it was funny. But then I later realized he was crazy. One girl was in the sandbox and he attacks her and pulls her hair. Another was standing on a table and he just pushed her off and then laughed about it. I told the teacher about him. We were there for about 2 and a half hours before returning to Tzuba. 

But when we got back to Tzuba we learned that our friend had to go back to America for a family emergency and it left a weird feeling around. It all hit us that we were away from home and our family and friends are a couple thousand miles away. But since then its we've been down and been praying for our friend. He's supposed to return soon and that makes us feel a little better. 

Thursday night (I forgot about Thursday) we went to the Jerusalem mall. It was your basic mall except that I felt like the annoying tourists we all don't like. It was fun though. They sold dried fruit for Tu'bishvat, crazy cool belt buckles with Che Guevara and Jewish stars on them that I should of bought, and school supplies. I also saw an ultra-orthodox Jew with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It was really funny. But we just all walked around. School supplies and a coke were the only things I bought. A little planner and some post-its for my TaNaK. 

I need to blog more often because I forget what happened a couple days ago. I have Judaen to think about Saturday instead of just recalling the memories. But Saturday during the service I remember the Torah being carried around and looking back and see the Hills and the valley and mountains behind the Torah. It was one of the strangest moments because I had seen a Torah a thousand times and saw that same view everyday for a couple weeks now but something clicked. It was strange and amazing at the same time. It was just so pretty. We talk about the idea of Judaism, the peoplehood, being made up of the Torah, the land (eretz), and the people (om) and I saw all of it in one moment. Amazing.

Another moment when the view at Tzuba made me think was when we were in class talking about the boundaries of the West Bank and someone asked how close we were, David says something like, "Look out that window and over those hills is the West Bank." What?!? Right there. It wasn't scary but just another moment when it hit me that I was in Israel. I forgot when that question came up or why we were talking about the West Bank, but I remember David saying that. We get off topic in class about modern Jewish and Israeli affairs. The elections, Arab-Israeli conflicts, Israeli culture. Whatever. There's so much to learn and know and think about that it can be kind of overwhelming. My mom jokingly said a while ago that it won't be long till I'll know everything. We both laughed. There is so much to learn just about Jewish history that we won't get to. But I want to learn it because it is my culture and relates to me. Its a good thing that I don't know because I want to know. 

About school, we've had two tiyulim the past two days. The first we walked to a place called Safat or something like it. It was really pretty out and the place we went to was a nature preserve deal. We learned bout the seven native species of eretz Yisrael (grapes, pomegranate, olives, dates, figs, wheat, and barley), and we saw natural springs and crawled through some caves to get to them. It was really cool! Nothing like anything I've ever done! We learned that Israel is a country of local springs instead of great rivers and how people got to the springs and water sources and irrigation and all that. We also started the Niviim, prophets, part of the TaNaK. We learned about Deborah, Samson, Ruth, Giddon, and some other people. Deborah was the most kick butt of all the prophets.  Just thinking about what we learn in one tiyul for Jewish history class is so much more than any class back home. DISD should schedule more field trips once they get paper and teachers.

Our tiyul today, we went to Jerusalem and learned about David. The TaNaK is a "pro-David" story. It all leads up to David being king and today we learned about him being king and uniting the 12 tribes of Israel. We started in the old city and ate lunch. I ate a falafel, then split one with my roommate Aaron, then finished my friend Phoebe's. I can't help it if I like cheap delicious food. We then left the old city and made our way to Ir David (the city of David) where archaeologists believe David's ancient kingdom was. We saw another water tunnel but couldn't go in because it was cold and rainy. So we just learned about it and about David being king. He is also credited with making Jerusalem the capital city of eretz Yisrael. And the water tower is where it is believed that David and his troops infiltrated ancient Jerusalem. It was all very interesting. 

It would be wrong of me to talk about Israel during Febuary and not talk about Tu'bishvat. Tu'bishvat is 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat and it celebrates the birth of the trees and is a very big holiday in Israel. Israel has a very strong connection to the land and they try hard to take care of it and Tu'bishvat celebrates all of this. We ate dried fruits, and walked around the nature preserve natural spring thing. But Israel is experiencing a terrible drought and as cold and icky as the rain made today it was good thing. In fact I was reading an article and decided that I should try to make it rain so I suggested to my roommates that we play songs about rain to make it rain. The next day it rains. you're welcome everyone. We played When it Rains, Songs about Rain, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Banana Pancakes, I Make it Rain, and some other rain songs. It worked too and I am very proud of myself because Israel needed the rain. 

The other and last major thing is the Elections. The polls ended about an hour and a half ago and it looks like Tzipi Livni of the Kadima party is going to win. We have been learning about the different parties and the way the Israeli government and elections works. It is very different than American politics. People vote for a party and each party has a leader and there are many parties. The main two candidates in this election were Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Bibi Netanyahu of Likkud. Netanyahu was expected to win but the elections here as so crazy that no one can be positive. And a party never wins a majority of Knesset seats. Kadima won 30 out of 120 and will have to make a coalition with other parties to have a government. That means that they will make deals with other parties to have a majority and be able to have a government. 

Its confusing and I don't understand perfectly but it much different that the American elections. Everyone should go research them because they are so different and Israel is a different place than America.

OK, I'm done for tonight and an very tired and still have to finish a little homework. So I will talk to everyone later and I will try not to wait so long between posts. Bye!

Joey

Hello

Hey Journal!

I left y'all on Shabbat afternoon. And a lot has happened since that, even though it hasn't even been a week. Its all been a ton of fun. 

After Shabbos ended we went to Ben Yehuda Street to be tourists. Ben Yehuda is your basic tourist/American/over priced part of a big city. The only things I bought was a San Antonio Spurs and a Dallas Cowboys Kippah and a falafel. As soon as I got the falafel though it started raining. Pouring. My shoes are just now finally dried. (I wore my mocasins which are like socks they are so worn.) We all kind of freaked and ate our food under an onning of some random Israeli shop on a side street of Ben Yehuda. But the best part of the night was seeing my cousin Mordechai. We talked about meeting up sometime because he's studying in Jerusalem and I was going to be in town. So we met up and hung out for an hour. It was really cool. We took pictures of random Chinese people singing and talked and caught up on things. We were only together for an hour and a lot of it was under an umbrella trying to not get too wet (epic fail). But I think he's going to try to come to Tzuba next week. We're still figuring it out. 

One of the big differences between Israel and America is that school starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday here. Its taking some getting used too. For instance, it is Wednesday and I only have one more day of classes. So, on Sunday I started my first full week of school and it has been nothing short of tiring. I have 8:30 to 1:15 of Judaica and 2:10 to 6 of general studies which adds up to a lot more school than in America. Anyways, this week has been marked by getting into a routine for school. After my 6th period I usually fall asleep or shower but today I'm doing the blog. Then everyone is done with school and we have dinner. But I've been trying to find time to do homework and people to do it with so I won't get too distracted. Its difficult. I do a lot during lunch but teachers here understand its difficult to get homework done with the amount of time we have so they don't assign as much as in America. But in return we have a lot more time in class. I was about to say "in school," but there is no school, just buildings so I had to go back, in case you were interested.  This is just the way EIE has worked so far. I suspect it will change becuase this is the longest stretch of school we have. Three weeks with virtually no breaks. It must sound nice to everyone in American and I think I sound kind of strange complaining about three straight weeks of school everyday. 

We had our first tiul in class format this week.  In Jewish History class we start with Adam and Eve because starting at the beginning makes the most sense, even if you don't have to accept that Adam and Eve were the first people or whatever. But the next part of the TaNaK is Noah and then Abraham and that is where people can start debating the accuracy of the stories. The Torah mentions peoples and cultures that actually existed and in class we have been comparing these people (Mesopotamians) to the original Jews and early Jewish history. For instance we compared the story of Noah to a Mesopotamian flood story. Anyways, we focused on Abraham and Sarah as the first monotheists and why they would only have one God so we went to Gezer, an ancient Canaanite City that was polytheistic.  We went there to learn about how its culture worked compared to what we know about Abraham and his lifestyle and why he could choose it.  If that sounds boring, its much more exciting when you see it then read about it in a text book. It was very interesting, and I'm not a huge fan of ancient history. I think that was yesterday. Individual days are hard to remember.

Those are the big things that have been happening since my last post. We also had someone from the army come talk to us about Gadnah (a week in the army). I cleaned up my room. Now you can get to the balcony. People have been getting sick so I'm trying to eat healthy. But when I don't like what they are serving I don't eat that much and show up late to breakfast sometimes and have recently discovered oreos dipped in white chocolate. But I also like the pita, salad, and at least one of the dishes too. I'm also trying to sleep more but I have to do homework at night because we don't get it done in class. I've also been milking the whole Texas thing a lot which is a lot of fun. I sing Willie Nelson and Pat Green, and wear my boots and my UT hat. People get a kick when I say y'all which I don't try to do. I have fun with it and keep it in proportion. 

So ya, I'm going to try to post soon. Probably won't be till after Shabbat. And right now I have to go to dinner so... Bye! I love you!

Joey B.