Real Classes and an Almost-Real Movie

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Classes started last week. I'm taking Hebrew plus four other classes: Israeli Drama, the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, After Auschwitz: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Culture, and Jewish Education. The Israeli Drama class is really fun, I miss all the drama I used to do in high school. Last night we had to read a play and analyze one character in it, and then today in class we read parts of it, playing the character we had analyzed. It was really nice to read a play aloud again. The class about the Arab-Israeli conflict is good; it's very lecture-based and the professor is kind of dry, but the material is interesting. The Holocaust class is really interesting; it's about analyzing literature and films and artwork about the Holocaust, so it's not just an English class or just an art history or a film class, which is really cool. The Jewish Education class is great too; the professor is really great and it brings me back to Or Chadash Sunday School. I feel like when I'm done with that class I could take over Betsy Zalaznick's job.
Last week, our program took us to go see The Bubble, an Israeli film about 3 young adults living together on Shenkin Street in Tel Aviv. One of the guys, Noam, falls in love with a Palestinian, Ashraf, who he meets at the checkpoint he's stationed at. Ashraf comes to Tel Aviv to return Noam's ID, and Noam's roommates find him a job and help him stay in Tel Aviv (illegally). In the end, Noam's sister marries a very radical Palestinian who organizes a suicide bomb on Shenkin that injures Noam's roommate, paralyzing him. IDF soldiers run into the West Bank, into Nablus, where Ashraf and his family live, and they more or less accidentally kill Ashraf's sister. Ashraf's brother-in-law, the radical, plans to avenge her death with a suicide bombing, but Ashraf takes his place. Noam calls Ashraf and hears the phone ringing right outside the coffee shop he's in. They see each other, and Noam sees the bulge under Ashraf's jacket and leaves the coffee shop, and Ashraf ends up just killing the two of them. In the end, the voice over says something like, "I hope there is a place after this world where we can finally be together." I cried so much. I don't know who is right, but I know that all of the violence is wrong. I feel so far away from the West Bank and Gaza, although I'm sure I'm closer to each of them than Clinton is from New York City. I was right by Shenkin today, I've been there a few times, and I was there on Birthright too.
Things are going alright, in all. My last suitemate got here, her name is Erica and she's really nice. She's been here since last semester, but she went home for break and just got back 2 weeks ago. All the kids who are here for the year did the same, and they seem pretty cool also.

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