Sunday, October 19th 2008

Hello all,

I’m ashamed to say that I have now been in Israel one week and this is my first time journaling. I will do my very best to recap everything I’ve done so far and will try to be more consistent with my updates.
Monday morning, the 12th, we landed at Ben Gurion and among the hectic-ness of meeting the other fifty participants, we picked up our cellphones, dropped our bags off at the Jerusalem-bound and Ein Gedi-bound busses respectively. After dropping our luggage off, we jumped on the Ein-Gedi buss and headed south to our first location, the Ein Gedi Youth Hostel. The hostel is located on the coast of the Dead Sea and is absolutely beautiful. The activities of the day were some simple icebreakers and services overlooking the view for Sukkot.
Tuesday the 12th started with an early morning and a bad Israeli breakfast of Israeli salad, hummus and cabbage – delish. That day we had two sessions (the Kivunim term for lectures). The first with our menahel, Peter Geffen. Every moment that I hear him speak I find him more and more intriguing. He is an enormously intellectual, a powerful speaker, and I’ll finish this commentary at the end. The second was with a man named Shlomi, whom I regret to say I forget his position. He spoke for two hours, which was nice for us because we were still jet-lagged. The night ended with a failed attempt to play an Israeli movie (the subtitles didn’t work).
Wednesday. Early morning wake up and a hike through the mountains of Ein Gedi and Nahal David- an absolutely beautiful hike. Nahal David, for those who don’t know is an incredible waterfall and series of pools in what is seemingly otherwise the middle of the desert. Everyday that passes I begin to realize that everyone on the trip is both enormously smart and genuinely interesting. One week into the trip and I have yet to find someone with whom I have not shared an interesting conversation – these conversations have ranged from their views on hummus for breakfast, whether raising the minimum wage in the U. S. qualifies as an act of Hesed and Tzedakah, and what clubs we were in in high school and how they affected us. After the hikes through the oases of Ein Gedi, we hopped back on the bus and drove to the Dead Sea Spa and indulged in the mud baths, floating in the water, and sulfer baths. I just sniffed my arm to make sure, there is still a slight stench of sulfer on my skin. After the spa, we went back to the hostel and napped for three or so hours. This next piece will be an interesting blip in the list of activities. We awoke at 930pm, packed our bags and drove out to the middle of the desert. We then hiked in the middle of the Midbar from 11pm until 6am. The only way this was possible was the full moon that amazingly acted as a spotlight on our path. This adventure was both extremely exciting, and beautiful. The only downside was the fact that we were still not set on Israeli time and still very much so tired. We arrived back at 7 am for some nap time before starting another day.

Thursday – awake at 11 after a tiring night. We traveled via bus to an ancient synagogue near Ein Gedi at least two thousand years old- mamash yafa. We then went to the botanical gardens of Ein gedi- mamash yafa. That night we had the first of two sessions with Peter Geffen’s son, Jonah Geffen. Jonah has a masters degree in conflict resolution, therefore it was no surprise that his topic of choice was coexistence. He began his talk with an anecdote about his own time on Young Judea’s Yearcourse fourteen years ago when he was “a mere 100 yards” from where two Palestinian men had opened fire on a busy Jerusalem street. Jonah, just like his father is eloquent, intelligent and has the remarkable ability to convince you that you are the perfect candidate for change in the world.
Friday morning we journeyed to Machtesh Ramon, which is an enormous crater created from what used to be a large body of water. Another truly beautiful hike, after which we bussed to our second location: Kibbutz Sede Boker.
Saturday October the 18th, was a much needed relaxing day at the kibbutz. With optional services, and optional breakfast, the majority of the trip took the opportunity to sleep in and take the deep breath that we needed after Wednesday-Thursday left us gasping for air. We had a second session with Jonah Geffen and then split into groups for further discussion on our own conceptions of what we deemed broad terms like Zionism and how one defines their own love for Israel. Again, I was amazed by the collective intelligence, eloquence and creativity of the group. That night, Daniel Bush, the leader of the social responsibility component of our trip, introduced himself and spoke to us. Just like the rest of the staff members of the trip, Daniel comes from an intriguing combination of a complex religious, intellectual, academic and social background. One very interesting piece of his talk was his seemingly random question to the group to show, by a show of hands, how many of us were artists and how many were athletic. Interestingly enough, though hardly surprising from the self-selective group, artists vastly outnumbered athletes. Oh, it was also my birthday.
Sunday, today, was one half very fun and one half very, very boring. We had the leader of the scholarly world on Bedouins speak to us and lead us around Ben Gurion’s house and tomb at Sede Boker. Clinton Bailey, was an intellectual, that was for sure. He also happened to be the most dry, uninteresting, unenthusiastic speaker the group collectively agreed had ever heard speak. Although we later were rebuked for our behavior, a significant chunk of the group had a nice nap during his so-called lecture. During the afternoon we visited a Bedouin school and sat in on a short class. Although we could hardly communicate with the children due to a thick language barrier, the visit was amazing. I felt as though I had been placed on a foreign planet. Houses were made out of tin and cinder blocks. In the past I had visited ‘Bedouin’ tents, but both times were tourist attractions, this was ‘the real deal’.
Well…. It was a rather frustrating discovery to see that Peter Geffen just sent an email to all the parents explaining our trip thus far, in far more eloquent language.
So.

I now turn to the “adin’s head” portion of this story. This trip has turned out to be a absolutely fantastic. As I said before, this trip is composed of really smart, funny, interesting people. Everyone here is passionate about learning and exploring. Learning about the world, the ‘other’, about themselves, about other countries, learning Hebrew and Arabic, among countless other topics. The counselors are not too old that they cant connect to us as high school graduates but not too young that they lose any sense of authority. They, as well, are smart and interesting people.

That’s it for now. But I am eager to share my experiences as I come to them. Keep posted for any updates.

-adin