Congress Update

Congress officially wraps up this morning! We have had an incredibly busy time and are looking forward to an opportunity to reflect on the blog during our drive up North later this afternoon. 

Day 12 in Israel- Community Week, Tisha B'Av

In order to commemorate Tisha B'Av, we spent our day looking at memory and how collective Jewish memory is created. Many members of the cohort fasted, so we made sure all activities were indoors at the community center. After discussing collective Jewish memory, we were lucky enough to have heard from Andrew Lustig. Andrew is a world-renowned spoken word poet originally from New York.  After sharing some of his pieces with us, Andrew lead a writing workshop in which we created short poems about our personal definitions of love. Noam, Paul, Omer, Jamie, and Ali then lead us in a reflective activity in which we all wrote notes to each other expressing what we like about each other. After breaking the fast, we spent time meeting the teens of Yerucham at Warehouse 52, the local hang out spot for Yerucham teens. Overall, it was a great day and we cant wait for tomorrow (especially since we will be celebrating Lexi's birthday!)!!

Day 8 in Israel- Community Week

            Our theme for the day was "Getting to know your neighbor," inspired by the movie "Around the World in 80 Days!" We started the day with an encounter with a resident of an unrecognized Bedouin village located about thirty minutes from Yerucham. Due to the status of being unrecognized, the village does not have government provided access to clean drinking water or electricity. It was incredibly interesting to hear Ali, the Bedouin elder we spoke with, share his perspective on the situation. While his opinions were very clear, many of our Yerucham counterparts found his story and argument to be incredibly difficult to understand. During a maagal discussion later in the afternoon we discussed the reality of bias not only in Israel but also all around the world. The passion Ali, the Bedouin representative, and our Yerucham friends had was inspiring. We were also shown an unrecognized Bedouin village elementary school and spent time playing with some of the kids there.

 

            After learning about our neighbors in unrecognized Bedouin villages, we went to the Machane Tzur, a local army base for infantry training. At the base we had the opportunity to take part in a military grade shooting simulation. We were all taken aback by the simulator when we learned that it was actually used by soldiers in training. After shooting an M4 assault rifle at the simulator screen, we were given the opportunity to look around the tanks used in last summer's Operation, Protective Edge. We finished up our time at Machane Tzur with a nice picnic lunch on the grass and then headed to a local farm in the middle of the desert. At the farm, we learned about the situations that bring farmers to the Negev and how successful desert farming can be.

 

            We finished our evening with dinner in Yerucham's crater. The crater is one of the largest natural craters in the world. For dinner, we made a traditional Israeli poike, which is basically a stew. After we ate, we spent time hanging out with each other in anticipation for our Shabbat weekend. 

Day 7 in Israel- Community Week

Our first full day of Community Week is officially complete. Hannah was our Moshe for the day and did a great job! The theme for our community week is movies. Each day, a different movie is selected to act as a guiding narrative for our activities, discussions, and encounters. Today's movie was "Chef" and it directly connected to all of the activities for the day.

We began our day at Atid Bamidbar where we met with Shai, the manager of Atid Bamidbar. Shai shared the story of the first settlers in Yerucham and how many of the first settlers were led to believe that they were in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. After our discussion with Shai, Lauren, Mickey, Eitam, and Kama passed out diaries for us all to use throughout Community Week.

Our morning was spent completing the Master Chef cooking competition. We were split into five different groups and went to homes of some of our Yerucham to cook different meals. After our meals were complete, we brought our food back to Atid Bamidbar for lunch. It was so great to try different foods from our communities (shakshukah and alfachores, for example) and share recipes.

After lunch, the famous Yerucham Cooking Ladies visited to judge our meals and tell us who the Master Chefs are. The representatives of the Cooking Ladies shared their stories of immigration to Israel and settling in Yerucham. It was incredibly interesting to hear how many immigrants were misled to believe that Yerucham was a large city when, in reality, at that time, it was a mere desert village.

Lindsy and Rivkah then lead a discussion about a story from Vayikrah Rabba in which Rabbi Yannai served as both a guest and a host. The discussion introduced us to one of the key components of our upcoming time at Congress. Some of the Yerucham teens then presented about the Israeli army and we heard a story from Noam about how his family was affected by the war last year. Inspired by Noam's story, we packed care packages for soldiers at bases close to Yerucham. We will be taking the packed care packages with us tomorrow when we visit the base.

We ended the night at a surprise birthday party for Avishay, Justin's host. It was lots of fun! We are looking forward to a lovely day in Yerucham tomorrow!

Day 6 in Israel- Kennes, Community Week

Today was our final day of Kennes and we started bright and early for the buses from Sde Boker to hike Masada, the historical mountain known for the courageous act of sacrifice displayed by the Jewish Zealots 2,000 years ago.  We hiked up the mountain in our color groups and, when we got to the top, we discussed the event and how it should be communicated to future generations.  It was interesting to hear about the Myth of Masada. After riding the cable cars back down the mountain, we ate lunch and then headed to the Dead Sea for an afternoon of fun in the sun.  At the Dead Sea, we had the opportunity to cover ourselves in mud and float in the water.

After our Dead Sea experience, we finally headed to see all our friends in Yerucham. We were given a bus tour of the city and picked up our "tour guides" (the Yerucham teens) on the way. We played some literal ice breakers in which we passed around a block of frozen ice around a circle while we shared exciting stories from our summer thus far. We continued our afternoon playing even more ice breaker games and were given a mission to secretly gather information on another member of our partnership.

We ended our day with a yummy dinner and review of our exciting Community Week schedule. I cannot wait to explore Yerucham and see what we have in store!

-Abby

Day 5 in Israel- Kennes at Kibbutz Sde Boker

During our second day at Kennes, we continued to explore our Jewish identities and make more connections with other Diller fellows. We started the day learning about Ben Gurion and his legacy. We conducted a mock Zionist Congress where we attempted to establish the state of Israel. We decided on the boundaries, name, language, and the involvement of the word G-d in the new state's constitution. In my color group, we decided that we would agree to the borders laid out by the UN Partition Plan. We also decided that G-d should not be mentioned in the constitution while the official language should be Hebrew with a second official language being Arabic. Finally, we decided to name the country Israel.

We then discussed the Impact Projects we will be completing over the course of the remainder of our Diller experience. All of the teens were introduced to different Impact project focus areas such as Education, Homelessness, Racial and Gender Inequality, and Teen Apathy. I chose to join the Education group and learned a lot of different ways to make positive impact in our Miami community.

After a nice lunch, we learned all about the Journey of our People with Liat, the Senior Director of Diller Teen Fellows. We then broke out into our color groups to continue the conversation on a more intimate level. In this conversation, we analyzed the different amounts of Jewish people in North American communities. It was very interesting to see that South Florida is number three on the list.

Unfortunately, I was unable to be in the Junior Counselor led unit called Rak Po because I had to see the doctor (don't worry, Mom, it's just a sore throat and the doctor said it's not contagious). Michael said it was one of his favorite discussions during all of Kennes and he had the opportunity to share poetry about his home.

 

-Justin 

Day 4 in Israel- Kennes at Kibbutz Sde Boker

Yesterday, we had so much fun. I'm writing on Monday morning because we were all so tired from the fun activities that we fell right asleep last night. In the morning, we had breakfast in Ramat Rachel and Andrew led an interesting reflective Maagal Boker (morning circle) preparing us for the transition from travel days into Kennes. We then loaded the bus to head to Kibbutz Sde Boker. Halfway through the bus ride, we took a break at a rest stop. We met up with other Diller groups and had the opportunity to buy snacks and drinks. We got back on the bus, and one hour later we arrived at the kibbutz. 

Upon arrival, Nitzan, a member of Tzama gave us a tour of the campus. Tzama is a group of Israel Diller alumni who work on the logistics surrounding Kennes and Congress. With Nitzan we played games and visited David Ben Gurion's grave. We then had lunch and made our way to our rooms. Once settled, all Dillers met up by the auditorium. Each group made a 90 second introduction to present their communities. During our last workshop, Sandra and Hannah adapted the lyrics to Pitbull's song "Timber" which went off without a hitch! It was without a doubt the best 90-second intro and we had a blast. After presentations, we were split into color groups.

After our 90-second intros were all done, we joined our color groups. I am in the red group with Abby, which is a whole lot of fun! In those color groups, we have two junior counselors and one coordinator. Each group did ice breakers and played games until it was dinner time. While waiting for dinner to be ready, all Diller teens had the opportunity to meet and talk to each other. It was great to meet teens my age from so many different communities. After dinner we heard a speaker in the auditorium, Neal Lazarus, who spoke about the current Middle Eastern situation and what led to it. The speech was not only incredibly informative but also lively and full of jokes that everyone appreciated. When the speech ended, we had a few minutes of free time to freshen up before the "white tent". The white tent is a literal white tent with games, music, and snacks on the side. We had the opportunity to hang out with our new friends and keep making some more.  Tired from all the fun, we retired to bed at midnight excited to see our new friends again this morning! 

Day 4 in Israel- Jerusalem

Hi, this is Cat! For our first Shabbat, we had the luxury of sleeping in. We had the opportunity to join an Orthodox service and then enjoy a nice late breakfast. Leah Mass, the Diller International Director of Coordinators, came to our hotel Ramat Rachel to lead us in an alternative Shabbat service.

We then began our journey to the Western Wall. We started at Ramat Rachel with plenty of stops along the way. The stops included the beautiful campus of Hebrew Union College. We had a lively discussion about religious pluralism in Israel with Rabbi Chaim Shalom. Then, we stopped at a park and had an intense discussion about how we can better the state of Israel.  Then we had Seudah Shlishit in the Old City where we met up with several other cohorts like Pittsburgh, Boston, Montreal, and Toronto.

As the sun began to set we made our way to the Kotel. Our awesome tour guide Ori gave us a tour of the Old City, which included a little history lesson. We moved on through the city passing multiple historic sites. When we finally arrived to the Western Wall a shiver ran through my body. It was incredible how much of a variety there was between all of our emotions; some of us cried, some of us were speechless and in awe, and some of us did not feel anything. We made our way to pray and put our notes in the wall.

When we gathered back together we concluded the night with Havdalah. The 21 of us huddled while Ali held the Havdalah candle and led the group prayers. We sang at the top of our lungs and made sure that everyone could hear us. All of a sudden, Andrew started to run around our circle screaming, "SHAVUAH TOV SHAVUAH TOV, SHAVUAH TOV TO LINDSY!" and then Lindsy continued, "SHAVUAH TOV, SHAVUAH TOV, SHVUAH TOV TO ALI!" the Shavuah Tovs went on as we went across the every person in our group. Everyone at the Kotel thought we were crazy but it was an awesome experience that I will never forget.

Then we went for dinner and a little bit of shopping on Ben Yehudah Street.  Walking around today with our entire cohort was really amazing. Going to the Western Wall and praying was such an exhilarating experience.  I cannot wait for tomorrow which will bring a new experience.

Day 3 in Israel- Jerusalem

Today was a very impactful day, as we visited the heart wrenching Mount Herzl and Yad Vashem. We prepared for this intense day in our Maagal Laila on Thursday night when we discussed our own Jewish memories, both good and bad. 

We began our day on Haas Promenade overlooking the entire city of Jerusalem. Ori, our tour guide, lead us in a traditional shehecheyanu, the prayer one says when beginning something new. We then said Kiddush and left for Mount Herzl.

Mount Herzl is the site of Israel's national cemetery and other memorial and educational facilities, found on the west side of Jerusalem. It is named for Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl's tomb lies at the top of the hill. This was an important stop for us our collective narrative for the Israel Summer Seminar comes directly from Herzl's quotation, "If you will it, it is no dream."  We also learned about Michael Levine, a lone soldier who sacrificed his life for the State of Israel in 2006, Yitzchak Rabin, and Golda Meir.

After Har Herzl we went to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum. Our guided tour was very thorough and informative. While today was one of the tougher days we emerged with a greater sense of self and we all were able to crack some smiles when we hopped on the bus.

After our somber, informative morning, we headed to the wildly packed Machane Yehuda for lunch and some shopping. We had time to explore the market with its various aromas and vibrant hues. It was a sweet end to a bittersweet day. We can't wait for a wonderful and spiritual Shabbat in Jerusalem!

 

-Lexi

Day 2 in Israel- Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

Today, I was the first Moshe (leader of the day) for a full day of programing. Early in the morning I set the tone by welcoming my fellow Hebrews and She-brews in a Ma'agal Boker (morning circle). Filled with the enthusiasm of my fellow fellows, we all were ready to begin the most amazing day of programing ever.

 

Steadfast, we started a mind-boggling scavenger hunt at Rabin Square.  The scavenger hunt was called In Our Streets and it led us through the streets of Tel Aviv. We saw important spots like Dizengoff Street and Independence Hall. My team won, of course. The green team, with stomachs full of victorious chocolate, took away the gold.  From there we visited Shuk ha Carmel… that place was tight.  The majority of the clan ate our Pizur Lunch at Pasta Basta, a delicious pasta restaurant on the left hand side of the Shuk.

 

From there we went on to learn with Elliot of Bina, the Secular Yeshiva in Tel Aviv. Bina is located in South Tel Aviv adjacent to the Central Bus Station. Elliot, resident of Tel- Aviv, helped us challenge our ideals about immigration and immigrant rights. Inspired to overcome some of the setbacks set by misunderstood governmental policies, we began to shape our ideals towards helping the immigrants' social position and naturalization rights.

 

From there we visited the High School In Israel campus. We learned about a very elaborate program, which allows teens to explore Israel for six weeks while receiving a top notch education. We ended our amazing time with dinner at our beautiful hotel, followed by amazing and inspiring talk about the holocaust, preparing us for at Yad Vashem tomorrow. 

Day 1 in Israel- Tel Aviv

Our first day in Israel has been amazing! We landed at Ben Gurion airport and met Andrew, the JC Mentor who will be joining us throughout our trip, Ori, our tour guide for the first travel portion, and Leah, the Diller Coordinator mentor. After collecting our luggage and heading through customs we headed towards beautiful Tel Aviv. The view of the beach was absolutely breathtaking as the sun set on the Mediterranean Sea. 

 

When we arrived at our hotel, we quickly dropped off our bags in our rooms and heading to a yummy dinner. After dinner we had a quick ma'agal laila (night circle) because we are all tired. As an exciting surprise, I gave everyone a piece of Elite Milk Chocolate with Popping Candies. It was great to see everyone's surprise when the candies started to pop in their mouths. This serves as a symbol for the excitement and surprise that we have in store on our trip. Lindsy then led a discussion on our personal dreams for the trip to tie into our overall narrative. After we finished our ma'agal laila we said our goodnights and heading off to bed.

 

-Sammy R.

Update

We have arrived in New York and are on our way to our next flight!

Sent from my iPhone

....and we're off!!

Israel, we're coming for you!

Our final workshop before the Israel Summer Seminar took place yesterday, June 28^th. To prepare for our upcoming ISS trip, we split up into groups for our community week in Yerucham. Each group is in charge of planning a day during our trip.  It has been very interesting planning an entire day in a city that is not only across the world but also a city that many of us have never visited before! We are so excited to see Yerucham and experience all that it has to offer!

We also picked Moshes for every day of the trip. Moshe is an acronym for the Israeli words Manhig Shel Ha'Yom, Leader of the Day. Moshe was also an important figure in the Torah who lead the Israelites to Mount Sinai. Each Moshe will plan out and execute their own activities for the day and make sure everything runs smoothly.  As the Moshe, we will be members of the staff, which is both exciting and a little nerve wracking too! Every night, the Moshe will be writing a blog post about the activities of the day.

During our workshop we also worked on our 90-second introduction. Every North American community is preparing a 90 second introduction that they will present at the start of Kennes. Sandra, Cat, Hannah, Justin, and Jonathan worked hard on our introduction and we cannot wait to present it to the North American and South African communities. We will be sure to post a video of it on the blog!

At Congress, we will be given opportunities to pray in many different ways. Each Diller community is given the chance to lead a service in a style they feel comfortable with. Some of the styles include a traditional Orthodox service, a Camp Shabbat, and Meditation. Abby, Lauren, Sammy, and Michael have chosen to lead a Yoga Minyan on Shabbat morning. During our workshop, they decided on a name for the service, M(iami Y)oga (pronounced Moga), learned about the Parasha of the week, and outlined what yoga moves they will be doing and how they connect to the Parasha. This will be a really cool opportunity for Miami to show off a unique skill that we have!

We are excitedly awaiting our visit to Yerucham so we can reunite with our partner cohort. Our schedule is very exciting and full of incredible speakers, activities, food, and more. We can't wait to see all of our plans come to life and have an incredible and memorable experience on our Israel journey. Look for more blog posts leading up to our trip and while we are in Israel!

 

-Adina, Ali, Lexi, and Rachel

Cohort 2 NAS - Day 1

     After many months of virtually keeping up with our Israeli counterparts in Yerucham, the day to meet them finally arrived. Excitement filled the air as we welcomed our new brothers and sisters with open arms. 

We had a welcome dinner at the Bonwitt home (one of the teens in the Miami cohort), and began our activities as one cohesive and complete group. Learning new and interesting things about each other, we matched up song lyrics in English and in Hebrew, and configured puzzles that spelled out the Diller logo. Our favorite part of the evening, and of the seminar so far, has not only been meeting our Israelis but meeting everyone else’s matches. 

The fact that we could all come together as one group, all from different schools, cities, even from and across the globe is an amazing opportunity and experience to say the least. Thank you to anyone and everyone who helped make this year’s North American Seminar happen! We are so thrilled to be able to spend the rest of the time developing relationships that will last forever.

  

Israel Winter Seminar - January 2, 2015

Dear Parents,

We got a vivid taste of Jerusalem today. After a filling breakfast, we had the privilege of visiting Mt. Herzl alongside two tour guides and an armed medic. The tour guide helped us visualize the agonizing grief that all of Israel feels when another if its brothers falls. The melancholy yet humbling experience left us Dillers with a larger sense of gratitude and inspiration to take initiative as Jewish leaders.

After the tour of the cemetery, we drove to the Old City of Jerusalem where we enjoyed yummy schwarma. We then proceeded to our favorite part of Jerusalem, the Western Wall. We have never felt more thankful and blessed to be standing at the Kotel, the most important symbol of the Jewish struggle. Later, we rode back to the Caesar Hotel and had a lovely Shabbat dinner followed by games and programming led by our tour guides and Diller staff. Overall, today was an educational and fulfilling day. Love and miss you. See you soon!