The Hike

Prepare yourselves…this might be a long one!

                I know that I haven’t written a post in quite a while now, and I honestly think it’s because I have been trying to decide how to put such an incredible period of about two weeks encompassing so many exciting occurrences into words.  I know that I haven’t even been here for two months yet, but I can easily say that the past few weeks have been the best ones yet.

                It all began on Tuesday October 11 when we received a text from Year Course telling us to check out the news of a possible deal for Gilad Shalit.  For anyone who doesn’t know, Gilad was an Israeli soldier in the tank unit.  He was in his tank at Kerem Shalom, a kibbutz near the border of Gaza. On June 25, 2006, Hamas militants traveled through underground tunnels into Israel and attacked Gilad’s tank, killing two soldiers and injuring Shalit.  The terrorists then captured Gilad and took him into captivity in an unknown location in Gaza where he had been held for over 5 years where Hamas did not allow any visits from Israel or the International Red Cross.  No signs of a possible deal had been published in the preceding days or even months, so this announcement came as a surprise to many, but a happy one.  The deal was eventually made to return Shalit to Israel for 1,027 Arab prisoners (many convicted murderers, sentenced to life in jail).  This may seem like a crazy price to pay for one soldier, but Israel promises each soldier that if he is captured, Israel will do anything in its power to retrieve the soldier.  Additionally, in a poll, over 70% of Israelis were in support of the exchange.

                The Shalit deal was incredible, and the prospect of the deal set the tone for the morning of Thursday, October 13, the first day of Sukkot, when I stuffed a backpack full of food, supplies, and a few clothes (which of course I never used) and left Arad on foot with two roommates (Aaron and Eitan) and two other friends (Sam and Evan).  Our plan was to hike to the Dead Sea and return the next day, but we had no idea what we were in for.  We had a map and we knew roughly where we were heading, and around 10:00 am, we started hiking.  The first five kilometers of our hike were parallel to highway 31 which crosses through Arad, and since we were not sure where the actual trail began, we walked along the narrow shoulder of the busy road until we reached the intersection where we would begin the desert part of our journey.  By this time we were getting hungry, so we took a break in a large cement pipe.  We saw that we could almost stand up inside the pipe and that it provided shade, so we pulled out a few cans of tuna and a loaf of bread and feasted while being swarmed by an army of flies. It was a slightly repulsive, but the break was definitely what we needed.  After we finished eating and relaxing, we got up and got back on our way.  There were signs as we entered the trail from the highway that urged all hikers to carry food for several days and at least five liters of water each…we decided we would be fine with two meals and at this point about 2-3 liters of water per person. 

                The next five and a half hours were amazing.  The hike was not too challenging as it was mostly downhill, and the countless mountains and sand dunes that we passed and traversed were breathtaking.  We took breaks every so often for water and occasionally a snack, but we made sure to maintain a solid pace so that we would make it to our destination at a decent hour.  Throughout the hike several jeeps and four wheelers had passed us going in the same direction.  Most cars either honked or waved, but there was one car that stopped and rolled down their windows to ask if everything was okay; the family made sure we had food and water and that we didn’t need anything.  Although this family did not have to go far out of their way to check up on us, I really feel like this was something that would not happen anywhere else beside Israel.  It was such a nice gesture and their sincerity truly made the five of us feel good.  Around 3:00, after we had not seen any cars in a little while, we were all drenched in sweat and the sun was still beating down on us, so we decided it would be a great idea to remove some (all) of our clothing.  Disclaimer: For anyone who thinks that this is weird, or has not heard of a group of heterosexual, teenage boys getting naked for a part of a desert hike, I can assure you that this is a rather common thing to do and is not weird at all.  Anyway, let’s just say that the breeze felt great!!  We walked naked for about a half hour until it started to get old and uncomfortable, but we did have a small scare.  At one point we heard a car coming up and over a hill from behind us.  Since we could not see the car, and we only started to hear it when it was quickly approaching, we didn’t have time to throw on our clothes.  We covered up as much as possible but it was clear that we had been hiking naked.  If this were just a regular looking family it would have been funny and maybe a little embarrassing, but as the car neared, I realized it was the same green pickup truck that all of the park rangers in Israel drive.  I started to freak out, assuring myself that we would receive a hefty fine, but when the car stopped next to us, it was just a family laughing hysterically. 

                A couple hours later, we arrived at a plateau overlooking the Dead Sea and Jordan from about a kilometer high.  The view was beautiful, and we were able to climb up even higher to look all throughout the desert from which we had come.  As we got to this point we noticed that the family who stopped to talk to us had set up a table and were relaxing with some other families.  They spotted us and called us over to offer us cake, cookies, and coffee.  We ate and talked to them for a while (in Hebrew, of course) before we thanked them profusely and began our descent down the mountain.  We got halfway down before the sun had completely set and we had to break out our flashlights.  When we reached the bottom, we had arrived at Ein Bokek, the touristy part of the Dead Sea with a strip of hotels and a little shopping center.  We found a huge field in the middle of the hotels where we lay down and cooked pasta with our portable stove.  It was hard to resist the temptation of buying a burger from the McDonalds 50 meters away from us, but I decided that McDonalds was not part of camping, so I stayed strong.  After dinner, when we were exhausted and ready to sleep, we heard music coming from a parking lot across the field.  We knew that it was Jewish music like at a bar mitzvah, but we could not tell what was going on, so we went over to check it out.  We saw a crowd of people watching about ten black hat (religious) men and boys dancing next to a sukkah while two were singing and playing the keyboard on a stage. We immediately dropped our bags and got into the action.  We danced for fifteen minutes and then walked over to ask one man who was not dancing what was going on.  He explained to us that every night of sukkot we celebrate by singing and dancing.  He invited my friend Eitan and me into his sukkah and gave us a snack and a couple shots of Arak so that we could say the blessings of eating, drinking, and being in the sukkah.  We also discovered that this man, Sinai (who lived in NYC before making aliyah years ago) is the head Rabbi of the Chabad house in Arad!  This was a crazy coincidence because Eitan and I had been looking for a Talmud class that we could take while in Arad since we aren’t really learning anything here, so we talked to our new friend with whom we are currently working something out.  After we had our share of dancing, we went to the beach and found an open place to lay out our sleeping bags and rest up for the next day.

Drinking coffee and eating cake and cookies overlooking the Dead Sea

                By 5:30 in the morning, the sun had risen and we were wide awake.  Though exhausted from only several hours of sleep, we quickly packed up and walked back to the beginning of the trail.  The first part of the hike this morning was the straight uphill which was quite a challenge even before considering the fact that we planned on waiting until we reached the plateau to eat breakfast, and we therefore had no energy off which to work.  Only a few minutes in, I was convinced that any second I would threw up.  I felt awful and I was questioning my ability to make it to the top.  I stopped for a couple minutes to eat an apple and drink a liter of water (1/3 of my supply for the day) and got back up to climb to the top.  When I finally got there, even though we had about 25 more kilometers lying ahead of us, I felt like I had accomplished so much.  We ate a quick breakfast of crackers and peanut butter and got back on the trail.  Today was mostly uphill, but it was generally not too steep of an incline, and we wanted to get home for shabbos, so we were determined not to stop.  We hiked quickly and efficiently, and made it to the highway by mid-afternoon.  We ate lunch once again in the cement tunnel and walked the rest of the way home.  I can’t completely describe the feeling of stepping into the shelter of our apartment after hiking 60 km (about 37 miles) in two days, but it was remarkable.  We had a very relaxing weekend and slept a lot to rest up for what was to come the next week!

Yom Kippur...Back to Jerusalem

                Okay, so I feel like I should write something about Yom Kippur because it was another really good holiday for me, but I’m going to keep this one short since I really want to get up to date and write about last week and this week.

                I returned to Jerusalem with my 4 apartment mates for Yom Kippur and we stayed at the heritage House which is a free hostel in the Old City.  It isn’t luxurious by any means, but they gave me a bed (a thin mattress on a plank of wood) and there was a roof over my head.  The night before Yom Kippur started, we went to Ben Yehuda Street with the intention of having a great time, however we quickly received news about a friend back in Arad who was seriously injured and was being taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital.  We were all terrified to say the least, but thank G-d she seems to be doing better.

                 For the last meal before the fast I went to a host family in Talpiyot with my friend Eitan Morris.  Due to a misunderstanding, we showed up about two hours early, but they gave us a tour of their neighborhood and it turns out that the husband lived in Brookline and Cambridge for ten years!  After dinner, Eitan and I walked back to the old city and met up with Jacob Gilbert and Ben Leifer.  We went to the Kotel at first, but we really wanted a structured service so we went to the Churva Shul.  This is a beautiful building right in the Old City that was built over a century ago, but has since been destroyed twice in the Independence Day War and the Six Day War, and was only recently rebuilt.  Churva is a religious shul, and I felt quite out of place in my shorts and green Polo shirt (I thought I would be able to change after dinner before services).  My attire did not matter to anyone present, and several men were quick to make room and welcome us and help keep us track of page numbers when we were lost.  Eitan and I returned the next morning, and sat in the same place between the same two men who had helped us the previous night.  Following the afternoon break, we returned once more for the Ne’ila service.  When we walked into the synagogue, I was immediately greeted by my new friend who told me he had reserved the same two seats next to him and to go sit down.  I would say that this man really made my Yom Kippur what it was.  He had no reason to help me, and I probably detracted from his experience when he would look over and see that I was a little lost in the fast paced service, but he wanted me to have this experience (I know I overuse that word) simply out of the kindness of his heart.  I never found out his name, but I will certainly go back and look for him when I return to Jerusalem.  We broke fast at the Kotel, and the next day we were back to work in Arad.

Rosh Hashanah in Jersualem

Although I was in Israel during Rosh Hashanah two years ago with Alexander Muss High School in Israel, I only got the secular Israeli experience of going to the beach, so I decided to make the trip up to the capital for the New Year.  I got on a bus with two friends from my section on Wednesday afternoon, erev Rosh Hashanah, and after spending about 30 minutes trying to find the bus from the central bus station in Jerusalem to Beit Ar-El (the Young Judaea hostel where we would be staying) we arrived and were greeted by the small portion of section one kids who were staying on campus for the holiday.  I settled in to my friend Alex Lyon’s room and after a couple hours of relaxing, my friend Joe Step picked me up to spend the first night with his family in Katamon, a nearby neighborhood of Jerusalem.  We walked 45 minutes to the house where we met his cousins, and quickly went off to pray in the family’s synagogue, located in a school gym – the flower pots in the basketball hoops were a nice touch.  After services, we returned to the house for a delicious meal during which I tasted cow tongue for the first time. It was delicious!

                The next morning, Joe came back to the hostel and woke Alex and me up at 9 to go to shul.  We had decided that instead of sitting through one service, we would go shul hopping to see many different synagogues and services.  We started at Shira Chadasha, a shul close to campus that had been recommended to us, and it was nice, but the overwhelming presence of Americans gave it a strange, unauthentic feel.  Over the next 4 or 5 hours we walked all the way through Jerusalem stopping at 9 different services.  Many congregations were very welcoming, including one beautiful Sephardic synagogue on the top floor of a bank (this was one of our favorites). Our most interesting stop had to be when we stepped into a shul in Me’ah She’arim, the most religious neighborhood in Israel where tour groups are forbidden to enter and woman dressed immodestly will literally have rocks thrown at them.  From the moment we stepped foot into the surprisingly dirty neighborhood, people began to stare, and even more so when we walked into the service dressed in our khaki pants and colored button down shirts (as opposed to the residents who dress strictly in black and white).  The adults seemed to stare out of hatred and disgust while many kids seemed to have a sort of curiosity as they rarely see people not exactly like themselves.  It was neat to peak in on this lifestyle, but I wouldn’t be too quick to return anytime soon.  Other highlights of the day included walking through a gorgeously decorated Ethiopian church and hearing a professional shofar blower at another stop.

                After our tour we took a quick nap before playing basketball and getting ready for dinner.  Joe was going back to his family, so Alex and I decided to find a host family in the Old City.  We knew of a free hostel near the Kotel that would set people up with Shabbat and holiday dinners, so we hiked to the Wall with our fingers crossed, and luckily found the man we were looking for who assigned us to Rabbi Danziger.  We walked with the Rabbi to his house a few minutes away and met his family of 6 (who made aliyah 4 years ago and have been having guests for every Shabbat and holiday since) and the other 15 guests whom he had welcomed into his house for dinner.  Dinner was incredible and the company was great; the food was endless and delectable, and the zmirot that we sang throughout the meal made the experience truly amazing.  I sat next to a very interesting guy.  His name is Yedidyah, and he is from Borough Park, NY (which he boasted is the largest religious population in the Diaspora). Yedidyah is in Israel for a couple weeks studying, and doesn’t have a real plan.  He seemed to feel out of place at home since he was 26 and not yet married, and he came here to study.  I started talking to him and told him what I was doing in Israel, but he couldn’t comprehend what I was telling him.  He kept asking “So what Yeshiva are you studying at?”, and I kept trying to tell him that I was not at a Yeshiva, rather I was on a Young Judaea program backed by Hadassah, the largest Women’s Zionist Organization…but none of this made any sense to him.  Yedidyah essentially had no concept of anything other than the strictly orthodox world in which he had grown up.  He didn’t know what a summer camp was, and he certainly couldn’t understand why I was spending a whole year doing anything other than studying Jewish texts.  He was interested in what I had to say, and I was very intrigued by his life, but at times he also seemed a little condescending.  This definitely did not bring down the mood of the night however, and when Alex and I left hours later, I really felt like this was one of the most amazing religious experiences I had ever had.  After dinner, we walked over to meet his Alex’s camp friend at a Yeshiva right next to the Kotel and the three of us sat on the roof overlooking the dome of the rock for about an hour talking about the temple and the temple mount.

                The next day we slept late and played basketball for several hours before briefly visiting the Kotel once more and heading out to a final host family for Shabbat dinner.  There were 6 of us from year Course crammed into this small apartment along with two parents and 5 kids between the ages of 4 and 13…it was a little hectic.  Dinner was nice, and it was extremely generous of the family to invite all of us into their house, but it didn’t quite compare to the previous night.

                Since Rosh Hashanah ran right into Shabbat, and busses in Israel don’t run on Shabbat or holidays, I was planning on returning to Arad Saturday night.  That plan quickly changed when I realized it would be a lot more fun to go out and party in Jerusalem on Saturday night and skip work on Sunday.  I went out with about 15 friends, and we headed to Ben Yehuda and Crack Square (Yes, that’s actually the name).  After an argument with the bus driver when he threatened to call the police because I tried to sneak on, we made it to downtown Jerusalem; I hadn’t realized that there was more to the area than American tourists milling in the middle of the well-known Ben Yehuda St., but just off of the main street there’s a real night life with bars and clubs.  We hung out and I ran into a bunch of friends from home, and then we headed back to go to sleep.  I woke up early the next morning to catch buses back to Arad, but this was an awesome Rosh Hashanah weekend.

My First Month in Arad

I am writing now from a coin operated Laundromat (the only Laundromat) in Arad, Israel.  Arad is a very small town, roughly 45 minutes east of Be’er Sheva in the south of Israel.  Seeing that Arad is a desert town, there is rarely ever rain (we haven’t seen any so far) and the weather is almost identical every day: HOT! It cools down slightly at night, but I have yet to wear long pants or long sleeves of any kind here.  The population here is fairly diverse; I would estimate that 80% of Arad’s residents are Russian, and there is also a Charedi Yeshiva (a place of study for the ultra religious Jews who wear only black and white and get paid by the government to study Jewish texts all day because they believe that this studying will bring the moshiach, and therefore they are helping Israel more than anyone).  This is an extremely controversial topic of debate in Israel.  Arad is also home to an Ethiopian absorption center, and about 75 crazy American teenagers living on their own for the first time…my apartment has only received one noise complaint so far.  Arad is mostly residential and made up of many apartment buildings (most of which are low-income housing) but there is also a small center consisting of two banks, a grocery store, several falafel/shawarma restaurants, a few convenience stores, and two bars (essential).  There is no need for buses within Arad because you can walk anywhere in a matter of minutes, but the central bus station has buses to Be’er Sheva, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Eilat.

My whole trip began on the flight from JFK airport in New York.  This is where I reunited with some of my friends from the past, and began to make new friends with whom I will be spending the next year.  We played cards in the airport after saying our final goodbyes to crying parents (mothers) and going through security.  Once we boarded the plane, it was clear that the passengers who were surrounding our clump of about 45 eighteen year olds leaving home would not have the most relaxing 12 hours.  We were not too crazy but we woke up our fair share of strangers from talking too loudly or knocking into people when we got up to go visit other friends.  When we landed at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, we were greeted by our counselors and we boarded buses according to our section.  The two hour drive down to Arad was another bonding session, and a time to sleep before greeting the exciting city described above!  Our total travel time was about 15 hours, but I think it was worth it.  When I arrived at my apartment on 58 Ben Yair St. (the last apartment building on one of the main streets) I was happy to find out that I already knew 4 of my 5 apartment mates.  Two guys are friends from camp (from Dallas and New Jersey), two are friends who I met during Year Course orientation in March (from South Carolina and Tennessee), and the last one is a kid who I didn’t know (from Maryland), but we all get along extremely well.  Since I was the first one up to the apartment I snagged the only single room which is nice for sleeping but we almost always hang out together in the living room when we are in the apartment.

I have been here for just over a month, and I have already done so many amazing and interesting things.  The first week we had an orientation during which we had to go to the ulpan (intensive Hebrew language class) building where our counselors had all sorts of sessions planned for us with topics ranging from getting to know our surroundings, to alcohol awareness.  Some of these lessons were worthwhile, but I think that many were a waste of time.  After the first week of getting to know the other 75ish kids on my section, we began our volunteering.  I am working with a great group of 7 other Year Course kids at Tel Arad.  Tel Arad is a national park located just outside of Arad.  This is an extraordinarily historically significant site, yet there are very few tourists since not many people know about it and there is still a great deal of restoration work to be completed.  An ancient city and temple have been dug up at this location which date back thousands of years.  This place is mentioned in the Torah, and is believed to be the closest point to the Promised Land that Moses ever reached.  The temple was the only known temple outside of Jerusalem, and was partially destroyed in the 8^th century BCE. Our work has been restoring walls of the city by mixing mortar each morning and filling the walls with mortar and rocks to give support.  This work is really cool because we know how important this site is and how much our input matters, but also because we are working with stones that have not been touched in thousands of years.  Our boss is a really interesting American man who served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army before returning to the states to be a police officer for 30 years (5 of which he spent in undercover narcotics).  This work is starting to get a little repetitive, but it helps that we only work Sunday through Wednesday.

Volunteering does occupy most of our time, but it is definitely not all that we do.  On Thursdays we have a little meeting with our counselors about current events and random information that we need to know and then we go on a short trip.  So far we have been on two desert walks.  I wouldn’t necessarily call them hikes, but they were really neat and we saw some very cool views and things.  Last week we went to a Bedouin woman’s tent outside of Be’er Sheva where she talked about her life and their village.  We then drove to an Arab shuk (outdoor market) in Be’er Sheva, but they didn’t really have anything worth buying…unless I was looking for women’s or baby clothing. 

During the first week, most nights consisted of partying (not too much of course) and heading to one of the bars in the center of town.  While this was fun, it grew old very quickly.  At this point, if we have enough energy to do anything after a long day of work (I get picked up by a van at 8 and I get home around 4) we usually either go to a friend’s apartment to relax or watch a movie, or occasionally walk around outside exploring.

I have also taken a couple really awesome trips. The first weekend, some Israelis planned a huge party in Tel Aviv for all of Year Course and other programs, so many of my friends and I decided to go.  After our trip on Thursday, we walked to the bus station and caught a bus to Tel Aviv.  It was pretty hectic since we weren’t sure if we would all fit on the bus, but everything worked out and after about 2 hours we arrived at the central bus station in Tel Aviv.  This was my first time at this station, and it was nothing like I expected.  This is not just a platform for buses, it is essentially a giant mall…that also happens to have buses arriving and departing all the time.  There are 7 floors filled with restaurants, all kinds of stores and kiosks, arcades, and really anything you wouldn’t expect a bus station to have.  Anyway, after we got to Tel Aviv, we traveled to Bat Yam (a suburb of Tel Aviv) where we stayed for two nights with some friends on another section of Year Course.  That night, we met up with some other people and headed out to my first real club experience in Israel.  It was a lot of fun, and everyone was dancing and having a good time, but the club was pretty small.  Afterwards we went back to the apartment where I was staying with all of my apartment mates and went to sleep.  The next day was probably one of the best days yet.  We woke up rather early and decided that we had a whole day before another party that night so we should take advantage of being near a huge city.  We first went to Tel Aviv’s famous Shuk Hacarmel, and walked around for an hour or two exploring every stand and eating lunch.  After the shuk, we returned to the apartment and headed out to the beach.  Bat Yam is famous for its beaches, and let me tell you, the beach was just as incredible as everyone says! It wasn’t too crowded but there were a bunch of people.  Since it costs money to sit on the chairs (which take up most of the beach itself) we threw our stuff on the ground and ran into the water.  This was no Massachusetts water, this water was perfect! It was warm and clear and just great. We stayed in the water for about a half hour until we had to go home.  We decided to save money and be adventurous by walking home, and with the help from about 20 people who all gave us different directions, we made it back to the apartment in 2 hours (supposedly the walk is only supposed to take 45 minutes).  Despite the walk taking way too long, this was really the point where I realized I was on Year Course.  I had gotten up one day and decided to travel across the country with a few friends to explore a city that we didn’t know too well; it was an incredibly empowering feeling.  When we walked in the door, we were pleasantly surprised by a delicious Shabbat dinner waiting for us that had been prepared by a few people we were staying with, so we ate and got ready to go. Tonight was going to be the night of the main party, but we heard that most people weren’t going anymore so we split up.  Some people went to a bar/restaurant on the beach in Tel Aviv while some friends and I went to another friend’s house in Neve Tzedek (a very nice part of Tel Aviv, also the city’s first neighborhood) and met up with a lot of other year coursers.  The night was a lot of fun, and the next day we returned to the beach before heading back home to Arad.

This was only my first weekend trip, but I will post again soon about my High Holiday experiences.  Thanks for reading! Please feel free to share this blog anyone who you think might be interested!

Shana Tova,

Aaron