Welcome Home Gilad!

Sorry for not updating as much as I should be. I have been crazy sick since coming here, 3 stomach illnesses. Right now I have a cold as well. Guess thats the problem with living in a dormitory style apartment. When one person becomes ill the rest catch it soon enough. I'm still having a fantastic time and my hebrew is slowly improving day by day.

I am lucky to be in Israel on such a historic time. The biggest news for the past week has been the release of Gilad Schalit. He is an Israeli soldier that was kidnapped by Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza strip. He was held for 5 years without a single Red Cross visit and we are lucky to see him alive. All over Israel everyone is extremely happy to see him back, he just arrived a couple hours ago to Israel. In Israel everyone sees each soldier as their own brother, sisters, mother, father, etc. This is because everyone must serve in the army here and so when something happens to one soldier it is extremely personal for everyone.

The biggest debate about his release however is that Israel had to release 1,025 palestinian prisoners. This number is incredibly daunting, which shows how much they value life here and also it serves the promise that Israel will always bring back it's soldiers no matter what. Out of those 1,025 prisoners 200 of them have blood on their hands. Which means 200 of them are terrorists that successfully killed at least one person. One of these prisoners is a woman that coordinated the Sbarro suicide bombing that killed 15 innocent civilians and wounded 120. In fact I saw this woman in a movie only a month ago about the life of these prisoners in jail. When asked about her attack she said she killed 10. When the interviewer corrected her to 15 she gave a proud smile and said yes.

Sadly this deal had to be done since it seems Gaza is only getting worse and this could've been the last chance to make it. Gilad was gone for 5 years, kidnapped when he was 18. He was kidnapped during the most important years of his life. Years that most of us go to college, start our careers, and even some find their soul mates. I just pray that none of these prisoners released will return to a life of terrorism, but the statistics prove otherwise. Thankfully Israel is a much more secure country today than it was the last time a deal like this was made.

Sorry if this post is a little disorganized, I am a little loopy from my cold. However I felt that this was a pretty important post to make.

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!אני גר בתל אביב עכשיו

(I live in Tel Aviv now!)
Just got showered and ready for shabbat, I am going to my friend Raanan's family's house. He is a friend from Seattle visiting his family here in Israel. Anyway, I moved in to my apartment for the next 5 months last week here in Tel Aviv and it is amazing. The location is literally the best it can possibly get and the people in my program are awesome. I also met with my internship and they were very friendly and the work I will be doing is incredibly fascinating and exciting.

Before I moved to Tel Aviv I spent 5 days in Jerusalem for orientation for the program I am on. We toured around the city and for the most part I have seen most of it before. The stuff I hadn't seen was the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Both were fascinating and beautiful. I had to pull my shorts down a little since men should have their knees covered to go up to the dome of the rock. While I did it the guy informed me that it was enough and seemed afraid I was gonna drop my pants completely ;) We also met with a Palestinian man who is the head of the YMCA in Jerusalem. He got his mba from Harvard and undergrad from Stanford. He was very smart and we all had a very interesting discussion with him. He said he is a proud Israeli but also a Palestinian. His main point was that Israel needed to empower the arabs living in Israel (not in the west bank/gaza) to help to stop extremism. The Arabs/Palestinians living in Israel already have representatives in the parliament but the main problem is they are only interested in their own interests (not much different from the USA) and also for establishing a Palestinian state. They don't seem to care much about the interests of the arabs currently living in Israel. He had some very interesting points.

So my life in Tel Aviv! It is amazing here, I can't over emphasize that. I am going to ulpan, hebrew school, 5 days a week and am starting to learn hebrew a bit. I already moved up to a higher level class :) We also did a "field trip" to a museum across the street from my school which is about the immigration to Israel and the way things were during British rule here. Too many stories to get into there so I will promise to share them with you and take you there when you come visit me :) I have also been exploring the city as well and going to the beach, insanely nice beach here. Been eating more shawarma and hummus than you would think is possible and will start brushing my teeth with it soon ;)

yalla bye!

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Seattle, Alabama, Poland, Israel

I'm currently relaxing at my uncle and aunt's house in the north of Israel, a city named Nahariya (נהריה‎). It's on the ocean and only 10min south of the border of Lebanon. Lots of rockets landed here during the last Lebanon war but thankfully it's quiet now. On weekend nights they actually have a DJ on the beach and people dance with over the top electronic music, Zohan was pretty close with the disco stuff ;). It is also the city my mother and her family immigrated to when they left Morocco so it sort of feels as if I'm tracing my roots.

For the past two weeks I have traveled from Seattle to Alabama, driving the whole way in Rihanna (my beautiful black car.) I went through some of the most interesting and boring areas of the USA, hundreds of miles of nothing, which makes you realize how big our country is. It is a huge contrast when you come to a country the size of Israel. We actually drove today to the very north of the Golan Heights, which means I basically went from the farthest west to the farthest point east and it only took two hours! It is quite beautiful there, snow peaked mountains, fields of vineyards, and of course the wineries. Actually stopped at one and had an arrangement of interesting liquors, the best were a white chocolate and a pear and cinnamon. We also stopped at a micro brewery but the beer here I have found sorta lacks. They rely on imports from Belgium and the Netherlands. The contrast of the beauty of the Golan is the number of mine fields that have not been cleared yet. Some pretty interesting old bunkers and tanks as well from the '67 war.

Anyway, I will trace back a week to my visit in Poland, where I saw Warsaw and Krakow. Cool place but a lot of the sites have to deal with WWII so its pretty depressing. The food is very interesting though since Polish food is basically jewish food for the most part. This is due to the fact that a ton of Jews lived there for a very long time before WWII. In fact Warsaw had the largest Jewish population in the world next to New York City.

Now I will skip forward to the current day, I feel like a literary Marty McFly. Tomorrow is my cousin's wedding and the day after I will go to the orientation for the program I will be on for the next 5 months. The wedding will be crazy because Israeli weddings usually are pretty darn over the top. They definitely don't half ass it here. Insane amounts of food, since all things Jewish really are about the food, and then lots of disco time and fun.

Going to bed now. Till I type again...

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