The Wedding and the weekend

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone is doing good around the world and everyone did good who had exams or NFTY elections and had a good spring break. 

I promised more about the wedding. But let me start with the beginning of the day. I woke up at 8:45 (latest I've slept for a couple weeks). It was very strange because I was the only person on the kibbutz because everyone was on a tiyul to Sfat to learn about kabalah, mystic Judaism. So I got up and showered and me and my parents and Jake went to Jerusalem to meet up with my Uncle David, Aunt Seri, my baby cousin Tova, and my cousin Mordechai. We waited in the lobby of the hotel for them. We then all went out into Jerusalem.

First we walked to the old city. We stopped in a cigar shop and my dad got some cigars. It was funny seeing my cousin with tzitzi and a white shirt and black pants walk into a cigar shop, but thats Israel. In the old city we walked through the Armenian quarter. That was pretty cool. I saw a man wearing a black robe with a staff with a gold emblem on the top. I figured he was somehting important in the Armenian Church. For those who don't know the old city of Jerusalem is broken into 4 quarters: the Jewish, Muslim, Armenian, and Christian quarters. I always thought that it was kind of random that the Armenians got their own quarter. And the Muslim quarter isn't always safe for Jews and Americans. But the Arab shook is in there so Americans try to go and buy stuff. We aren't allowed to and since I don't speak Hebrew very well I don't think it would be advisable for me to go. The Jewish quarter has the Kotel. I think the Christian quarter has the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Anyways, we got falafel and shwarma in the old city. It was delicious. My and my brother each had a laffa and a pita, which is a lot of food. We saw the Kotel and my aunt Seri and Uncle David stopped to pray for a little. We were going to go to the City of David but decided not too. We were all kind of tired from walking around and the City of David is a big activity. So while my Uncle David and Aunt Seri were praying, my family and Mordechai went to the Israeli shook. 

The Israeli shook was really cool. It wasn't like Ben Yehudah street where its all Americans and tourists. There were Israelis and people sold all sorts of fruit and cheeses and fish. One kippah dude had this really nice kippah that I really like. It was like a city on the kippah and it was amazing but it was 85 shekel so I didn't get it. Maybe next time I'll spoil myself and get it. I did get a really nice green one for 8 shekel. Its 4 shekel to a dollar about. My brother got a KU kippah. And then I got gifts for people back home. But it was just a lot of fun to spend time with my family who I hadn't seen in a while and with my cousin. Mordechai was good in the shook. Someone tried to sell my mom a broken bag and he saw it. I also got a bowl and spatula for my refried beans.  When we were walking back to the hotel from the shook we saw these "religious" Jews dancing and freaking out. Mordechai explained that they're religion was based on not being depressed so they go around with a van blasting techno music and dancing in the street with their peyas bouncing around all over the place. It was really funny. Mordechai explained that it was BS and they use the name of a very special and important sect of Jews and it doesn't delegitimize the real group's Judaism but it makes them look bad and gives them a bad name. 

So we left the shook and walked to Ben Yehuda street for a little because it was on the way back to the hotel. We stopped and walked around for a little while. I don't think we bought anything. I got money from the cash machine. Then we caught a cab back to the hotel. Driving in Jerusalem is difficult. I could never do it. I barely stay alive driving in Dallas. 

Now we start the main attraction: the wedding. We all got dressed and went to the wedding. The father of the groom is my Grandpa's first cousin. So the groom was my mom's second cousin. My family kind of knew Nathan, the father of the groom, and none of us had ever met the groom, Suchi. (The "ch" in there is the same sound in "baruCH" or the sound they talk about in Meet the Fockers.) The boys were on one side and the girls were on the other and a barrier separated us. Judaism doesn't do this to be sexist. They do it to show morality. People get drunk and dance at weddings and we must stay moral so we separate. We mingled and ate the food. I mostly talked with Jake, Mordechai, my dad, Uncle David, and some of the younger guys who are there just studying for a year or two.  My brother, my dad and I were the only people not wearing black hats. In fact, Jake wore his new KU kippah, and I wore my Dallas Cowboys kippah that I bought with Mordechai a couple weeks ago on Ben Yehuda. 

The chuppah ceremony I didn't see too much of. It was really crowded and everyone was standing and it was in Hebrew. This was my first wedding of any sort, much less an Orthodox Jewish wedding in Israel. My brother, Mordechai, and a couple other people stood in the back talking. We were explaining the ceremony to each other. After the ceremony they go in a room and sign the ketuba and that is the first time they can touch each other. We talked about the bride walking around 7 times. Judaism is a religion of laws and everything has an exact way of being done, even if it always isn't. I'm pretty sure everything was done correctly in this wedding though.

After the chuppah ceremony we all started to funnel back into the main room and ate for a little bit and then we started dancing. The guys dance with the guys and the girls dance with the girls. I don''t think the bride and the groom ever dance with each other. It might be weird to some people that guys and girls don't dance together but it was a lot of fun. My bus group on EIE has the closest guys so it wasn't that weird to dance with about 150 other guys as it could have. Me and my dad even got to dance with the Suchi and Nathan for a little bit. Its not like guys are grinding on each other. You dance in circle and jump around and all sorts of crazy stuff. Its fun, not sexual like dancing at a club is or something. I danced with Mordechai, Jake, some of my cousin whom I just met, Yecheil who is Mordechai's brother, and a bunch of other people. It was so fun and different than anything else I had ever done. Not the dancing with guys, just the whole experience. 

The wedding also had beggars trying to collect money. At first I thought it was weird that they would just walk up and ask for money inside like that but no one else thought it was weird and I gave some money to some beggars. Many beg for an organization, like their Yeshiva, and others just for themselves. My Uncle David did business with one. He gave him a twenty shekel bill and took back some coins. I thought it was pretty funny.  All together the wedding was a lot of fun and I was really looking forward to it. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and I think I was accurate. I really like seeing my family and it was a nice break from EIE and spending every moment with the same people, even though I love all of them to death.

Fast forward a couple days now. My parents left on Sunday. Its Tuesday. The wedding was on Thursday. It was really nice seeing my parents. I missed them and they missed me and we had a lot of fun together on Thursday and going out to eat and on the Islam tiyul, which I don't think I even mentioned. But its going to be nice to have things back to normal now. I don't want to say they messed up the balance of stuff because they didn't but having all the parents here was much different. I'll miss them and my brother and will be looking forward to seeing them when I come home. 

I'm done with the big events. I want to give my opinion on Hebrew. To many Hebrew might just be the language that people speak in Israel, like it was for me before I got here. But now I see it differently. It is the language of my people and of my heritage, even if I spoke Yiddish back on the shtetl. I believe all Jews have a responsibility to learn some Hebrew at some point in there life. Not to become fluent but simply to know about the language and appreciate it. The Jews have been remarkable in reviving the language. It was like Latin or Aramaic is where people can learn it and speak it if they want to but it is the only language to undergo a full revival into a spoken language. Tel Aviv was founded as the first Hebrew speaking city 100 years ago. They were pretty successful. But I plan to keep on learning Hebrew after EIE and I think every Jew should make an effort to learn Hebrew. Jews for most generations were united under a common language and it helped to create and reinforce a Jewish identity and today we have the privilege of learning Hebrew, the holy language of the Torah and of our ancestors. Jews should take advantage of this because Hebrew is more than just a language. 

I'm done now. I wish I started this post earlier but whatever. I hope you enjoyed it and it was kind of long but a lot happened. I will try to get another post before I go to Poland because I won't bring my computer there on on Yam l'Yam. I will probably have a computer at Passover but I don't know if I will get a post in. Its all good though. I like to keep you on your toes. 

Until next time,

Joey B. 

Hey!

Hey Everyone,

It's been a while since my last post and this past week or so has gone by pretty fast. 

EIE has a parents pilgramage trip in March so the families of the students can come and visit in Israel. My parents got here on Thursday the 12th and spent a couple days in the North called Zichron Yaakov. Its in the hills and the North at this time of year is gorgeous. Then they on Sunday they picked my brother up from the airport and came to Tzuba they're gonna stay here for another week! It's pretty exciting, pretty crazy, and pretty wierd having all the parents here. I don't konw exactly how to explain it. I'm definitely happy to see my family but its wierd (not bad or good) to have them at Tzuba. They don't know exactly what to do, where to go. They aren't used to our lingo or how we wear blankets outside when its cold out because we lost our jackets. But its definitley a lot of fun. Tonight my parents took me, my brother, my two friends-Aaron and David- our family friend who's here for the year-Micah- and my brother's friend-Zach- all out to dinner in Jerusalem and then we all walked around and met up with other families who were out. It was really cool. We're going to be doing a lot of other stuff together later this week that I'll be sure to write about.

My brother, Jake, got here Sunday. He went on EIE three years and the first time and only other time I came to Israel was to visit him on EIE during parents pilgramage with my parents, and this is his first time back to Israel. It's really funny to watch him be here because he thinks he can speak Hebrew, and tries to act like an Israeli even though he isn't. But he has a lot of friends here on gap year programs and from random Jewish stuff that we all do.  Its crazy that were all here together though.

All the parents brought thier kids food from back home that we can't get here. Number one food brought: girl scout cookies. Number two: easy mac. I got both of those plus the one food that I actually miss from home and will never get here: refried beans. All my friends laughed at me when they saw that my mom brought 4 cans that you can make in microwave. But it's true and I'm not milking the Texas thing at all with the beans. They are probably my favorite food that I can''t find here. The pizza and burgers aren't as good. The candy and sweet stuff is better. The Italian food is decent when someone takes you out for it. But the Mexican food isn't here.  And all my friends back home know that I love Mexican food. Heres a small story. When my brother was here three years ago, his friends said the only things he talked about was the gas station with the greasy tacos and his little brother. Its funny because I was talking about my brother for about a week before he came and everyone knows about my obsession with Mexican food. My roommate, Max, whose mom came brought him beef jerky and some candy. 

Last paragraph because its almost 1 AM. I still listen to country music all the time, usually just using the speaker on my iPhone. I have a crush on my Hebrew teacher, Sima. She has grand children. I see my cousins in a couple days because they are coming for my other cousin's wedding. I'm really excited about that and there will be much more on that after the wedding. All the Lerers are in Thailand together and I freaked when I found that out. It's spring break in Dallas so call me anytime. I miss all of you. My laundry wasn't too expensive this last time. Gilad Shalit talks have halted for now. It looks like Netanyahu will be the next prime minister with a narrow right wing government. We started the middle ages and Islam in Jewish history. 

I love all of you and stay good.

Joey B. 

Hi!

This is going to be a quick post.

Firstly, I just had a Jewish History test and it was pretty good. There were 10 short answer, an essay, a timeline, and 15 fill in the black type. It was really long. I used almost 4 pages front and back of notebook paper. It was on the second Temple period. You could of figured that out because I've been talking about that time period a lot in my other posts.

Purim in tonight and tomorrow and Israelis love Purim. People dress up and act goofy and its a really fun holiday. One custom is to get so drunk that you can't tell the difference between Mordechai, the good guy, and Haman, the bad guy. We're gonna have to skip that one this year. One Purim song says that those who enter the month of Adar, the month that Purim is in, will multiply their happiness. We're having a dance tonight and tomorrow we go to a parade. Today I'm a cowboy (original, I know. I barely dressed up.) and tomorrow I'm doing to borrow some clothes from one of the hippies and its gonna be funny. I do miss my mom's hamantashen. They are delicious and I've only got store bought hamantashen here that aren't as good as the homemade ones. 

Anyways, other quick updates. I stocked up on apple juice today, I'm planning on going with some friends to my friend's friend's house this weekend, and my Jewish history teacher got marriend so we had Baruch (my hero), Rueben (the smartest man alive), and Josh Wienberg (my brother's idol)  as subs. All of them were amazing but its good to have David back.

I love you guys!

Joey Blatt

Back From 12 Days

Long Time No See Everyone.....

I just got back today from a tiyul in Jerusalem about the second temple period, Masada, the Dead Sea, 4 days in the army, two nights in Eilat, and a night in a Bedouin tent. A lot for a week and a half. This is going to be a long post so brace yourself.

I think it was Thursday that we left for Jerusalem to start our trip. We had a full day tiyul about the Roman period, the second temple, King Herod, and all that. It was all really interesting. My teacher believes that the destruction of the second temple in 70 is the central event in Jewish history. It is the turning point because at that point Jews were exiled from Israel for about 2000 years. I don't think you can call one event the most central part of history that spans thousands of years but it certainly is very important. The Western Wall, Kotel, is the remains of the walls that held up the Temple and the Dome of the Rock is believed to be where the Holy of Holies was. We also learned about the different sects of Judaism. There were the underground freedom fighters, the rabbis who were content because they knew rebelling would end bad, the crazy purification freaks who ran to the desert, and the priests who were corrupt and buddies with the Romans. We saw the dead sea scrolls which is the oldest found TaNaK from about two thousand years ago. Almost every letter is the exact same and the previously oldest was from one thousand years ago. It was pretty sick. The best part of the tiyul was when David, my teacher, was explaining how people were called to prayer and I called everyone to prayer with my kazoo. The video should be on facebook soon. 

Then we made our way to Masada. We went to the hostel the night before and had an early curfew because we woke up at 3 45 so we could watch the sunrise on top of Masada. For those of you that don't know, Masada is the place where the Jews who escaped Jerusalem during the Roman period and kept Judaism alive for a couple years while holding out against the Romans. Its located atop a mountain in the Judean Desert in the east of Israel. After three years, the Romans broke through to find that the Jews of Masada committed a mass suicide instead of being taken into slavery They also burnt down everything they built except for the the food storage to show that they were perfectly capable of living there. Here is an interesting tidbit. When they excavated Masada a while ago they found the food storage and inside was an ancient Judean date palm seed. They did some crazy Jurassic Park stuff and now they have a Judean date palm tree growing . But they won't know if its will bear fruit because it takes a while for them to grow and they don't know if its a boy or girl tree. But the Judean date palm was supposed to be the most delicious succulent date in all of Israel and was thought to be extinct till now. Crazy. I like dates. I am very happy about this. You could make some symbolic metaphorical connection about it to Judaism like the people of Masada thought they were the last Jews and they weren't and the date palm was supposed to be gone and it wasn't. But Masada was really pretty and really cool. I liked it.

After Masada we went to the Dead Sea. I don't think I've ever been as miserable as I was in the Dead Sea. The water was freezing. My hands were dry so the water made them burn to the point I couldn't move them. And the water burned any cut or scrape of anything. It tasted terrible. Like if a drop got in your mouth it was disgusting. And after you got out you were covered in salt. And it was cloudy so tanning wasn't an option.  The only remotely cool thing was that since the Dead Sea is so salty anything floats. So we floated. But it was terrible. I never have to go in the Dead Sea again. But it was fun chilling with my friends for a couple days after climbing Masada and before Gadna. I also didn't pack enough so I bought two t shirts, both with camels on them. Thats all they sold there: camel shirts. I also took an epically good nap with my bud Jordy. We were exhausted after waking up so early to climb Masada. As terrible as actually being in the Dead Sea was, the trip itself was a lot of fun just chilling. 

From the Dead Sea we went to Gadnah. That was interesting. First we got broken up into our sevets which had a commander and 12 kids. There were only 4 people from my bus group so I got to meet a lot more people which was good because I really like the guys from the other groups. And the day we spent in field learning to crawl and the different kind of walks was really cool except that I still have cuts and bruises on my knees from it. We also had discussions about being in the army and being Jewish and making aliyah and the state of Israel. On Wednesday we got to fire M-16s. I missed the target with most of my bullets but it was a lot of fun and really exciting firing an M-16. That was all the good stuff. The bad stuff was we spent the entire time in one uniform which was gross after having kitchen duty the first night. It only got dirtier and smellier after that. I only showered once in 5 days. The worst part though wasn't not showering or anything like that. It was that someone told us what to do every second and we had to be in this spot in this formation in exactly this amount of time. I felt like a prisoner. The base we were out was in the desert and it was so beautiful and I could see the roads and the cars going and I felt trapped in a cage. It was pretty bad. I think I'm the only person who felt like a prisoner to this extent but its ok. It was only a couple days and its over now.  I now know that I have no interest in joining the army. Other kids liked it a lot and want to join the army or the air force.  I think that if you're able to do it for three years and enjoy yourself and make that commitment than thats great but I couldn't.

After Gadnah we went to Eilat. The bus ride there was long just because I was so anxious to shower and change clothes. I walked into my room taking off my belt getting ready to shower. It felt so good to get clean and put on cleanish clothes for the first time in a while.  All my jeans had been worn at least once but I did have a clean T-shirt from the Dead Sea where I ran out and had to buy two new ones. They both have camels on them; one with 4 Andy Warhol style camels and one with dancing camels. They are both pretty touristy but they were really funny. Eilat and the Red Sea was a lot cooler than the Dead Sea. The two best parts was that I snorkeled for the first time. There is a coral reef in Eilat and its was really cool. I saw a lot of fish and the water was really clear. They also explained that the Red Sea is the split between two tectonic plates and some other stuff and that its growing and it will eventually become a big ocean. The water was really cold and it wasn't perfect beach weather but anything was awesome after Gadnah (except for the Dead Sea). The other really cool was a hike though some of the mountains in the South. Israel is a beautiful country with lots of terrains and the South is very rocky and has the desert. It was really pretty and I saw a wild ibex. There will be pictures on facebook coming soon. 

After Eilat we went to the Bedouin tent thing for the night. We got there and it was drizzling and kind of cold. But the tents were the coolest thing I have ever seen. I freaked out. They were huge tents with rugs on the ground and a heater in the middle. So cool. We put our stuff down and then went to get tea and baklava because apparently thats what Bedouins do. The tea was almost good. I don't drink tea or coffee so it must have been amazing and the baklava was good. Then David Solomon, one of the administrators, led a little meditation thing before we went to bed. I was all ready to meditate and all that and I put my mattress down and I fell asleep immediately. It was the best sleep I got all night because the tent was pretty cold and I still had funny sleep patterns from Gadnah. I woke up before we were supposed to every time and went to sleep really early and was falling asleep in everything.  We ate breakfast in another massive tent thing and since it was raining and we couldn't ride camels yet one of the Bedouins came and talked to us about the lifestyle. They are sunni Muslims and people today are becoming more assimilated. It was interesting and afterwards we were supposed to ride camels but we weren't able to because of the rain. they were smellier and dirtier than usual. I was so ready to get back to Tzuba that I didn't care. And I've ridden a camel before. I don't remember when or where but in the back of my ming I've ridden one. Maybe at one of those carnivals at the JCC when I was little? I don't know. 

Last thing. I saw my old rabbi, Mark Kaiserman, yesterday. It was really good to see him because I think its only the fourth time I've seen him since he left Dallas a couple years ago. We talked about the Mets and Alex Rodriguez, and Israel and EIE and walked around Jerusalem. I also ate unkosher food for the first time in over a month. Seafood Linguini Alefredo something. Delicious. 

Anyways, now I'm back at Tzuba and I recently heard a good random fact. If everyone wanted to play the character Hamlet at the same time, it would be impossible because there aren't enough skeletal skulls in the world to do do. This post took me a while to write and I made a real effort to write it and I wrote it pieces of it at different times. I try to just sit down and get it done but I didn't have that kind of time and I really wanted to post. Anyways, I love everyone for reading this and if you made it through the whole thing then good job.

=)

Joey Blatt

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.