Week of 10-18-09 Whales and Sports

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…. Aka they still haven’t called and it’s been a week. So if they don’t call by the end of this week I will call them myself.
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!). I’m pretty sure the NFL is going to be sending scouts all the way out to Israel to watch us play. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet- lets see how Monday works out…. Plus if we win I’ve convinced Coach Cook to let us give him a facial (which of course would make for a good blog post so stay tuned)
Thursday went by like every other Thursday in Jerusalme does… and ill save my parents the heart attack and just skip it.
This Shabbat I went with my friend Ilana Rosenzweig to her grandparent’s house near tel aviv. It was a very fun and relaxing Shabbat- we spent most of it sporcling and talking. I like the change of scenery and of course the delicious food! We even go to go to the beach so I came back with a nice tan!

That was last week in short! Moral of the Story: Whales DO like football!

Mark Lazar has been involved in formal and informal Jewish Education since 1973 and has been associated with the Jewish Agency in Israel, the Joint Distribution Committee, the University of Judaism, and numerous schools and institutions. He has led seminars and workshops in the United States, Israel, England, Australia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland and the former Yugoslavia. He is concluding a two year stint in San Francisco with the Bureau of Jewish Education and will be returning to Jerusalem and his community development work for the Joint in Eastern Europe.