The last week was full of exciting events!
Sunday I went to the school I am going to be volunteering at first semester with my friends Gabe Ciuraru and Jesse Lender and gave them our names and numbers so that they can contact us to let us know when they want us to work
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Sarah Ziskend
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 A lot has happened these last three weeks so I’m going to put this one in bullets….. The Zoo, what could be better than seeing numerous really cute lovable animals behind glass? SEEING THEM IN ISRAEL!! I know marvelous! My friends Gabe, Jesse, Anna, Liza and I decided to go to the zoo one day after ulpan (slash yeshiva for anna…) and it was sooooo much fun! We got to see all the animals up close because we were the only ones at the zoo- that is except for the boy band that was there…. For Shabbat my room mate and I were invited to go over to our staff Elakana’s house for dinner (he’s reading this to put it on the website so I hope I didn’t spell his name wrong…). It was a lot of fun! We met them at their shul and prayed kab shab with them at a really pleasant synagogue. The women sat upstairs in a really nice balcony section and I actually enjoyed the way the service was set up… plus it was right near the jslum theater so it was close- I think ill go back. After synagogue we walked to Elk’s house where we had an excellent diner (and I’m not just saying that because he’s going to be reading this…) all made by HIM! I know first off he’s a great guy (a GG as lainie would say) but he cooks too!!! Very impressive I know! The night was exceptionally fun; we learned a lot and had great conversations. I can’t wait to go back with Lane-Bear! On 12-08 Nativ had its Menorah making party! I’ve been excited for this day ever since I saw the Nativ promo video with people making their own Menorah’s! It was loads of fun, I made mine look like an Israeli flag with the candles in the middle….On top it says “I love Israel” in Hebrew and Nativ 29. The football team won another game this week! And I almost made an extra point! It was very exciting to say the least- who knew a girl like me would have so much fun playing sports! I’m actually really sad to say that we only have two games left, maybe ill be able to start a girls league at college next year… Speaking of college- Rhyan, Josh O., Stephainie, and I talked to a bunch of college advisors/ high school guidance counselors about Nativ and gap year programs yesterday. We basically said who we were and why we did Nativ. I think we all came off as though we loved the program (which we all do) and about how thankful we are we came (trust me I could talk for hours about how happy I am I came on nativ….). I had my last JET course and I really enjoyed it I thought mark lazar was a great teacher and I learned a lot. Plus we got doughnuts which is always a plus Today (12-10-09) I went to MeahSheriam with Liza, Miri, and Laura. Meah Shearim (Hebrew: מאה שערים) is one of the oldest neighborhoods in west Jerusalem, Israel, built by the original settlers of Yishuv haYashan. Today it is populated mainly by Haredi Jews. It is the most religiouse area in the world. We just walked around and dressed all frum and relig, it was weird trying to fit in in a place where we clearly didn’t belong. Maybe from now on ill go all Ortho…. Just kidding. But really I enjoyed walking aroudn down there. Very interesting….. This shabbat Nativ took us to Yerucham and we got to see the town we will be living in. Its LITERALLY in the middle of the desert, were talking camel crossing signs! Its crazy! We were getting a tour and all of a sudden we see three donkeys walk by doing there donkey things… I don’t even know how to explain this place fully. Theres 1 shwarma place, 1 pizza place, 1 hamburger place, 2 (gasp) falafel places, and A TON OF PARKS. The parks there are great! We all went on ziplines and stuff! Sooo much fun! I know our Thursday night activities from now on! While in Yerucham they took us to an Indian concert! It was sooo coool! There were little indian girls dancing and the music sucked (but Nativ made it fun so hey). Mostly it just got us really excited for Yerucham. On the way back to J-slum we stoped by Ben-Gurion’s house and did a tour there. Just like pilgrimage but this time I wasn’t as tired… afterwards we went on a short hike and then came back. Hanukah here so far has been kinda weird. They don’t do that much. Im used to full out christmas decorations and trees, but in Israel they have Menorahs lighting the way and doughnuts everwhere. Although I must say I have yet to have a latka! Shocker I know! Pam you know what to do when I get home! LATKES! Anyways the holiday here is very low-key. Kids don’t get presents every night and they make it more about the mirical and not the celebrations. Its acutally a nice change and I really enjoy it. Nativ is having a Hanukah party tonight so we will see how that goes… Posted by Sarah Ziskend at 3:47 AM 0 comments Monday, November 30, 2009 Thanksgiving in the Holy Land As you well know, in 1621 the pilgrims came over on the mayflower and the first thanksgiving was created. In 2009 80 nativer’s and 70 old nativers gathered at 8 Argon Street to teach Israel the meaning of turkey. We met in the synagogue with all the old nativers, staff, and random yeshiva people where we watched a video on nativ (made by Hadley and Joe) and heard about past nativers who have joined the army, gotten married, or made aliyah. Next Kehilla and all old nativers from years 0-23 went in one dinning room and Kebutz and all others went into another. When we walked in there was a surprise waiting for all of us- letters from home. In theory a great idea, but when you give a girl a long romantic letter from her boyfriend that she hasn’t seen in 4 months (sorry for the shout out Jason…) your bound to se some tears…. And by that I mean tears worth leaving the room for. Once my make-up was fixed I went back in and read the others- and then had to leave again because I read my dads….. rough night. After getting over the whole “home-sick” feeling everyone had we ate dinner. Surprisingly Israel does know a thing or two about food- we just rarely see it at Agron. I had two (I wish I could say servings here but ill be honest) plates of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, ect. And I ate until I could see my food baby showing. It was really nice being surrounded by all my friends, a different feeling than most years but defiantly a good one. We all just talked and laughed until we moved down to the auditorium where we watched another movied about thanksgiving (made by ME!). Everyone laughed and enjoyed it which was really nice/ made me feel good. Then I just crashed in my bed and fell asleep (after skyping with my family and Jason of course). All in all it was a really nice thanksgiving that I will never forget. Black Friday was spent a little different this year… I went to Tel Aviv with my friends Miri (for her birthday), Ally, Lainie, Razie, Laura, and Shara. We went to an art fair Friday day and shopped/look around. It was nice spending the day being girlie with friends and not having anything to do. We ate lunch at this really cute pizza place where we ordered a TON of pizzas… literally 7- the waitress was like “you really want another”… kinda embarrassing now that I look at how much that was… We met up with two of Miris friends at the restaurant- Dani and Annie, and from there we went to the hotel (since it was Miri’s birthday her mom bought us a suite for the night!) got snacks and had sushi for dinner. A Richard Gear marathon was on TV so for the rest of the night that’s what we did (ps if you haven’t seen the movie Unfaithful, stop reading this and go do it… like now)… That is until midnight when we had mimosas on the beach- it was very cute! Today (Sunday the 29th of November) I had another great day of volunteering! I teach at the Frankel School (past Hebrew U. on Mount Scopus) in 4th and 5th grade. For one hour I take Israeli children out and one by one they read to me. Any word they don’t understand in English I explain to them in Hebrew- I find it to be a really good trade off. We both learn a lot in the end (or what I can remember). For example today I had a whole conversation with a little girl about the zoo in Hebrew- we talked about all the animals and what sounds they make (very sophisticated and mature- I know). In the 5th grade class I teach three girls who are above there class level. We do worksheets about story making and go over spelling (after being asked five times how to spell “fell” you start to question yourself). And then for a half hour I organize the library. I love going to volunteering- it’s a lot of fun, really rewarding, and I’m getting more involved with the community; I absolutely love it! Friday, November 20, 2009The last two weeks The last two weeks in JSLUM have been really great! Instead of writing a really long post I’m going to do a top five of this week…. So be pumped
1) The foot ball team won BOTH games over the last two weeks! That’s the most the native women’s league has won in the past five year! Some highlights include: Stasha catching a football that bounced off someone’s head and making a touchdown, calling the other team mean names, getting into a fight with the other team…, and Coach Cook getting into a fight with the ref….
2) Last Shabbat was a lot of fun! Ally Turkheimer, David Helfand, Judah Kerbel, and I all went to the synagogue called shira hadasha on Friday night where we all got hosted by a family and ate REALLY good food. Highlights of that night include : not knowing any of there names, one of the guys falling asleep at the table, and a dog named Freddy (the only name we remembered). Then for Saturday morning ally Turkheimer, Brittany Markowitz, and I went to the Italian synagogue where the Oneg was SO GOOD! The synagogue itself was beautiful and the service was nice. The only downside was instead of English on one side it was Italian…. A little confusing but the experience and adventure were fun!
3) We had a women's Rosh Chodesh program last Sunday (ראש חודש marks the beginning of each new month and modern Jews celebrate women on this holiday hence the womens program…). This month we all made truffles together and talked about why we are happy to be a Jewish women (I said so I can guilt people with food). MORE IMPORTANTLY! I was told that if i write i program relating Jewish Women to a Seven Layer bean dip then we would be able to make it! and Ive already written the program, so ladies get pumped!
4) Jesse Lender, Lainie Schwartz, and I went to sushi on emick and it was DELICIOUS- a little expensive but worth it for the good food. I think were going to make it a new tradition. Who knew you could get good sushi in Israel…. Anyways it was sooo good! I forgot how much I loved sushi….
5) I hurt my back last week and Ive been ignoring the pain…. Long story short I ended up going to the Dr. and getting drugs…. But then those didn’t help so I went to the ER and got a shot….. Brings a new meaning to "Thursday night shots" very long story so hope you enjoy the short story….
Moral of the Story- I should’t buy soup nuts because I already ate half the bottle in less than a 24 hour period….. The bottle serves 100
Things I forgot to mention that happened this week:
-My Beit Midrash program was another hit, i went for the free pizza and then stayed for the Torah convo (very unlike me i know). The woman I've chosen to study with name is Yonata (i think...) and shes a rabbinical student from JTS who is now living in Israel (although she hasn't eaten at fruit bar on emick and this really turns me off...). Not only does she agree with me that Israeli pizza sucks, she is really good at explaining the Torah to us.... its a lot of fun and defiantly worth going to. Each week she picks a diffent midrash to go over and talk about, the first week was ethical treatment of animals and last week was fair trading and keeping the peace between neighbors. My friend Leeann goes with me each week so its a lot of fun.
-Jesse Lender's Mom and little brother came in this week and Jarrett (the little brother) is sooooo cute! she took us all out to Cuppa Joe for dinner it was really good! ill have to go back there again!
-My Hebrew is really coming along, Ive been using it a lot in class and im doing really well... at least my teacher (Tami) is impressed.... Yolanda (alright to be honest i don't really know her name thats just what i call her) doesn't like me so much, scratch that- she doesn't like US so much.... but its a fair and even trade...
Sunday, October 25, 2009 Nothing happened too much on Monday so ill skip ahead to Tuesday! We had Eriv Nativ again (the weekly mandatory program where we meet from 7:30-10:00 and talk about various topics, usually we have a guest speaker or something). This week we broke down into five small groups and did a בית מדרש (a study hall where you learn about torah and all that jazz). I had some crazy guy named Ethan and we talked about Sea Monsters in the Torah. It was kinda a introduction to what is going to be going on every Sunday. And hey they have free food so I might go, we will see (don’t hold your breath rabbi). Afterwards Gabe Ciuraru, Becky Constinten, and I went to Mcdonalds and got ice cream.
On Wednesday we had our first JET (Jewish Educators in Training) class with Mark Lazar (more about him on the bottom)! This class is open only to Nativ students and is based on teaching us how to teach Judaism to younger children in a classroom setting (or more simply how to become Hebrew school teachers). Since I might go into education I thought I would be a fun class to take. We played some teamwork games and then ranked a bunch of Jewish ideals from most important to least. It was a pretty fun class and I would like to do it for all of nativ. Plus Mark is a really crazy like 70 year old hippie with grey curly hair to his waist and always says really inappropriate things, which if you mix all together makes for a very interesting seminar. After the JET class the Nativ Women’s Flag Football Team (or the league for girls who want to get a cool t-shirt and get a good work out at the same time) had its first practice. We all went down to the park by the doctors (the same one that Jesse lender and I got lost at going to) and started off running laps with Coach Parritz (yeah the boys make us call them coach…) until we all thought we were going to die and then Coach Mann gathered us around for stretching and an inspirational talk…. It was very funny to hear our nativ boys be all serious and coach like, especially Coach Mann who would yell at us in his southern accent (which is funny until he’s yelling at you to do five pushups because you were dancing… then-not so much). Next we did timed running and had to throw and catch a football… Which sounds easy enough if you have any idea on how to throw such an object, but if you’re a girl who likes air conditioning and not getting hurt than it’s a little harder (aka Coach Cook had to teach me how to hold a football and catch it with out getting hurt…). The night ended with suicides and I felt like we were all in the movie Miracle (thanks to Jason I have watched a sports movie… the things you do for love) because Coach Parritz loved blowing that freaking whistle to make us run faster. All in all it was a lot of fun and I cant wait for the season to start (and by that I mean I cant wait until tonight because we have another practice and our first game on Monday!). Monday, September 28, 2009 Whales and Desert Just Don't Mix Lets be honest now, what sounds fun about three days two nights hiking down in the Negev… The first day wasn’t so bad at all (which completely shocked me), we hiked about 4 miles (6km… but im trying to do the conversion in my head so it might be wrong) and it gave me a great chance to talk to Cori (koren), Ilana, Lainie, and Jesse. In the beginning we were complaining the whole way about anything that we could, but then we made it fun by singing and dancing (oh the power of distraction is GREAT). We all laughed a lot hearing Elkana singing Brittney Spears with all of us in the middle of the Negev! We hiked for about two hours and then stopped for lunch in a really beautiful shady area. Everyone passed around cucumbers, bread, tuna, tomatoes, bamba, and various other passable foods. It was a lot of fun having an improve picnic in the middle of the desert! I loved to watch everyone share whatever food they had, it was truly a sight to see! Afterwards we hiked a little more and then stopped again to play games… well let me restate that: Those who were awake enough to play games did… other just watched and slept, it was a well deserved nap though- don’t get me wrong. Soon after we got to the camp sight and all started helping out in different ways. I chopped vegetables for our salad with Stashia, Brittney, Ethan, and Ally… because honestly if theres food then I’m there. Dinner was so good (I ate with my bff Gabe, Jonny, and Michael)! We had chicken, mashed potatoes, soup, veggies, Israeli salad, and Caesar salad. It was all around a great dining experience (and greatly appreciated after a long day of hiking). I don’t know if its right that the food in the desert is wayyyyyy better than base food (no offense beit nativ workers… sometimes its good, but lets be honest here- its not desert survival food). And then we had a bon fire and all went to bed… that was a really abridged version of the night but I can’t fit it all… The next morning started bright and early, and by that I mean that it was still dark when we woke up at 5:00 am. We all stumbled out of bed and waited in line for Becky to braid our hair, the only manageable hairstyle you can wear when hiking 13km. After a great breakfast of cookie crips (Israel style of course) and davening overlooking the desert we started off once again. Except this time it was much much much harder- were talking like vertical distance up mountains hard. There must have been a million times when I turned to Noah (No-bear) and said “wow there is NO WAY I can do that” but I pushed through and made it up all the mountains… and were not talking little kid mounds, I mean huge mountains that require much motivation (a thing I have little of in the desert). We stopped for a mid morning snack under a random tree and we weren’t alone. A scorpion joined us for lunch and we were all amazed. I have never actually seen a real live human killing scorpion up close, and now I never want to see it again. After our scare we trudged on and hiked up more mountains. Other than a fantastic two hour nap, the day was very long and very hard. We all appreciated seeing the camp site when we finally got there. Dinner that night included grilled turkey, hot dogs, pita, hummus, soup, salad, and Israeli salad. It was once again greatly appreciated and devoured within seconds. The next day started even earlier at 4:30 and once again Becky braided everyone’s hair, we davened, ate breakfast, and started our way on our last day of the trip. The beginning 4km were fairly easy since it was still fairly cold out, but once we got to a huge incline it started to get harder and harder to do. We all helped each other and made it up the hard parts of the mountain. The only negative from the hike today (other than being really hard) was getting lost from the group with Becky, Becca, and Lainie. We had to stop numerous times to pee (an actually fun experience in the desert once you get over the initial fear) and by the time we were all done we couldn’t see the group- so we followed the blue and white path until (about five or ten minutes later) we caught up to the whole group waiting for us… sorry about that guys… anyways after that we went up a huge mountain, one that everyone had trouble with. I was so grateful to get to the top that Lainie and I collapsed (after getting out my chocolate sandwich of course) and just over looked the view. Looking down from the top was gorgeous and (almost) worth the hike up. I felt so accomplished by the end! The trip wouldn’t have been complete without an AMAZING jeep ride at the end! It was like a personal rollercoaster! I rode with Lainie, Eric, Ethan, Stashia, and Judah. The guy passed back a ton of wafers for us to eat (they were greatly appreciated) and then we were off on a really fun adventure by jeep! It was so fast and bumpy-ahhhhh I loved every minute of it! I cannot even describe to you in words how much fun it was! I was smiling the whole way and wish I was back on it right now actually… Anyways that was very abridged version of desert survival but I’m exhausted and not in the normal funny typing mood… maybe ill go back and edit this after Tel Aviv (my friends and I are leaving to go to tel aviv in the morning…)
My יוֹם כִּפּוּר (yom kippur) in Israel was amazing! My chag started off early Sunday morning when I woke up for tefilot at 8:30 and then we had different classes on different subjects all relating to יוֹם כִּפּוּר. I went to Shosh’s session about what we cant do on יוֹם כִּפּוּר (other than all the stuff we cant do on Shabbat we also cant shower and put makeup on, wear leather shoes, eat, or have marital relations….)and Noah’s on… something else about the Holiday (lets be honest- my attention can only be held for so long). Afterwards Lainie, Sophie, Ilana, and I went to go get Burgers Bar before the fast… it was an awful story that does not end in me eating a Delicious burger before my fast… instead we went to the sketchy falafel place across the street where we could taste the forborne illnesses…. Nothing can replace the taste of botulism. Anyways dinner was at 3:30 and the fast started at 4:50 (the last thing I ate were Reeses Pieces, so we knew the holiday was going to be awesome after that). ראש השנה and more!
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