The Awesomeness that is Israel

Hey everyone!

So I haven't talked about my actual Jewish history class in awhile. I figured that since we are at my favorite part of Israel's history, I would share my thoughts with you all.

Today we began learning about the 6 Day War. Before I get to what I really want to talk about, can we please pause for a moment and think about that. Israel, as a young, still under resourced State, won a war against multiple Arab countries in less than a week. Just so much "wow". That's just really damn amazing!! I can't express how cool and inspiring that is!

All of Israel's history is fascinating. Every little decision that was made affected the existence of Israel. From the Zionist conferences to the UN's voting on the Jewish State to the Independence War to the Declaration of the State of Israel to the 6 Day War. Every outcome was a result of a leader's decision, every outcome was a miracle.

One thing that I learned this past summer was not to simply focus on my Jewish history, but to relate it to me and my life now. This sounds sort of obvious, but once you focus on this, everything becomes so much more real and significant. 

Saying that, my parents met in Israel. It's where the met, fell in love, got embarrassed by the fellow Kibutzniks, scarred their hands picking fruit, and decided to move back to the States to get married and have children...like me. 

If Ben Gurion hadn't declared the State of Israel when he did, or if Yitzhak Rabin led the army into battle with alternate strategies, I wouldn't be here, in classroom 4, writing this blog. Naturally, life is full of "if's" and I could say many more less significant "if" statements that would change the course of my life. However, these miracles that made Israel a State are the truly important ones. 

And I'm not the only one. In my 8th grade graduating class alone, around six of us had parents who met in Israel. Israel has become so relevant to Jewish life around the world. 

I wish that Yitzhak Rabin, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and so many more great Israeli leaders could see that importance that they had on the growth of the global Jewish community. They were amazing. Their decisions were amazing. Israel is damn amazing.

So I'm going to try my hardest to enjoy my last month in this amazing country.

Have a great week!

Shoshana :)

The Beauty of Israeli Culture

Shabbat Shalom!

This week, for my blog, I've been asked to write about some aspect of Israeli culture. Our fabulous teacher, Aaron, has requested that we choose an Israeli song, show, movie, or author for us to write about.

I had a problem with this. While art and literature are clear signs of a thriving culture, when I think of Israeli culture I think of yelling, rudeness, community, falafel, and chutzpa (sort of like courageous stubbornness). I'm sure that I will touch on those aspects of Israeli culture, which I think truly depict Israeli life, in the future. For now, I'm going to explain the history of my favorite song.

This past summer, as many of you know, I partook in a program called Diller. Twenty of my friends from Pittsburgh became close to twenty teens from Israel. We had the opportunity to live with them and experience parts of their daily life. This often included playing music during free time. One of the songs that we sang every single time was "Ahava" (Love) by Daniel Solomon.

It's a song which talks about love coming suddenly and erupting. It has a nice melody and, to me, beautiful lyrics. When I ask Israelis now if they know the song the simply shrug and say yes. However, to my Pittsburgh friends and Israeli friends, that song is just amazing.

When it gets to the second chorus, we would all get really quiet then suddenly burst and shoot our hands out, screaming, "Ahava....PEATOM HI MIT'PARETZET" (love...suddenly, she came).

It was the one thing in the program that completely united us. We would argue on political and religious matters, we might not have liked every person in our cohort, but when we heard the smooth, Israeli melody of Ahava, we threw our arms around each other and truly became one cohort of Americans and Israelis together.

This is why, when I'm asked what my favorite song is, "Ahava" is always my answer.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Shoshana :)

Spring break or a 5 day hike from Sea to Sea?

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, we were off on an amazing adventure for two weeks.

During this break, I went up north (again) for Passover Seder. I had an absolutely amazing weekend with my host and her family. They welcomed me in with open arms. I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my first Seder in Israel. After this, the group got back together and embarked on a 5 day hike from the Kineret to the Mediterranean Sea.

I learned so much in those 2 weeks. To start, the Seder was Sephardi, which as a very white Jew with family from Poland and surrounding countries, I had never experienced. This entailed lettuce instead of parsley, which was dipped into lemon water instead of salt water. There was a sweet sauce in place of either the bitter herbs or the charosset, which for my family is usually composed of apples, cinnamon, wine, and sometimes nuts. Needless to say that their Seder plate was very different than my family's.

Being at their Seder, in such a different environment I grew to appreciate the global unity of Judaism so much more. Even though the Seder plate was different and they served rice without thinking twice, we were sitting down for the same reason that my family was in America. The same reason as Jews in England, France, Canada, and anywhere else where Jews are situated. It was also just a really fun night.

Afterwards, the group reconvened to begin our 5 day long journey. For the trip, we were split into smaller groups of 12. Throughout the hike, we had fairly intelligent discussions. We all agreed that this trip, these 4 months, are not what we expected them to be. We didn't make best friends for a life time, but we did make tens of good friends. We didn't have any religious epiphanies or suddenly change our viewpoints, but we have delved into opinions more thoroughly.

One conclusion that I came to, is that this trip has already been life changing. Whether or not you've enjoyed it (which I have), there's no denying that you've learned about yourself here. I've had the privilege to explore my Jewish identity, my relationship to Israel, and discovered many personal things about myself.

I can't wait to share these discoveries with you all!
Have a great week!
Shoshana :)

Poland Reflections

Hi all!

If you didn’t know, we spent the previous week (March 23-27) in Poland. We studied the pre-Holocaust Jewish life in Eastern Europe, the extermination of the Jews and other minorities, and the current state of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. As you could assume, the trip stirred many emotions throughout the group. I had three main thoughts run through my head throughout the experience: 6,000,000, an almost guilt, and hope.

To understand the significance of 6 million, I had to look at it in smaller quantities. At Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum and Memorial, I read an account of 70 Jews being killed in a sudden uproar in Germany. That’s all of the students on EIE Spring 2014…plus four of our counselors. Can you imagine, nowadays, if an entire group of American students studying abroad were massacred. It would be all over the news. I thought of each of the parents I met, and siblings, grieving over my new friends. It would truly be a tragedy. But that’s only 70 people!!

Another 50 children were shot one by one in the head with hand guns. That’s my entire CDS (middle school) class…twice. It’s all of the girls (or guys) in one unit at camp. It’s Pittsburgh Diller, Karmiel Diller, and Toronto Diller. It’s too many people!!! 50 is simply too many. 6 million is just unfathomable. During my experience, I focused on comprehending the severity of 6 million. I still don’t get it. But there is an exhibit at Majdanek that has cages of 430,000 shoes. So many shoes. If you put 1 person per shoe, you would have a good image of Jews in camps. Dirty, bent, unidentifiable, and locked up. It made me sick.

Leaving the Majdanek and Birkenau also made my stomach twist in pain. As we were leaving, I looked back past the barbed wire at the barracks. I looked back at the place where around 360,000 people died.  I didn’t exactly feel guilty, but I just kept muttering “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”. Every time I turned back, I was looking at welcome home for death. A place where my people, Jews, were whipped, beaten, tortured, and eventually killed. I was looking at a hell. But I only had to be there for 3 hours, they were there for years. It was disgusting.

When walking through Majdanek and Birkenau, some of our group wrapped Israeli flags around themselves. It’s common for Jews to do when visiting concentration and extermination camps. We would also sing Hatikva, the Israeli National Anthem, at almost any significant memorial or site. Both of these annoyed me in the beginning. To me, they went along the ideology that God “gave” us the Holocaust in order to receive Israel. I hate that so much. 6,000,000 Jews shouldn’t have had to die in order to receive a Jewish State. I love Israel now that it’s here, but at the time it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the death.

However, then I thought about the song Hatikva. It means hope. It speaks of hope for the Jewish people, how the hope is not lost yet, and the existence of the Jewish soul. That, I liked. We still have hope for the Jewish people, and we’re still here.  And the kids walking around the camps with the Israeli flag were flaunting that to the Nazi’s. We were saying “Ha! We’re still here!” I loved that. I loved letting the ghosts of the camps know that the Nazi’s failed, and that the Jewish people were still alive and thriving.

Once this hit me, I had the sudden urge for other people to know too. I began drawing the Star of David into the dirt at Auschwitz I. Every place with good, visible dirt I would draw the Jewish star to let everyone visiting the camps know that we are strong, and that, if they are Jewish, they aren’t alone. One other student stopped and stared at one of the stars. Watching her take it in was inspiring and gave me hope.

I don’t know if I’ll go back to Poland again, and I definitely didn’t love the country, but I did learn so much from it.

Hope everyone has a great Shabbat!

Shoshana