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!

The 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...

-Since Thanksgiving is coming up, I volunteered to make a thanksgiving video with my friend Sophie. We had to go around and film EVERY nativer saying something about thanksgiving... I'm now just editing it with Ian and then it should be good to go. Its really funny so i hope i can get it up here so everyone can watch it...