• Getting yelled at a ton by Boaz for not showing up, going out, or being late. He also threatened to send me home at some point. In the end, we were cool.
• Niv giving me a warning for going to Gaza and running over children in a stolen tank.
• NOT going to the Kotel with the group, but instead spending the time in the hostel with Noga. Then, the next day, I walked to the Kotel by myself. I walked all the way up the street, past the President’s house, to the old city, from just a few blocks away from the Judaen Hostel.
• Walked through Jaffa gate, where I took my MDA call to the Church. Then down all the way through the Arab shook to the Kotel.
• I need to go back there soon…wow
• Going to the wall. Praying, watching people, standing there, crying.
• Watching the two Asian men sitting next to the Kotel, crying, holding each other, and talking. I had no idea what on earth could be happening but it was, and it was incredible.
• Walking back, past the Rabin hostel, to the Judaean Hostel. Stopped to see Zander and Sam and Miriam. Lily was there and we ended up talking and crying and…shit yeah that was a mess.
• Talking to Jackie for the first time in quite some time in the halls of the Hostel at 2 in the morning
• Finishing the trip where it started, with Jackie, in the Newark Airport
• Seeing the Asian men at the Kotel was a really incredible experience, for some odd reason. Likely because I assumed they were not Jewish, and I wanted to think that the wall had some ridiculous emotional power over people, like it had over me. Or that previously I had thought that it only had this power on Jewish people that believed it had this power, but really it was cross-cultural. Every time I am at the wall I see one incredible thing after another, making me emotional, but also making me believe that the Kotel is incredible. Every one of these experiences has involved Jews, except for this one. Who knows why, I likely never will, yet this was definitely a lasting impact on me.

My laptop just broke right next to me. Wonderful! I don’t know what I’m doing…I think I will start writing again. Not for you creeping on my blog, but for myself, to organize my thoughts.

Lets begin, by going to bed. Lilah Tov

Guy drove me home after dinner, and because they had given me 6 cups of pop, I could not have been more hyper. I tried to get Danny to go to the forest party in Modi’in with me, but he was sick with swine flu, so I ended up walking around Holon and Bat Yam with Rachel. It was a looooong long walk, but really nice and cool to see everything at night. The next day, Danny and I walked down to the beach, and then along the beach. And we kept walking. And kept walking. Past the cave…until we reached Jaffa. We hung out in Jaffa, scouted out flags to borrow, and then headed back to Bat Yam via main roads. We saw a bunch of kids beating eachother with gardening tools, which is always interasting. Better then TV in my opinion. We saw an old man with a big mustache riding a bike, wearing security gaurd uniform and packing heat. We look at each other at the same time and said “Damn do I love this country.” That actually really memorable, and the epitome of why I love this country. Same thing could happen in America, and I would just chuckle…but for some reason it makes me love this place so much. Go figure. 

I went to a great concert in Ra’na’na for Yom Ha’atzmaut. I was exhasted so I fell asleep for some of the boring artists and woke up for the exciting ones. By the end of the concert, I was in the middle of the whole crowd, and everyone was moshing in a huge circle…it was fun and all, but I never plan on moshing with Israelis again. 

More to come soon!

1.http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082393.html 

Not exciting enough? Try this:

2.http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1080922.html 

Sorry Mom!  :-)

Our soldier was in section 6, in the 2nd to the last row I believe. I think his name was Mart (Or Bart), and I think his initials were M-B or B-M. We heard about how his tank was struck by a rocket while trying to take the Suez Canal. He was an officer in the army, and after he was released into the reserves, he became a security official on El-Al flights. When the Yom Kippur war broke out, he was in New York. Israel asked him to wait in New York and fly back with a shipment of military supplies. After waiting a few days, his flight made it to Europe, where during the layover, he was informed that he would have to wait again before going back to Israel to fight. Like a typical Israeli, he refused to follow this order and somehow managed to make it onto a flight, without a passport or any kind of papers, and made his way back to Israel. While he couldn’t get to his unit, he was assigned a tank division, and headed into the Saini to take the Suez Canal. On Egypt’s side of the Canal, he was standing exposed as his tank was hit with a rocket and because of the rocket, and the fall off the tank, he died.  We did the mourners Kaddish, and all went our separate ways. 

Danny and I wandered off after a bit, and started to explore the massive graveyard. We saw a lot of secret service because supposedly Ehud Barak was there. We saw soldiers crying, saw families talking to each other and consoling each other. A great deal of the graves were from anywhere from 10-70 years ago. We wandered into the section of soldiers that were born outside of Israel. We were looking at where they were all from. There was Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Iraq, and many other countries. We were standing in on of the middle sections, that was raised off the ground, looking at two graves. One was born in Poland, and the other I can’t remember. There was a man, that looked about 60, sitting next to one. After a ten minute debate about the appropriateness of speaking to him about his story, I approached him and asked if he spoke English.  Needless to say his English was nearly flawless, and his story, although not overly exciting, made the epitome of why Israel exists. 

The dates on the graves were in Hebrew years, so I did not know when the person whose grave he was next to was born, or had died. I asked if it was his son and he chuckled. He said it was his brother. On the grave I could see that this man’s brother had died for Israel when he was 18 years old. It was just my birthday, and the realization that I’m not 19, and this kid died when he was 18 literally sent chills down my spine.  His brother was born in Poland in 1939. He was taken to Palestine in on a youth Alyah program in 1948, and was there for the establishment of a Jewish country. He served in the army when he was 18. While driving a truck trailing a massive tank of water through the recently conquered Sinai Peninsula, the water tank behind the truck flipped, causing the truck itsself to flip, killing this man’s brother. The man talking to us said that he was born in Russia, and was 9 years old when his brother died. He also had another brother that would have been 20 at the time, who was no longer alive. When this man made Alyiah, he moved to Bat Yam. He told us how Bat Yam used to be all sand. The Bat Yam mall, and Yosefall 112 were sand when he lived here. He loves the new mayor, and thinks the city is going good places. He now lives in Rishon Litzion. I could not have been happier about the outcome of that conversation. Originally I was disappointed that the story lacked excitement and what we would consider as contemporary heroism. After thinking about it for a bit, I was grateful that I heard that specific story. He died for his country.

The siren was set to go off at 11:00 AM. Danny and I wandered to a very crowded section of the cemetery to listen to the siren. We were in one of the middle sections, against the wall that I believe is closest to Tel Aviv (South). With about minute before the siren went off, people started to stand.  Thousands of people all talking, laughing, crying, praying, and singing all fell silent at the same time as the siren went off. The emotions that went through my head during that 120 seconds of sirens and silence are unexplainable. This single siren managed to bring tears to my eyes. Why? In front of me, as the sirens began, I watched a very decorated army general in his 40s help his old disabled father out of his wheelchair to stand. What hit me most was that I knew, at that very moment, every man and women in the country was doing the same thing I was. Cars stopped on the roads and people got out. Buses pulled over and opened their doors. Telephones hung up, schools went silence (something that NEVER happens in this country), exciting malls become silent, and crowded cemeteries fill with emotion. Looking around, I see families, standing silent, holding each other. I see the very poor Orthodox man that had been yelling at people, handing out water,  and just sitting on the bench, stand up. I don’t know why, but that hit me as one of the most impressive things. All these generals, soldiers, families, and youth groups of course were standing out of respect and standing silently. But for some reason this dirty, disheveled old man was also standing silently. No matter who you were, you stood silently during the siren. I looked over at the Mada Araan (attack) ambulance that was there in case someone decided to carry out one of the most disgusting and unthinkable terrorist attacks in history. There was a driver and three volunteers all standing in a row, heads bowed, listening to the siren. For some reason this also really stuck out in my memory. Because they are Mada and I was also? Who knows, but I couldn’t remember that picture better. I wish I could put the feeling I felt during that siren into words.

After the siren was done, there were some words of respect over the loud speaker, and after about 10 minutes they began to recite the Mourners Kaddish. The man in front of me in the wheel chair, could not have gotten onto his feet faster. Even his son looked at him in surprise as he stood up suddenly as they recited the Kaddish. Danny and I then wandered over to the other side of the cemetery as they began singing the Hatikvah. I stood, looking through a tiny hole in the group of pine trees at Degel Yisraeli waving in the distance. The speaker near us was broken and part of the national anthem was unrecognizable, but everyone around us managed to sing loud enough to make up for the crackling speaker in the background. Of course somewhere in there I forgot to speak about watching Ehud Barak speak from only 30 or 40 feet away. 

After all was finished, we headed out the street. I was waiting for Zach and Gideon at the entrance to the parking lot. Next to me were 3 heavily armed soldiers, and right next to one of their feet was a beautiful sight. A full role of red, police tape. Across the entrance there were 3 police officers, not to far away. I started talking to the soldiers about what bus to take to get into Tel Aviv. I then asked if I could have a little police tape, to which they responded “It isn’t ours, we don’t care. Just don’t let them see you.” I responded to that by saying “Thank you,” and promptly picking up the whole role and walking away. As I walked away and smiled and nodded to they soldiers, he said “Common,” expecting to be reprimanded, I was surprised when he said, “You have to at least put it in your shirt or something.” Zach, Gideon, and myself ended up walking around Tel Aviv for a bit, seeing some March of the Living groups, and eating at Benadicts, the 24 hour breakfast place. In the end, it was one of the most emotional days I have had in this freaking country that I manage to fall in love with again at least once a week. This week, it managed to happen a ridiculous amount of times. 

“It is yours too”

• Dancing to “Mono-Mono” while driving to a Dechuf call singing music
• Holding the shaking criminal’s hand-cuffed hands while getting him to the ambulance, and sitting with him in the ambulance. Helping him down the stairs…being the only one willing to help or willing to touch him. He had a daughter.
• Kid with seizurs that wouldn’t stop getting out of bed. 
• Ethiopian kid that got punched in the nose

Today I had a great day at work. I talked to Tal, and he said he was going to come visit. He went surfing yesterday and he said that he would take me surfing. We saw Jonny, Jermey, and some British girl. We listened to the school kids singing Hatikvah and getting ready for Independence day. 

My birthday was yesterday. Went to the beach with Zander, Miriam, Joe, Sam, and Sam. Had fun, swam, went out and got burgers after, then went out at night and got peanut butter sushi and ice cream in Tel Aviv with Lily. 

Thats all…I was going to write about my feelings but right now all I’m feeling is ADD so I’m going to go find something to do. Adios!

PS. I’m even to lazy to spell check…sorry!

2. JFK > Germany

3. Germany > France

4. France > Israel

5. Israel > Czech Repulic

6. Czech Repulic > Slovokia (Trains and busses through out Europe)

7. Polan > Israel

8. Israel > Italy

9. Italy > Morocco

10. Morocco > Italy

11. Italy > Israel

12. Israel > Atlanta

13. Atlanta > MPLS

14. MPLS > Atlanta

15. Atlanta > Israel

Egypt Trip – Driving!

16. Israel > Ethiopia

17. Ethiopia > Ethiopia

18. Ethiopia > Ethiopia

19. Ethiopia > Israel

20. Israel > France

21. France > JFK

22. JFK > Home

We sung Hatikvah at the end and then proceeded to walk home. It was a insightful and emotional walk. Only in Israel could I be walking up the stairs to my apartment and through my neighbors door, hear Hatikvah playing on the TV, with a man and a couple other people in the apartment singing along to it.