The Holidays

It’s been a while. Okay, I have been extremely lazy with maintaining this blog.
So there have been four national holidays that have happened since I last updated this blog.
The first holiday was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I can’t say that I am that involved in Jewish at home besides the major ones, so I don’t have much to compare the Kibbutz celebration to the my American Jewish experience celebration these holidays. To start off Yom Hashoah, they had a large ceremony led mainly by the 17 and 18 year olds of the Kibbutz. Between songs, they had filmed interviews with Holocaust survivors from the Kibbutz and they had a couple children who survived the Holocaust speak in person. Hannah, a 20 something year old who works in the chedar ochel with me and is going part time to music school, sung for everyone. I usually hear her sing in clean-up during work, but on stage, with no background noise to drown her out, her voice was amazing.
I think we had the next day off of work, but I honestly can’t remember. There was a big ceremony on the back lawn that everyone also went to the next night to end the holiday.

The next Holiday we had was Yom HaZichron, Memorial day in Israel. The day is meant to remember everyone who lost their lives in service of the Israel army and to remember all the people who were killed in the many terrorists attacks Israel has had. At first I was very confused about this holiday. I thought that it would be similar to America’s Memorial day, where there are parades, we get school and work off, nothing too emotional. I know there are some communities that take the US Memorial Day very seriously, but since I don’t know a single person who is even in the military, it is not that meaningful of a day to me and I think it is the same for many other Americans. Here in Israel, I experienced a completely different type of Memorial Day. We had a giant ceremony on the lawn again, in which everyone wore white. In addition to the super patriot themes, there were songs, and stories. There were many stories. The stories were about brothers, sons, and friends who had all fallen in combat. Since the stories were told with such emotion through pain and sometimes even tears, I didn’t understand that much, but luckily I had a friend from “Dalet” ( the highest Hebrew class) to translate for me.
After the ceremony, we went to the coffee shop. There they had pictures and little books filled with more pictures and short biographies written by parents and friends. Altogether, there were about 30 people in the Kibbutz that had died in the service of the military. While that is a lot of people, for a Kibbutz that has existed since 1949, and has a population now of about 1,500, that number doesn’t seem that bad. It is actually really low considering that the culture on the Kibbutz is to go to combat units and Special Forces units.

The day before Yom HaZicharon we had our own Ulpan ceremony organized by my teacher and the “Gimel” teacher. It was similar to the ceremony the Kibbutz had except there were parts of it that were in English. Carrie, a girl from South Africa, shared a horrendous story. About two years ago in 2011, her then longtime boyfriend of 3 years parents and aunt and uncle were driving down to Eilat, and were stop by a group of terrorists pretending to be a security checkpoint in the road. They were shot point blank in the head along with seven other people in the cars behind them. The story really hit me hard, especially because I could understand it in its entirety. I think that because Israel is so small, everyone in Israel has either lost someone to terrorism or war, or at least knows someone who has lost someone.

Immediately following Yom HaZicharon, we celebrated Yom HaAzmaoot, Israel Independence Day. As somber as Yom HaZicharon was, Yom HaAzmaoot was a complete 180 and turned into a giant party with one of the most energetic ambiances I have ever experienced. After a quick outdoor ceremony that included classic Israeli folk dances and Israeli break dancing, we all climbed on the roof of the chedar ochel to watch the fireworks that they set off down the hill over the fishponds. It was beautiful, especially with the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea as a backdrop to the many colorful and loud fireworks. After the fireworks is when things got really crazy. The Kibbutz was handing out free beer and Caiperinha, a Brazilian drink with Cachaca, sugar, and lemon (according to Wikipedia it is supposed to be made with lime). The Kibbutznicks were out of control, I remember seeing this guy with a hook for a hand dancing around like crazy on the pub dance floor. It was quite ridiculous how drunk some of the Kibbuznicks, and some Ulpanists (not me), and some Bambachim got. The next day was filled with Barbeques on the beach.
The last most recent holiday that we had was “Workers Day” on May 1st. At first I had no clue what people were talking about when they said it was workers day, I thought it was like America’s labor day (without the sales of course) celebrated early. When I asked my Chilean friend Eytan what the holiday was he said it was celebrated all around the world. It was then that I realized it was May Day. Or I think it was, I still am not completely sure. The Kibbutz no longer celebrates the holiday because it feels it has lost its true meaning. Instead, all the money that Plasson made on that day went to charity. I knew that Israel was partly a socialist country, but I never really thought about it that much.

That is it for the holidays so far…


Oh I also, got a new roommate, Daniel Chippin from Canada. Alex switched rooms with Daniel because he is really good friends with Daniel's former roommates. the switch is going well especially since Daniel and I were already friends.

Hofesh Pesach

A lot of stuff happened over Choffesh Pesach (Passover Break)

On March 22nd I headed down to Tel-Aviv to meet the Hoffman clan. I got in from the train station around 12 PM and my plan was to walk around Tel-Aviv for 6 hours before meeting up with the Hoffman's at their hotel at the David Panorama. Unfortunately, there was a sandstorm that blew north from Egypt that captured almost all of Israel. It was hot and very dusty. I decided to rest at a place I knew very well. The bench outside the Chertock's apartment, which was conveniently in the direction I first walked. To my luck right as I passed by the apartment driveway, Mika, the Chertock's daughter was getting something from their car and invited me inside. I felt a little bad for dropping in so unexpectedly, but the Chertock's welcomed me with open arms.

After some rest at Chateau Chertock, I dropped my bag and walked around Tel-Aviv for a few hours and got some lunch. I met the Hoffman's at their hotel via Noam driving me, (eeek!!!!) (just kidding he was much better than the typical Israeli driver). It turned out that they had actually been in Tel-Aviv since 2PM. After I got my stuff situated in the nice rollaway bed the hotel gave me.


We had a lovely dinner at a restaurant in the nice part of Nevezedeck then walked around. Ellen showed us the center for dance in Israel which was right around the block from the restaurant. This area contained the top four dance companies in Israel.

The next morning we woke up at around 10 AM and went to the delicious hotel brunch. I swear there were 5 different kinds of cheese, all the types of fruits I could think of, 4 different types of fish, and a bunch of other delicious foods. This was the overarching theme of our brunches: delectable and all you can eat.

From there we headed up north, but we had a pit stop at a place right near the kibbutz: Cesaria, a community about 10 kilometers south of Ma'agan Michael. The cool thing about Cesaria, was that it used to be giant Roman port, palace city built by King Herrod 2000 years ago. We saw the ruins/ relics of the ancient city including its amazing amphitheater, horse racing stadium, and the foundation of Herrod's palace.`

We ended our night at Kfar Blum, a kibbutz hotel up north near Kyriat Shmoneh. We had dinner at this Italian place called Ciabatta, a good lead up to Pesach.

The next day we went on a big Ti-ul all around the north and the Golan. First, we went to a former 1967 Syrian bunker. It was amazing hearing the story from the Hoffman's tour guide, Uriel, about how the Israeli army captured the base in the 6 day war. After that, we went to the Banians springs, supposedly the play ground of the Greek god Pan.

From there we drove up to Nimrod's Castle. It was an ancient crusader castle built in the 12th century by the Templer Knights. It was a crucial point to controlling the entrance to the holy land and to the Mediterranean Sea.

We went to have lunch in a Druze Village. It had AMAZING labana. At lunch we heard some rockets fired. At the time we thought it was just a Israeli military test, but the following day we found out that the Syrian opposition had fired into Israel, so to counter the attack, Israel destroyed one of their bases.

The next day we drove back to Tel-Aviv.

From there I returned to the Chertock's Apartment for Pesach Sedar. The sedar was a bit smaller than normal. It consisted of the Chertock's, Hanush's brother, nephew, and sister-in-law. It was very fun and intimate. We read through the whole Haggadah in Hebrew, then did a dance we found online to Echad-mi-yodeah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHw8lZvH4Es . We had rice with , beef bergonion gulash, and lamb chops. After dinner, Noam showed me the bar scene at Allenby street. It was really cool, too bad every bar was either empty or closed so we didn't stay that long.

Tiyul to the Negev

Hi everyone that is still following me on this blog. Sorry for my sparse (lack of) postings these last two weeks. In truth, nothing super interesting happened. I have been surfing almost every day possible excluding the two days a week I have been doing army training. When there are no waves, which happened about half the times I have gone to the surf shack, they always have something else to do. This past week I learned how to paddle surf. It is sort of like canoeing on a surf board while standing up with small waves throwing you to and fro. It was challenging, but once I got the hang of the balance the only reason I fell was due to waves that I wasn’t sufficiently prepared for.

I also got my second test back in my Ulpan class; 95% wasn’t too bad, but I feel like the test was so easy that I could have probably done better had I studied more. I really have been trying to study more. Some nights I am more successful than others. But I have been doing other things to help my Hebrew: talking to my bosses in Hebrew, watching Israeli television, and flirting with Israeli girls in the pub ;-) . I am starting to pick up on the most of the words when people talk. Now I just need to learn the meaning to the 95% of words I don’t know.

I am also in the process of switching rooms in an amicable way. I am switching with this kid Gideon, who is going to CWRU next year, except the switch is currently postponed, due to Gideon’s second thoughts. If the switch does happen I will be rooming with Pavel, the Russian, who lived in Germany most of his life and speaks English. The other guy I would be rooming with is Daniel, another guy from Russia, I don’t know that much about him because he doesn’t speak English and is a little quiet, but I think it will be a nice change.
Last night we got back from our two day trip to the Negev. It was Amazing. I will try my best to give a detailed outline of the trip.

The night before the trip some friends and I stayed up really late and watched “Horrible Bosses” in the “moadon” our ulpan’s community space. The movie was really funny, but by the time it was over we had all passed out on the couch. Luckily, someone set an alarm on their phone and we were all able to get up with sufficient time to pack and shower before our bus left at 5:30 AM. Or it was supposed to leave then except being part of the Middle East, where time means nothing, the bus didn’t arrive until 6 AM.
My lack of sleep the night before contributed the ease I had in falling asleep on the bus as we made our way to the Negev. The first stop on the trip was the “machktesh gadol” a giant crater like geological formation in the middle of Negev near Ber Sheva.

Our guide Felix gave us a great “eggsplanation” of how the machktesh was formed. I am not sure if he confused his thousands and millions, so either 80 thousand or 80 million years ago, the Arabian tectonic plate collided with the African plate, created enormous earthquakes which resulted in 3 giant egg shaped sandstone mountains. Here is where our guide pulled out a hard-boiled egg. He started cracking the egg shell with his finger and said that was how years of rain began to crack the hard outer soil later. Then eventually it washed this outer layer away, with that he wiped the shell away. Then the rain and erosion quickly (geologically wise) broke down the inner layers of the earth and washed it through the one flash flood stream that runs through the machktesh, then he took a bite of out of the egg. That left a crater like shape.
After the machktesh we went to an ancient camel water hole on a spice trade route to the port in gaza.
Then we were off to the Dead Sea (yom hamelech) the Salt Sea. Almost everyone went into the Dead Sea. Someone bought a jar of mud and was nice enough to share the extra mud with everyone. My skin felt super soft afterwards.
Then we headed to the Bedouin camp. It was really fun. They welcomed us with the traditional Bedouin three cups of coffee. After that we had a beduin dinner where we sat four to a ground table and consumed tons upon tons of rice, lamb, and chicken. It was delicious. After dinner we had a bonfire, where we revealed our secret Midgets to each other. It was a game we played modeled off of Secret Santa except we would leave anonymous presents at people’s rooms or in their boxes. The person who gave me my gifts which included two very good chocolate bars was my friend Daniel Chippin from Canada. I never would have guessed him though, he was uber anonymous. After that we all went to sleep in a giant Bedouin tent. It was really dusty, but sort of fun being in a giant tent with 90 good friends.

In the morning we went to hike Masada. It was really pretty. I relearned the history of it as the last zealot stronghold during the Roman destruction of second temple in 70A.D. and the resulting war.

After Masada, we went to the Eyn Ghedi nature reserve. In the parking lot I saw a flash of red hair go by and decided to follow it. It turns out that it was the younger sister of Micah’s best friend Isaac Hoffman. I knew their family was in Israel because I was planning on meeting up with them this coming weekend, but it was really cool that we were in the same place at the same time. The nature reserve was a beautiful green spot in the barren Judean desert right next to the northern side of the Dead Sea. There were many spectacular waterfalls that came from nahal (stream) David.
It took about four hours to get back to the Kibbutz after Eyn Ghedi due to some bad Jerusalem traffic. About 7 of us ended up taking a nap on the floor of the bus because everywhere else was super cramped. I arrived back to the Kibbutz exhausted at 6 P.M. yesterday

(pictures to come soon)

Late Nights in Kibbutzland

The past week on kibbutz Ma'agan Michael has been pretty fun. I guess I will relive the past 5 or 6 days in chronological order, just the highlights though.

For some reason last Tuesday night I had a horrible time sleeping, so I woke up at about 5am and went out to the beach: it was beautiful. Even though the sun rises over the mountains to the east of the kibbutz, the moon was on a certain cycle where it sets in the west over the sea. It was beautiful. The funny thing was that as I was taking these pictures I tripped over a giant rock hidden by the darkness and fell flat on my face.

This picture was worth the pain and self humiliation.

I spent the next hour and a half laying on top of some huts on the beach and watched as the sun illuminated the kibbutz and the moon disappeared over the horizon in the sunlight. It was inspiring.



Nothing particularly interesting happened the rest of the week at the kibbutz until Friday night-- the night of the Kibbutz adult Purim Party. It was crazy, and held at a redecorated hedar ochel dining hall. While the consensus among most of the ulpanists was that the party was in likeness to a high school dance. The thing is that I guess it was sort of like a high school dance, if your high school served super cheep alcohol drinks, great food, and didn't lock you inside the pool lobby for the duration of the dance. OK maybe the last statement was just a Hawken thing. I do have to say I had a blast. For the party I went as a French painter. My costume was equipped with a pallet, paintbrush, frenh baret, and a button down painting shirt with paint of a assortment of colors covering it.


After the party ended at about 3:30 AM! I wondered over to the pub right outside my room. They had an alternative party going on equipped with trance music instead of regular pop party music. The party was pretty dead, but luckily I spotted my new friend Pavel, the Russian who lived in Germany for 10 years and speaks perfect English. He introduced me to his new friend Sonia, a neo-conservative Russian American olah hadesha. After about an hour of speaking about politics, we decided to go to the roof of the then abandoned, the chedar ochel. We stayed there until about 5 AM. Then I went to bed.

Saturday was filled with some catching up on sleep and lounging on the beach.

The last thing the I want to tell you, my readers, is about my evening tonight. Every Wednesday and Sunday evening at 4:30PM the kibbutz has a pre-army training workout program. It's meant for the kibbutznics and olim hadashim planning on entering the army, but they don't actually check and my faked interest in joining the army (not in a million years)was enough to get an invite to the training. I didn't finish class until about 5 PM so me and the rest of my classmates got to the training about 45 minutes late. Nonetheless, the training was fun and hard. It included running down the beach from circuit to circuit. In between circuits of crawling, sprinting, running up a sand dune, and just plain running we had to jump into the salty Mediterranean. The first time I made the mistake of opening my mouth a little, and I felt the salt in my mouth all the way until the first, and only water break. We also had to wade in a fishpond empty of fish for about 10 minutes, its a test in the army tryouts. While it made most people cramp and freezing. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It reminded me a bit of cold rink before, during, and after run through. It was a bit easier just because the air was relatively warm compared to the ice cold, dry or super damp, lung puncturing air inside the ice rink. Overall, I finished tied for 3rd among the 25 or so ulpanist that did the training. Not too bad for my first time doing the training. When I finished the training I was soaked, covered in sand, and smelled like sweat and fish poop; I felt amazing.

Before I go, I forgot to mention that Katie Scott, my history teach in 10 and 12 grade asked me to skype her Middle Eastern Studies class and talk about the kibbutz and current politics in Israel. While I know a lot about the the history of the kibbutz, I know close to nothing about Israeli politics, it seems so much more complicated than American politics, or at least to an outsider. I better go and educate myself about this stuff. Until next time.

It’s A Small World After All

Last Wednesday we had a tiul, or field trip to Rahovot and Jaffa. Rahovot, now somewhat of a southern suburb of Jaffa contained three highly interesting places: The Weismann Institute, which has it’s very own particle accelerator; the site of one of the largest British military outpost in the middle east; and Ayolan Institute, the place that we came to see. Before its conversion into the ghost of its former self, the Ayolan Institute was an active functioning kibbutz, with an underground bullet making operation. From the late 1930s-through the 1940’s there was an illegal arms race between Arabs and Jews. The British who had control over Palestine at the time forbid both groups from gathering arms. It was a capital punishment under the British Mandate to produce weapons. All around Palestine at the time there were secret operations producing the guns for the coming war between Jews and Arabs, but the secret factory at the Ayolan Institute was the only place producing bullets for these guns. The factory itself was located underground between the laundry room and the bakery. I still can’t believe that they did the whole operation within a mile of the largest British base in Palestine.

After the Ayolan Institute, we took a quick tour of Jaffa. In Jaffa we went shopping in the shuk and flee market, but since cleaning out Mary’s house, I can’t look at so much junk and have any intention of buying it. The bus ride back took 2.5 hours (a trip that should take about 40 minutes). We basically took every side street from Tel-Aviv to Natanya.

Nothing particularly interesting happened the rest of the week until the Friday night of Purim. A newly arrived Ulpanist from Zurich, Liat, invited us to her cousin’s party in Tel-Aviv. None of the people who went to the party wanted to stay the night in Tel-Aviv, so we rented a sherut for the night. There were 9 of us who split the sherut. Before the party started we went to this bar where the bartenders were dressed as bees. It was pretty funny, seeing a fully grown man in a bee costume meant for a petite girl. At the bar I ordered my first beer ever from a restaurant. It was so exciting!

After the bar we headed to the party. It was located about a mile north of the Florentin neighborhood of Tel-Aviv. We got to the building and the door was locked. Luckily, a friendly face from a nearby balcony shouted the code: 1357. After walking up 4 long flights of stairs, we ended up on the roof, for a misebah al roof. I felt a little awkward at first because it was a costume party and I didn’t have a costume. Once the party got underway though, I felt much more comfortable. It was so much fun. Unbeknownst to everyone from the kibbutz that came to the party, except for Liat, Liat’s cousin did the Ulpan at Ma’agan Michael a year and a half ago (ulpan 107, we are 110) , and a lot of the people she invited to the party had done the ulpan with her and lived nearby in Tel-Aviv. I also met a couple other Americans my age who are also taking a gap year and going to college next year. Altogether, it was a very exciting and fun night. The sherut picked us up at 2:45 and we were back at the kibbutz by 3:20; much faster than the bus on Wednesday.

Here is my friend's beard costume I tried on for a picture, I sort of had the right them with cowboys and cacti on my shirt.


We got class off on Sunday because of Purim, but I still had to work in the afternoon.
Today in class we had a giant misebah (party) to celebrate Purim. Luckily, our teacher brought some play costumes for us to use for the party, and I actually found a great costume; a French painter, barrette, palate, and everything. I am planning on wearing it to the kibbutz’s Purim party this weekend.

Tel-Aviv: Early Nights?

Last weekend was the first time since I arrived that I left the kibbutz. After an eventful Valentine's night, where I captured my first valentine, I ditched the Kibbutz early Friday morning at about 7 because I didn't have any work. Since the shuttle to Binyamina (a town about 5 miles away with the closest train station)didn't operate until 12 PM, my plan was to walk to the nearest bus station about a kilometer from Ma'agan Michael. While walking, I was going to hold out a thumb hoping for a car leaving the kibbutz (specially marked of course, so it is safe) to either give me a ride to Tel- Aviv, the train state, or the bus station. Luckily, I didn't even have to walk out of the entrance before someone offered me a ride. The friendly driver who so nicely offered to take me to the train station, was a girl who works at the school on Ma'agan Michael who was going to Jerusalem to visit her family. Once I got to the train station, it was smooth sailing (besides the train station's inability to take an American credit or debit card) to Hashalom station. Although, David Chertock recommended taking a bus to Dizengoff square, I was feeling a little antsy after the car and train ride, so the twenty minute walk to chateu Chertock seemed like a nice change of pace.

When I arrived at the 14 Zamenhoff, Tel-Aviv, I was greeted with a smile and a warm welcome from David Chertock, my dad's good friend from Columbia University. After I settled my stuff in to the apartment, we went to do double errand: get me breakfast, and pick up hallah and food for the weekend. It so happened that we were able to accomplish this at the same place. Yachanan!, a little restaurant about a kilometer or two south of the Chertock's apartment. The best way to describe it would be a mix between a waitressed Stone Oven and the ready made food section at Whole Foods. David's mission for the weekend was to keep me better fed than a Jewish Bubbi. At Yochanan's, I ordered french toast and a cappuccino. I was ecstatic when the dish came with real maple syrup, not kibbutz corn syrup syrup, or Omaha's hot syrup, REAL MAPLE SYRUP! I also tried some of David's herring. Delicious. We also got an assortment of salads, meats, and some vanilla toot jam.


We returned to the apartment, and shortly after Hanush, David's wife, arrived. Then about half an hour later, David and Hanush's son Noam arrived. He was in a hurry because he had a pre-army thing, for the community based army service he is going to enter next year. After Noam left I decided to go to the mall and get a few essential items that I had been lacking the past few weeks, which included: extra socks and undies, a power-cord with 4 outlets (we only have two working outlets in our room of three people), and an extra towel. The Dizengoff mall, though not humongous, was utterly confusing. It consisted of uneven ramps that went up about 3 levels or 4 levels depending how you counted that spanned two small blocks. The narrow hallways would not have been a problem if by 2PM everyone had not stormed the mall, and there were no street vendors making food inside the hallways, thus creating narrow gaps for people to pass through. All in all the shopping trip was successful. After shopping, I took a walk by myself to the Tel-Aviv port, about two miles away. The farmer's market was just closing, but I did manage to get some fresh squeezed carrot juice and cooked sugar coated pecans and cashews.

Here is a pic of the port, now a shopping area.


When I got back to the apartment, Mika Chertock, their 16 year old daughter, was back, but soon left for her friend's house concert. This left me with no kid plans. Since in Israel I am a full adult, I decided to embrace it, so I ended up going to Django Unchained with David and Hanush. While the movie was enthralling, it was violent enough to even give Hanush, an Israeli worn by many years of Israel's conflict, nightmares. So much blood! The movie ended at 2, and I was to bed by 2:30AM. Although this sounds late, in Israel, especially Tel-Aviv, the night is young until about 4:30AM. When we got back we found Mika, in her pj's. Apparently, the concert had been broken up by the police due to sound complaints.

Since Noam was gone, I got his room for the weekend. I got sooooo much sleep. I slept until 11AM. To put this in perspective, usually, after a 4:30 AM Friday night, I wake up at 8:30 or 9. The bed was so comfortable. At about 1PM I went to get coffee at a cafe a few blocks over per David's recommendation. One by one, the three Tel-Aviv present members of the Chertock clan joined me. I had another delicious cappuccino, and a frittata with potato and Gouda cheese on top. It also came with bread, jam, and a delicious 3% spread.


For the afternoon David took me to the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art. According to Hanush, our resident art expert, the museum recently experienced a change in leadership, so the main exhibits encompassed many more modern and contemporary pieces. The most interesting exhibits in the museum were the photographs by Pinchas Cohen Gan, and the artistic movies by Douglas Gordan. My favorite part of Gorden's large exhibit entitled, I Am Douglas Gordan was his 90 minute film of Zidane, the French soccer player. It plays on two wide screens next to each other and was of one of Zidane's game shot at 12 different camera angles, which alternate and fade in and out at different times.

After the museum I took a long nap, then went out to yet another amazing local restaurant with a Greek Mediterranean theme. David and I split some fish, a burekka with an egg inside, and ... sweat breads, which weren't that bad. After dinner, Hanush dropped me off at the markaz train station and I returned to the kibbutz.

Lets go to the beach

Its been a couple of days since my last post and a lot has happened. Unfortunately, it's way to much to put into this small blog experiment so I will try to go over the highlights in chronological order.

Friday after work, which ended at 11AM, everyone went to the beach for an afternoon filled with sun. After relaxing for an hour or so on the sand, I decided to go for my long run of the week-- a 10k on the beach. While it was a hard run, I think I did it pretty fast for my first 10k especially in sand. When I returned back to where everyone was hanging out, two Aussies, my roommate Alex and I decided to swim out to the small rocky island about 300 meters into the sea. The water was freezing! When I stepped onto the rock, to my surprise, pain went shooting up my foot. Luckily, I didn't cut anything, but the island turned out to be a dead coral reef that had been pushed up above water. We managed to find a smoothed out part of the coral and rested there for about 15 minutes, before swimming back. Later, we found out that to kibbutznicks , the coral was basically nothing because they are used to rough surfaces from running around the kibbutz barefoot at such a young age. I guess Friday was my partial triathlon day, I just forgot about the bike part of it.

Saturday, while most people slept in until 11 or 12, i made sure to wake myself and my roommates up early enough to catch an 9:30 breakfast. After breakfast we went to the beach until 12. Then we went to lunch. I made sure to save some of the salad being served at lunch for dinner, because the Kibbutz does't provide any food for Saturday night. After lunch, we went back to the beach for 4 more hours. I got in on a game of soccer (football), and learn how to play the Israeli beach game with the wooden paddles (I still don't know it's name).

FYI, for all those concerned I wore lots of sun screen and remembered to reapply.

Around 7PM I returned to the beach with some of my friends and we had a great barbecue cookout on the beach. Because no one had an actual grill, we dug a hole in the sand, put wood in it, and had a small metal frame over it. We also made a second larger fire for light and heat. In addition to the salad I nabbed from lunch, I had mini veal burgers I bought from the merkolit . The burgers were delicious and everyone else agreed. There was a lot of other food too: hot dogs, salchichas, bruchetta, kebabs, and marshmallow. We sung a lot of songs by the fire too, but none of them were in English so I just clapped to the beat.

Sunday, was sort of sucky going back to work and classes, I really wish we had two day weekends here instead of one day weekends. My class and work schedule changed. This week I have class in the morning, and work in the afternoon. Even though class starts at 715, it is so close to my room I don't have to wake up until 7 AM. Although I am tired in the morning, I find that from years of early school days, I learn better in the morning. Habit I guess. In the afternoon my work partner Ofir came down with something, so I was by myself with Yizack (Isaac) and Nomi (the woman who had her birthday last Thursday who's name I forgot). I actually had a really nice conversation with Yizack while pealing and shredding (through a machine) 4 full 15 kilo bags of onions. As a side note, normally the kitchen uses 7 of these bags a day, yet there is rarely any dish where you actually see onions, it is a mystery to Ofir, Nomi, Yisack, and me to where Shlomo, the chef, hides all of these onions. Anyways, Yisack has 3 children. A daughter in her 20's just finishing the army. He has an 18 year old son, who is a dancer. And he has a 14 year old son who came into the kitchen today (Monday), to make cookies with his friends.

Speaking of today. Today I while cutting 3 boxes of eggplant, I found an especially Jewish eggplant with a great sense of smell :)

One Week In

It has officially been a week since I arrived at Kibbutz Ma’agan Micheal. I have finished a week of class, four days of work, completed a load of laundry, and taken five runs. As an update to my post “Maybe it’s jetlag, maybe it’s the coffee.” I figured out why I couldn’t sleep. It was neither the coffee nor the jetlag. It was the mattress and the lack of a pillow with any cushion. Luckily, I was able to get a second pillow and switch my mattress. I can say with certainty that I have been getting my nightly eight.

Today, a lady from MASA came to check up on all the tourists. She told us that around this time in the program we should be getting over our first hump of acclimation to Kibbutz life. I would say her assessment is pretty accurate. I don’t get lost anymore. I have a great group of friends who I can talk to and feel comfortable hanging out with. My room is not a mess anymore.

This week I have been testing the waters with a new form of exercise. No, it’s too cold to swim. I have been running all around the kibbutz and on the beach. Most of my runs have been after class lets out, but today I decided to take run between work and class. The strong beach breeze provides a great way to cool off during the run. Here are some of my favorite pictures from my runs. The sunsets and sunrises here are so beautiful

Life is really laid back here. With the myriad of cultures on the Kibbutz, it is really fun how almost nothing is off limits for conversation: from shit to stereotypes. For example, today in class I asked my Mexican friend, Moses, what kinds of maids and housekeepers they have in Mexico (I meant this to be a little jab at him since he had to be the maid of the class this week: sweep, and clean after class). He calmly responded mostly Mexicanas and Guatamaltecas. Needless to say he got the joke.

Actually, my Spanish has been super helpful here on the kibbutz. About half of the program is from a Spanish speaking country. Without Spanish, I would be lost.

Today I found out that every Thursday in the kitchen we have a staff meeting where we celebrate occasions. Today it was someone’s birthday so we had pop ice cream and cake.

For now the week is over and Shabbat is near. I am not going anywhere this weekend, but next weekend I plan to venture out somewhere. L’hitraot for now.

The New Norm

Yesterday was the first day of work and class. The way the schedule works is that everyone works 24 hours a week, and we have 4 hours of classes Sunday through Thursday, but don’t have class on Friday or Shabbat. Each week we switch off who goes to class in the morning and who works in the morning. For me, this week I start work in the kitchen at 7 AM, get a break for breakfast at 9AM, then work again from 9:30AM- 11:30AM. I start class after lunch at 1 PM in the afternoon. It goes until 5 PM and we have two breaks. Every other week, when I have class in the morning, I actually don’t have anything on Friday. This means I have Thursday night and Shabbat to travel throughout Israel on these weekends.


So far, the ulpan class has been very interesting. I am in Kitah Bet (class 2 of 4). Although, everyone in the class knows Hebrew in some form or another, the teacher, moreh Tamar, explained that we would start from the beginning, but do an accelerated version of Kitah aleph. So far we have been learning the aleph-bet, not in the regular order of things, but in a way that we can create, and read simple words. The strange thing about the class is that about half the class learned Hebrew in a Synagogue Hebrew School setting, so they can read and write, just understand very little of what is spoken and/ or written in complicated sentences. The other half of the class never learned Hebrew in a class setting. Though they can communicate to the teacher in Hebrew without any hesitation, when it comes to reading and writing, they act like dyslexic kindergarteners, messing up reading two letter words. The teacher said that two weeks more in and we would all be in the same place. I am a bit worried that when the Hebrew speakers learn the phonetics, they will leave the non-hebrew vocab lacking people in the dust.

(my friend Moses from Mexico, who I sit behind)



Working in the kitchen has been pretty fun so far. The first day of work Yaron gave us bad information about our start time. He told us to arrive at 9:30 instead of 7. So we only worked half a day. There are six of us that work in the kitchen. Justin, a 22 year old, self-made, internet advertiser, works unloading shipments, while my roommate Noah, another gapyearie Emily, and another kid (I haven’t bothered to learn his name yet) work in the hot kitchen. I work in the cold kitchen with an 20 year old, Olim (new immigrant) from Australia: Ofir. Although she is technically a returning citizen (she was born in Israel), I still group her in the category of people who are staying in Israel after the kibbutz-ulpan program ends. The first day, for the whole (daunting) 2 hours, I just shredded onions through a food processor. It went by quickly just talking to Ofir.

In addition to Ofir, a man older man named Yizach, and a middle aged woman whose name I can’t remember at the moment work with us (I will find her name out tomorrow). Well actually they tell us what to do, how to do, and when we are doing it wrong. But they have been very nice so far.
Today, it was a little challenging getting up at 6:45 AM since I haven’t been used to it for almost a year (2nd semester senior year I got up the latest I possibly could with being late, usually 7:20). It is a little weird working for two hours without breakfast (breakfast doesn’t open until 7:30 AM so we can’t have breakfast beforehand), but I managed. Today I got to do more of a variety of mindless tasks. I got to cut up sweet potatoes, shred zucchini, shell hard-boiled eggs, and peel avocados.

The last two were to be used for a salad that was to be mixed together. The time went by pretty fast, and before I knew it, the end was upon me. The people were very nice. When the shift ended they gave us free freshly baked pizza that was being served at lunch, so I didn’t need to even buy lunch today!!!

Beach and Hike

For Shabbat a few days ago everyone decided to go to the beach since it was the first day that the sun was out. At first all the guys were just doing pull-ups on these tent frames that lined parts of the beach. Although most of the guys here are in great shape because they are training for the Israeli Army, after about 20 minutes of macho-showing off, everyone's forearms were too sore to continue.

About an hour after this the South Americans attempted to organize a futbol game. Between round the circle sips of yerba mates, and lots of arguing, we managed to organize ourselves into teams of 7. My team was decent. We had a couple non-football oriented South Africans, a Canadian, some others, and then there was Arielle. He was the core of our team. He scored almost every goal. We ended the game after an hour because everyone's feet began to kill from running on the shells. For clarification this was more due to the hardness on the top part of the shells, no one got any cuts on their feet.

Then we had another mate break.

After, the South Americans began to sing Spanish pop songs to the tune of drums and a guitar. Although, I couldn't join in, due to a lack of knowing the lyrics and being able to sing, I offered moral support and enjoyed the music. We stayed on the beach until about 5, then it got cold and we left.

The rest of Shabbat was pretty chillax. Nothing happened.

On Sunday, I coerced everyone to get up early for a hike. About a group of 15 of us went on the hike to a park, the Ramat Hanadiv Gardens, about 3 miles inland of the kibbutz. In order to get there we had to walk on the road for about a mile and a half, then find a path that lead up the hills that were maybe 500 feet high. At the top of the park we had a great view of the whole kibbutz and the sea. To our surprise, there were two hidden gems up there. The first was a special yellow flower that had an edible stem. There were hundreds of them and they tasted like organic, earthy warheads. The second surprise was at the park there was this fabulous play ground. It had a giant slide the used canopy ropes to get people up to the top. It also had a log swing that looked like a connected Newton's Cradle. I don't have too many pictures of it now, but when I get them off of other peoples camera's I will try to post them. This all was Sunday morning.

(a future CWRU student Giddon with the edible warhead flower)

Sunday afternoon was a whole nother story. It was what most people would call an orientation to the kibbutz, but Yaron, the head of the program, insisted it was the "opening ceremony". The first thing they did was separate everyone into groups by native language, in order to talk to us about behavior, what to do and not to do, mostly use common sense and all. I learned two things. Don't go to the beach alone at night. I also learned to avoid punching, being punched, and anything of the sort. I don't know what happened at the last ulpan 109 (we are ulpan 110), but everyone was alluding to there being a fight, with punching of course. And actually, later in the day Yaron, begged us to not be like 109, which he outright said was a failure.failure!failure!! They also warned us against "going for romantic walks with yourself on the beach."According to Yaron there are camera's all over the kibbutz. While I am sure the cameras are for security, everyone couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the kibbutz using the cameras to get a little extra money. ;)


I also found out i was going to work in the kitchen starting Monday. I hope it isn't too boring.

Maybe it's jet lag, or maybe its coffee?

Today was my second morning waking up in Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael. Again, I woke up before 10 AM, what in Cleveland has become my typical get out of bed time! I am not quite sure what the problem is with my biological alarm clock.

My first night and second day on the kibbutz I had no coffee, no sleep on the plane, yet i went to bed at 1 AM and woke up at 6:45 AM.

Last night was a whole nother story. So after a fantastic Shabbat dinner, a food post will come eventually, they were handing out free espresso in the coffee shop next to the hadar ochel (dining hall). Naturally, missing my Phoenix coffee shop mochas and feeling a bit tired with the big discotech night ahead of me, I had 3 lattes.

The discotech was a very new experience for me because being under 21 I have never gone clubbing. The way the discotech works is that adolescents from all around the area come to the pub at the kibbutz for a giant dance party. If you are from the Kibbutz or living on it like all the Kibbutz- ulpan students it is free to enter, otherwise you have to show an I.D. and pay about 30 shekels or so to enter. At the pub the drinks are pricey. I think the reason the kibbutz hosts the giant parties is to make money off the entrance fee and the over-priced drinks. Anyways, I danced with my fellow students until about 3 AM when I tried to go to bed, but because the pub/discotech is 50 feet from my room, I wasn't able to fall asleep until 4 AM.

This is where strange things started to happen. This morning I woke up at 6:15AM, just as the sun was rising through the clouds

Though this picture looks cloudy, it was the first time since I got to Israel that there was a touch of sun, and it wasn't spewing rain. I walked around the Kibbutz for about 30 minutes and ended up wandering into an artist's studio. Although his name eludes me for the time being, he offered me some tea (perhaps later I will post my favorite sculptures of his). He recommended that I get a friend and take a day trip hike to the nearby mountains a few miles east of the Kibbutz. Ramat HaNadiv nature park is the name of the area. According to him, it is 4 hour or so hike/climb, and once there I can get a beautiful overview of all of Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael. I think that will be my afternoon today since everything is closed on Shabbat anyways.

Lastly, I want to let my readers know I am in heaven here. For the longest time my dad has wanted me to ease up on my expensive coffee addiction (mochas, lattes, cappuccinos, etc.) On the Kibbutz not only is there free espresso Friday nights, but in the dining hall, there are 6 different espresso/coffee/hot chocolate type machines to choose from.

Here are just a few of them


The total cost of a mocha is a shekel, or about a quarter!

Though the good inexpensive coffee here plus jet lag have contributed to my lack of sleep, I am very confident that soon enough I will have a full and healthy sleep schedule. :) ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.........

First Day in Israel

Hi everyone, I got to Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael safe and sound.

My flight over was pretty comfortable. My mom couldn't stop taking pictures of me with her before I left: in the airport garage, around security, check in, etc. The flight from Newark to Tel-aviv contained a mixture of ultra orthodox families, payos and all, with christian pilgrims. I ended up sitting with a nice Christian couple from Te

Once I got to the airport I bought a cell phone, and in the process missed the train that hour to Bimyamina. I ended up waiting at an airport cafe for about 45 minutes and sat with a French-Israeli women. Anyways, I caught the train to Bimyamina, then took a taxi to the Kibbutz.

After getting all the official stuff done in the office with the program's director, Yaron, I moved into my room.

The room is pretty small for three people, but when this picture was taken my roommates had yet to arrive. In fact, they didn't arrive until 8 PM. After I got my clothes labeled (for laundry) and unpacked, I went exploring around the kibbutz with a girl named Amber. Though technically from Vienna, Amber grew up in India at an English school, so communication was not a problem. (Actually, what I have found in general is that even though there are only about 10 Americans at the Kibbutz so far, almost everyone speaks English. Hopefully I will learn a little Hebrew though :) ) Amber and I found the Kibbutz's beautiful beach.

We walked around the beach for a little then went in search of the petting farm on the Kibbutz. We didn't find it, though we did end up going through a gate that locked us out of the kibbutz. We had to climb the fence back over.

My roommates arrived around 7 PM. They both were from the USA. I think the program directors did this on purpose so no one would feel too lonely. One of my roommates Alex is also taking a gap year next fall will be attending MIT. My other roommate, Noah, goes to a commuter college in Denver, but is taking a break from his degree. He is 22. Alex is 19 like me.

Last night everyone hung out at the pub. Although I am technically legal I didn't order any drinks. The ulpan is very worldly. So far the people that are at the Kibbutz are from: USA, England, Canada, Italy, France, Austria, Holland, South Africa, Australia, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Brasil, Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Sweden. But altogether there should be 26 countries represented here. Everyone has been so friendly and outgoing so far.

One Day Prior To Leaving

It has been almost a week since my last post, so I guess I should probably recap the rest of my nationals. Let me first say I had the best steak of my life in Omaha.

After finished my post last Wednesday, I went back to the rink and watched the Junior ladies free skate. The top 4 skaters were especially impressive. I think that US figure skating is en route to producing the same triple – triple jumping teens that Russia has been exporting to international competitions the past few years.

The unique thing about nationals is that when you finish competing, you can relax, where normally you would head back home to school and training for the next competition. National provides a great platform to get to know the kids you competed against throughout the year, not as competitors, but as people. Throughout the week I tried my best to hang out with as many people as possible. I got coffee and lunch with Jared and Stacy, the team Hannah and train with in Ann Arbor. We all enjoyed the gem of a coffee shop called Aromas, that was on the outskirts of old market. I also found that the WISA (Wheaton International Skating Academy) teams were particularly friendly even though they were from 2-6 years younger than I. I have been competing against them ever since I began ice dancing five years ago, and for the longest time I thought they were robots, programmed by their Russian coaches, we called the three-headed dragon. (Although they have four main coaches, when we coined the phrase we had only seen three of their coaches at competition) After the rest of the week hanging out with the WISA teams I determined that they were in fact NOT robots.

The last group of kids that I spent a considerable amount of time with were the junior pairs skaters. I really had never met any of the pairs skaters since pairs skaters and ice dancers do not usually compete at the same competition. Especially being from Cleveland, where we currently have no competitive pairs, it was very interesting getting to know the “pair skater persona”. While all of the pairs skaters were very nice people, I couldn’t help but realize that there was something off about them. I can only speculate there is a defective switch in their brains that should regulate fear. It may have been the fact that some of the girls were so ready to try press lifts in the lobby with guys (including me) who have never done pairs, or maybe it was that the guys were trying to press lift other pairs and dance guys, or lastly trying to do throw twists in the hotels hallways, that led me to this conclusion. Regardless of their sanity/ lack of fear, the pairs skaters were lots of fun to hang out with.

One last really cool thing that happened at nationals was talking with a bunch of important people in US figure skating. During the novice events I bumped into Patricia St. Peters, the president of USFSA. I had met her before at the USFSA Scholastic Honors Scholarship breakfast, but I reintroduced myself, and even ended up showing her the best way between the hotel and convention center (they were connected by a bridge, but it was very confusing getting between the two, because level 2.5 at the hotel went to level 2 in the convention center which then turned into level 4 in the arena with escalators in the wrong direction). My coach Brandon also invited me to this PSA (Professional Skaters Association) reception that was held at the convention center. Since I began coaching this year I had to get a membership with PSA, so I was technically allowed to go to the reception, even the majority, (if not everyone else there) were coaches of the skaters at nationals, judges, and members of the technical panel. I got to meet the assistant technical specialist of my event, Stephanie. I explained to her that this was my last year competing, but was interesting in becoming a technical specialist. She was super friendly and encouraged me to go to a technical seminar. She said that it was great I was interested because they need more former skaters who know technical side of skating to be on the technical panels. I also had a nice talk with Bob Horn one of the top ice dancing judges in the US! Like a lot of the officials and coaches I talked to throughout the week, he congratulated me on my performance improvement performance-wise throughout the year, and couldn't wait to see my improvement next year. This subject was really bittersweet for me. Although we placed 8th this year at junior, the top junior team and 7th place junior team both age out of international junior competition next year. This means we would have been the 6th ranked junior team in the US, almost surely guaranteeing us a junior international grand prix event had both Hannah and I not been braking up and going to college next year. While I have some regret leaving the sport of figure skating, I think my 6 month cold turkey in Israel and then Europe will be a good thing to lighten the blow.

Since I have gotten back from Cleveland, I have been frantically trying to get ready for Israel, or so I have been telling everyone and myself. In truth, I haven’t even begun to pack since I got back Sunday afternoon. Instead, I have been working on saying goodbye to people, and having some last wonderful tastes of Cleveland. Yesterday, I had brunch with friend Natasha. Although she is technically still in high school, all her classes are at CWRU, so we have hung out a lot this year. We had the best mac and cheese at Lucky’s café in Treemont, a neighborhood in downtown Cleveland, just across the Cuyahoga. Then I went to the rink one last time, to skate an hour of freestyle, and teach my last ice dance lesson. It was both exhilarating and sad to be on the ice one last time at Pavilion. Though I haven’t done free style for a month, my spins were better than I had left them, and my jumps through my double axel were perfect. For dinner last night, I went with my friend Hannah to Deweys, the local pizza shop. We had a whole 17” pizza of the “other pizza” ( a combination of pesto sauce, chicken, white sauce, cheese, and pine nuts). Afterwards we went to Tommy’s to get one last milkshake. I got a mocha and brownie milkshake. It was to die for!!! Today for breakfast I went to Luna a local pastry shop, and got one last gougere, a nest egg, and two macaroons (salted caramel and lemon). For lunch, I am heading to Anatolia café with my singles coach Molly (Jackie my dance coach was going to come too, but is unfortunately sick). And for dinner, I think I am going somewhere local with my family. I guess I am literally trying to devour the best parts of Cleveland, and take them with me to Israel. While it is sad to know everyone will be missing me, and I will in turn be missing them, I can’t help but feel glad to be missed. Or glad I will be missed. It means people care about me and I have had some impact in their lives.

Anyways, I probably need to get going and start packing for Israel. After going through about 3 pairs of clothes every day for the past 6 years (school clothes, skating clothes, and soccer clothes), I have not only developed a propensity for creating lots of laundry, but also over-packing for trips. It is going to be a real challenge to bring only the essentials to the kibbutz. Goodbye, for now. I may update again if I get bored on the plane ride from Newark to Israel, or once I get to the Kibbutz. Here is some last food for thought. (macaroons from Luna)

Post 1 (one week prior to leaving)

Hello everyone, I guess this will be my first post in what I hope will be a blog about my wonderful adventures in Israel. For those readers who don't know me, my name is Jacob Jaffe, I am from Cleveland, Ohio. I deferred a year from Brown University in order to pursue my passion in ice dancing. This year my skating partner Hannah Rosinski and I competed at the Junior level. While it was a tumultuous year, marred by nerves, injuries, pressure, and rocky competitions, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

This afternoon marked what I believe to be the end of my competitive skating career. Hannah and I placed 8th overall in Junior Dance at the US national championships. I have to say this is a very bittersweet moment. Hannah and I put together the best short dance and free dance of our careers, scoring our personal bests in both and almost edging a 3 time junior team (who placed 5th last year at this event and has been going to international junior grand prix competitions for the whole time) out of 7th place. We were about a point short. Anyways, it made the whole event that much sweeter to be right in the competition. Our goal for the season was to finish in the top 8, so Hannah and I were very happy that we achieved it.

Now, I get the rest of the week to relax and enjoy my last nationals as a competitor. Today is Wednesday, I get back to Cleveland on Sunday, and then a week from today I leave on a ll:15 flight to Newark, then onward ho to Jerusalem. From there I will take a train to the town right outside of Ma'agan Michael, the kibbutz I will be living on for 5 months, then i take a taxi the last few miles.

I still can't believe my nationals are over, and I am going away from home and everything for half a year. Most people experience this feeling when they go off to college, but I guess I am living my life a little differently than most people do, or at least trying to be an individual the best I can.

While I am not quite sure how this whole google blogger works, I guess I will try to end this first blog post with this picture Brandon, our dance coach from Ann Arbor took of Hannah and I after we finished our Phantom of the Opera Free dance as we were heading back to the locker rooms. Maybe it represents the end of one adventure in our lives and the beginning of a new adventure.