Idan Raichel, Phil Dunphy, and Eyal Berkovich

A little over a week ago, all of Nativ had the opportunity to go to an Idan Raichel concert, paid for by Nativ.  The concert was a Masa sponsored event to bring together all the teenagers and college students in Israel on gap year and study abroad programs.  The slogan of the night was “Find It Here.”  I’m still not sure exactly what I’m supposed to find in Israel, but the concert was fantastic, and I saw all of my friends on Year Course which was really nice.  I even saw Aviv Grinbooch, one of the students from the Reali School who visited Boston when we were in 8^th grade.  I’ve kept in touch with Aviv through email and Facebook, but it was great to actually see her for the first time in four years.  The concert was a lot of fun, as usual, and had a different feel than the other Idan Raichel concerts I’ve been to.  Whereas at the two concerts I went to in the US people generally stayed in their seats until the end of the show, within a few minutes of the start of this concert almost everyone was standing and dancing along with the music.  Overall it was a great night, and at the end I took a nice walk back to Beit Nativ instead of going back on the bus.  (Don’t worry Mommy, I wasn’t alone.)

From left: Henry, Elana, me, and Eric at the concert (in our new Nativ shirts!)

Band member...or Lord Voldemort?

Something I forgot to mention in my last post is that during Sukkot break after our early return from Desert Survival I saw Josh Pankin!  It was great to catch up and talk to someone who knows everyone from home.  It also turns out that one of my friends on Nativ, Allie Griff, is related to the Pankins and their cousins in Israel!  We’re planning on visiting them together on a Shabbat when we’re both free.  Another random person I saw last week is David Goodman, a counselor from my camp.  I was waiting for the bus home from Hebrew U and he came over and said hi.  He was never my counselor but I was very impressed that he remembered me and we had a nice camp conversation on the bus ride home.  It can get a little frustrating being surrounded by so much Ramah excitement all the time, so it’s always nice to run into someone from Yavneh.

After football practice on Thursday night, I went to Café Ivrit (translation: Hebrew Café) for the first time.  Café Ivrit is a weekly event organized by one of our madrichot, Achi. Every week Café Ivit takes places at a different café in Jerusalem, and from the moment we leave Beit Nativ to walk to the café, we are only allowed to speak in Hebrew.  At first I didn’t realize how strict the rules were, but when I got in “trouble” for getting an English menu in addition to my Hebrew one, I understood just how intense Café Ivrit is.  I have good enough Hebrew that I can have a conversation in Hebrew, but what was interesting for me at Café Ivrit was trying to help the other Nativers who are not at the same level.  It was challenging to explain words using simple vocabulary and in ways that would make sense to someone who isn’t at the same Hebrew level as I am, and it actually reminded me a lot of my Ulpan class.  The entire class is taught in Hebrew, and even new vocabulary is taught and explained using words we already know.  Though I’m not always sure that I understand each new vocab word exactly right, I can generally get a sense of what the word means. Even though I didn’t learn lots of new words at Café Ivrit (though I did learn לפרוט=to get small change) it was a really good experience and a lot of fun to explain things to others and help them improve their Hebrew.

The next day I headed to the Central Bus Station to visit The Leshems, family friends who live in Ramat Efal (a very small town in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv).  The bus to Ramat Efal is the same one that goes to Bnei Brak (a very religious city in Tel Aviv), and the waiting area is at the farthest end of the bus station completely isolated from that of every other bus.  After waiting for the bus for about 40 minutes, it finally came and I was on my way to Ramat Efal.  Since Ramat Efal is such a small town, the bus doesn’t stop there, but instead stops on a main road nearby where local buses stop on their own bus routes.  I got off at that stop, but when I got there I didn’t see Rachel Leshem who was picking me up.  I tried to explain where I was and gave the phone to an Israeli to explain it to her.  Unfortunately, he actually turned out to be a Russian immigrant who wasn’t really familiar with the area. His explanation of where we were wasn’t much better than mine, because I think Rachel ended up going to the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv.  After about fifteen more minutes of waiting for me, Rachel called again, and I once again tried to explain where I was.  This time though, I found an Israeli who actually knew where we were, and finally we found each other.  It turns out Rachel had come to the right bus stop in the first place, but neither one of us had seen each other. 

Arriving at the Leshem’s house almost felt like coming home.  We have no close family in Israel, but the Leshems are like family and we never come to Israel without visiting them.  Two summers ago I stayed with them for a few days when I came to Israel on my own for the first time.  Last March, I came to Israel and my ride from the airport fell through so I went to their house instead.  When Rachel and I arrived at their house this time, I went to the room I always stay in, and besides all the familiar features I’m used to, there was a whole bag of gluten free food and some of my belongings from home!  Rachel had been at a conference in Boston just a few days before, so my mom sent some things back with her to give me.  I knew what I would be getting, but it was still nice that it was all in “my” room when I got there.  By this time it was relatively late; I had spent a lot of time waiting at bus stops, and Shabbat starts pretty early these days (around 4:30).  Rachel offered to bring me to a natural food store to see if I could find anything gluten free, so we rushed back out of the house to get to the store before it closed for Shabbat.  Though most of the gluten free items there are also sold at the store I go to in Jerusalem, I did find one thing I’m very excited about: a frozen GF pizza! I still need to figure out how I’m going to make it (we don’t have an oven here), but right now I’m just excited about the fact that I even have it. 

The Leshems used to live in Brookline and their two daughters, Yael and Anat, went to preschool with my sisters (that’s how we know them).  When Rachel was in Boston, she went to Brookline and took pictures of the places they used to live, go to school, and walk by every day.  Seeing these pictures was bittersweet; I loved seeing the familiar streets and the trees with their colorful leaves, but it definitely made me miss home a little.  After the slideshow, I went out again, this time with Anat, to get some ingredients to cook dinner.  My job was making the lemonade.  Lemonade is pretty common in every household in Israel, and there are two main ways to make it.  You can either use a liquid or a powder and just add water (that’s a pretty popular technique in the Marcus household as well), or you can use a juicer and squeeze many many fresh lemons until your hands hurt and all the little cuts you didn’t realize you had start stinging.  I went with the second method.  It was pretty messy and my hands were sore by the end, but I had fun, and felt like I made my contribution to dinner. 

Dinner was delicious, and it’s always nice to have a home cooked meal these days.  The food at Beit Nativ isn’t great, and though the food at Frank Sinatra Café (at Hebrew U) was good for the first month and a half, it’s starting to get a bit repetitive (especially since I can only have two things since everything else has gluten in it).  I even got to take some leftovers back with me, which lasted me a while and was a very welcome change from the grilled cheese or turkey sandwich I usually have for dinner.  After dinner, Yael and I watched two of my favorite TV shows—The Office and Modern Family.  Yael loves American TV shows so it’s always nice to watch them with her, especially since I’m so busy during the week that I generally don’t do much TV watching.  Yael even gave me the episodes of Modern Family that we didn't get to watch, so now I can finally catch up on what has been going on in the life of Phil Dunphy, my favorite TV dad and character on the show.

The next day we went out to lunch for Yael’s birthday and I got the best hamburger I’ve ever had in my life (without a bun, of course).  The restaurant we went to was really nice, and the waitress was even familiar with all of the restrictions of celiac disease! (For example, she knew that I couldn’t have the french fries because they’re cooked in the same oil as something with gluten in it.)  As we were leaving the restaurant, Uri, Eli’s brother who came from Jerusalem for Yael’s birthday, pointed out that sitting at the table next to us was Eyal Berkovich, an Israeli soccer player who used to play in England and is known for having a very big mouth.  Though he was a great soccer player, he is mostly known for his bad attitude and poor relationships with his teammates.  That night, Uri drove me back to Beit Nativ.  It was much more comfortable than a bus ride would have been, and much easier to take all my extra food, pots, containers, etc. back with me.  The Leshems even lent me a coat to bring to Poland in January, so it would have been pretty impossible to get back to Jerusalem on the bus with all this extra baggage.  On the drive back I got to practice my Hebrew with Uri and I learned more about Eyal Berkovich, among other things.  The weekend was really nice, and it was great to see the Leshems for the first time since I’ve been in Israel.