Last week started off with lots of excitement and ended with even more—my birthday! Sunday night I went to a cycling class at the YMCA. The only other class I’d been to so far was Body Sculpt, which was hard but didn’t involve any cardio. This class was very intense and really got my heart rate up. After showing me how to set up my bike, the teacher closed the door, turned off all of the lights, and turned on a black light (I was wearing a white shirt, which made it that much cooler). He also turned on some very loud music and told us that since no one could see what we were doing or how hard we were working, we had to push ourselves to do whatever we could. He coordinated the pace of the class with the music and also sang along with much of it. Though it was definitely a challenging class, I loved the atmosphere and especially listening to the teacher sing along to Beyoncé and other popular female artists.
On Monday we had our first football game (the last game I wrote about was a scrimmage) and though we lost pretty badly (by the mercy rule) we still had a lot of fun. Usually I play offense but Adir (our coach) decided to have me try defense a little in this game. I actually enjoyed it a lot, but after sprinting after one girl and diving to get her flag, I skinned my leg pretty badly. I did get her flag, but it probably wasn’t the best decision both since we were playing on turf and since I get injured so much even without trying.
Before we even went to the game though, there was a lot of excitement going on right next to Beit Nativ. Beit Nativ is down the street from Bibi Netanyahu’s house (the Prime Minister of Israel) and that night there was a protest across the street from Beit Nativ against a law that was recently passed giving money to Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) to study in Yeshiva. Haredim are exempt from serving in the army and paying taxes, a very controversial issue within Israeli society. The protest was organized by Israeli students who were arguing that the Yeshiva students shouldn’t be paid by the government for studying while the university students are paying to study, as well as serving in the army and paying taxes. I went to the rally right as I got home from school (our bus actually couldn’t go up our street so we had to get out a stop early) and met up with Tomer Rachmani, one of the mishlachat (Israeli counselors) from camp this past summer. After talking to Tomer for a little, I left the rally while it was still relatively small and went to Beit Nativ to make some dinner. I ate dinner on a friend’s balcony overlooking Kikar Paris, where the protest was taking place. In the few minutes it had taken me to put my backpack in my room and heat up my dinner (leftovers from the Leshems J) the number of people had grown exponentially. Now I could see why the streets were blocked off—when I was at the rally it was contained within Kikar Paris, but by this time the streets were overflowing with hundreds of people (mainly students) carrying signs and wearing shirts in protest of the new law.
Tuesday night is Erev Nativ (Nativ night). This week’s Erev Nativ was done by track and the Be’er Sheva group had a roommate competition! The first part of the competition involved each room dressing up together. Aimee, Roshana, and I were initially going to take it easy and dress up as the Israeli flag—two of us would wear blue, and one would wear all white and tape a Jewish star on herself. At the last minute though, we decided to go all out. Aimee and Roshana ran across the street to buy balloons so we could dress up as… GRAPES! We definitely made an entrance coming in late and covered with balloons. The actual competition turned out to be a trivia contest. It was supposed to include a variety of different topics (Israeli culture, American history, music, etc.), but mostly ended up being about American geography. We actually did pretty well in the beginning, but had lost our lead by the end. For the last question we were allowed to wager points as many points as we wanted, so we went all in, wagering our 11 points. The final bonus question: When is the least popular month to get married in America? The answer: January. We got the question right, but still didn’t think we won because the team above us had also guessed correctly. However, once the judges (our madrichim Adir and Roni) factored in points for the costumes, the winners were… ROOM 205! (Us.) It was a very exciting way to end the night, and as a prize we got air freshener which has actually been very useful.
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| Room 205: WINNERS! (From left: me, Roshana, and Aimee) |
Wednesday morning I went to a local soup kitchen with Zoe Beiner. Zoe and I have discovered quite a few ways in which we’re connected, but we’re on different tracks and in different classes at Hebrew U so we haven’t spent much time together. Some connections are:
1) My mom and her dad were good friends in high school.
2) I was co-counselors with her Israeli cousin, Hadas, this summer (hopefully we’ll visit her at some point).
3) She was the counselor of one of my little sister’s closest friends this summer.
Going to the soup kitchen was a really interesting experience. I had been to a soup kitchen once at home, and though there were certain similarities between the two experiences, this soup kitchen was very “Israeli.” Israelis are known for being very pushy and arguing to get what they want. Though one would expect a homeless person to be happy to get any food, this Israeli personality definitely came out at the soup kitchen. People were not shy to demand a different kind of meat or tell us that the food didn’t taste good or that they didn’t get enough or as much as the person next to them. Though it was initially a bit surprising, it didn’t take long to get used to this attitude (afterall, we’re surrounded by it every day) and get everyone the food they wanted. I also liked seeing the different kinds of people who came to the soup kitchen. There were those who clearly looked homeless and who wrapped up their bread in a napkin to eat later, there were people who ate just a little from their plates and put the rest in a plastic container to take with them, and there were even some who ate their meals cleared their plates, and waited for someone to bring them a second, third, or even fourth meal because some of the volunteers didn’t know they had already eaten. There were grown orthodox men, young yeshiva students, a blind man, a man who sometimes plays the accordion, and a man who just came to study there and only ate a piece of bread. We also got to practice our Hebrew a little by talking to the volunteers, and we met another American volunteer who told us about his program and the other volunteer work he’s doing in Israel.
Wednesday night was the beginning of my birthday celebrations, but there is a LOT to write about that, so you’ll have to wait for the next post!
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