Vacation

Sorry it’s been such a long time since the last post! Ulpan has been over since last Thursday. I think my final went well, and the picnic afterwards was a lot of fun. I brought my Frisbee and was able to throw for a while with Savannah and some other people. I spent most of the weekend cleaning my apartment, of which I am currently the only inhabitant. Having the whole place to myself is a little weird. Luckily, for the weekend Laura and some other people were still around so we went to the beach and the mall. Saturday night we went to the beach and walked down the boardwalk to where there was Israeli dancing going on. Real Israeli dancing is much more complicated than what I learned at camp, so we just watched and enjoyed the music. It was so beautiful being at the beach at night, and there were so many other people out!

On Monday I went to Akko, a town near Haifa which has a beautiful old city. I walked through the shuk, the citadel, the nice port, the Turkish baths, and anything else that looked interesting. That night my friend Josh got back to campus so we went out for Sushi and then on my first excursion to a bar in Israel. I of course don’t have much to compare it to, but we had a fun time. Tuesday we drove around the Galilee. We went to Tiberius where we saw the tomb of the matriarchs where Avigayil, Zipporah, Elisheva, Yochaved, Bilha and Zilpa are believed to be buried. We also saw Rabbi Akiva’s tomb. Next we drove to Tzvat (Safed) and just walked around the old city a bit. We had dinner in Rosh Pinna, a beautiful little town that was one of the first settlements in the country. Northern Israel is amazing. We were in view of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) nearly the whole time. The land very hilly and we were constantly faced with beautiful views of these hillsides.

Yesterday (Thursday) I took a bus to Jerusalem in the morning to visit cousins Lee and Lynn. These are the cousins my family discovered in Israel when we were all here in December. Lee was our tour guide and through general getting to know you discussion someone figured out that he was married to Lynn Savadsky, whose father is my grandmother’s first cousin (…right?). I met Lynn at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem where Lee was going to be giving two American tourists a tour. I never would have thought to visit the Supreme Court, but it is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. It as built by a brother-sister team of architects and it seemed like they based nearly every element of their design on passages from the bible. This was all very well explained by Lee of course. One of my favorite things about the building is that it is lit almost entirely by natural light. There were huge windows and skylights everywhere. We were able to go into one of the five courtrooms. The courtroom was designed so that you feel like it is outside, very evocative of the Old City.

After the tour, Lynn and I had lunch and then walked back to her apartment. It was a great feeling to be able to walk from the center of the New City where the Supreme Court and Knesset is, all the way to the German Colony where they live. It reminded me of NYC and made me miss it a lot. In Haifa we can’t really walk anywhere since the University is at the top of the mountain and very far away from the city center. Also, since it’s a mountain, you’re always going to have to walk uphill for half of the walk. Lynn and Lee’s apartment is far enough away from the city center that it doesn’t feel like they’re living in a capital city at all, but they are a few steps away from the lively streets of the German colony that are filled with stores and restaurants. We went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with Lynn’s two daughters, Kim and Rhea. Rhea was also with her husband Simon and their 1 year old son Ari. I had a great dinner getting to know my (third!) cousins. Rhea works for a Jewish agency and Kim is an artist who illustrates children’s books and designs book covers among other things. Ari is of course the cutest baby ever and no one is afraid to tell him so.

This morning Lynn and I tagged along on Lee’s tour again and we went to the City of David into Hezekiah’s Tunnel. This tunnel was used for water, so we got wet up to above our knees, although for most of the time the water was only around our ankles. We made a brief stop at the Mount Zion Hotel to learn some history about the cable car that ran from there to the Old City. My family had all stayed at this hotel when we were here in December so it was fun to see it again. We saw a few more things in Jerusalem and then I took the bus back to Haifa.

Visiting Jerusalem was great, it felt like coming home in a way. I think it was a combination of it being our (the Jewish People’s) capital, being with family, visiting places where I had been with my family in December, and just being in a real city again that reminded me of New York (proud of me, Dad?). Though there was definitely a feeling of excitement just as the bus was entering the hills around Jerusalem, before we even got into the heart of the city. This may have something to do with the fact that I am currently rereading Exodus (the novel, not the book in the bible) in an attempt to get myself a bit more into the Zionist spirit. For most of my time here I have been feeling like an American tourist, hardly Jewish at all, finding little connection to the land, and therefore struggling with identity issues brought up by all these factors. I could of course go much more into these, and I won’t here, but if anyone has any insight to share, feel free to email me.

On a more practical note, Josh and I are definitely going to Greece, plane tickets have been purchased and hostel reservations made. Mom recently alerted me to an internship available at the university that I am now scrambling to apply for. It entails working at their archaeological museum and is pretty much a dream internship. However, I am applying really late and don’t have the correct paper work in yet so we’ll see. If that doesn’t work out, I will at the very least be taking some really interesting classes I am already looking forward to, but more about all that when everything is finalized.

Sorry this is so long. I hope everyone’s school year/Autumn is getting off to a good start!

---

---