ABBA and the General Assembly of Jewish Federations

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On November 5th 2008 Joseph Singer left new york city to fly to Israel for ten days. It was his turn to visit his Dad to see how he was doing after the surgery but he also get to spend time with me. I have been anticipating his arrival and I am lucky since he landed on a Thursday I get to go straight to my weekend with him. I am spending yet another lovely shabbaton at my Grandparents. Orig he was going to meet me at the tachanat but he fell asleep... I was able meet a couple friends for coffee and surprise him that I came to Jerusalem thursday instead of friday.

Friday we were able to walk through Nachlaot... and wonder through the shuk. I was able to show my dad my bargoning skills and impress him that the two months that I have lived here I have not really steped foot in a supermarket. We picked up some asparagus, strawbabies, sweet challah and I introduced my dad to two of my favorite places. MARSAPAN bakery, that make thes ruggies that melt in your mouth. And then down the most greesy and fatening baraka place that is amazing. They are huge so you normally split one (that is my rational) and they have everything you can imagine. Cheese, Spinish, Spinich and Cheese, Potato and the list goes one. But the best thing of all is that they can cut them open and you can put charif and techina and chmutzim in it and then it just makes it an orgasam in the mouth. But I think the best part of this morning was that while we were coming home, my dad decided to call my mom and mind you it was either just 6am or 7am (but I think 6) and he wanted to say good morning and saying that he had a good time with me at the shuk and that it reminds him of when they used to go shuk shopping and she answers in a groggy tone, and hangs up. I just laugh....

It was an enjoyable shabbat. I raced down sunday morning to go back to ulpan and volunteering and getting ready for the new week because I knew the next shabbat we would be going up to kibbutz to see my aunt and uncle and rest of the fam. I was looking forward to that because it is just so scerene up there as well as beautiful and quite. It was a weekend that I could just get away, and get ready for the GA because I knew these next couple days I would not be sleeping. We raced down from kibbutz to Jerusalem which helped me because I had a date with the sabra. My father wanted to meet him and I just didnt want to just because I didnt know where things were going it was just so new etc. I got ready while I was at kibbutz so that I could just meet him downtown where we normally grab drinks and nargila and run into a million people we both know. It was so nice, just seeing a familiar face and enjoying company while catching up and speaking rack ivrit. which for me requires a ton of attention. I get back late around two AM and all I want to do is catch up with friends back in the states and gossip about what just happened and what not. But I know I have to go because I need to wake up early to go to the GA.

8am wake up call to go to meet Otzma at the Park Hotel. I was looking forward to this conference just because I knew that I have a great opportunity to meet very powerful people in the professional Jewish world. We get briefed about what we are about to walk into a four day machine that is just going to keep going and not stopping until 12pm on wednesday afternoon. The first day is called the next generation day, and on how we are supposed to keep the Jewish religion alive and that we are the new set of leaders. It was very interesting, we started at Yad Vashem (ironic since we are the last generation to have relationships with Holocaust Survivors since they are all senior citizens and in their mid 80s.) We went to meet different new organizations mine was Media Central which is trying to give an unbias on the political situation in Israel was pretty cool but not something I am interesting much in. After that we got ready for the opening ceremonies. Otzma had awesome seats we were sitting on the bottom section all together (wearing our ugly white MASA shirts) and we were united. We hear the chairpeople open up this Assembly as well as Ehud Olmert the current prime minster of Israel. He personally addressed Otzma. (How much did Dganit and Yael pay him or does he even know who we are?) It was a great night, exhausted and this is just the beginning.. Over the next couple days I have heard speakers on a ton of topics and was very impressed. There was this day called seminars on wheels and each Otzmnik was able to pick a bus to travel on. I was accompanied by NY,TX, and CO. We went to Ramla, Rehovot, Rishon. We were learning about the melting pot of Israel: the Boucharian, Ethopian and Yeman communities. It was very cool.. the best part was that the night ended up on a cocktail dinner party in TA.

I forgot to mention that mishlachat got into the GA to work. It was his goal and we got to spend a ton of time together. He was anoucing when things began but once he was done with his job we were able to hang out. It was awesome. One night we grabbed snacked together and walked around a couple of the galleries as well as this cocktail parties we hung out the whole time. He had to mingle with his office a couple of minutes but he got to introduce me to a lot of important people. I have a lot of memories from these four days and great stories and I will never forget the General Assembly of 2008.

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