Jerusalem Marathon

Dear Friends and Family,

First of all I just wanted to say Happy Holidays to everyone! I'm loving my time in Israel so far and I hope that everyone is doing well back home. I promise I will update my blog again soon. Sorry I've been so absent from blogging recently. Today however, I am writing to you today to ask a favor from you. On March 1st, 2013 I will be participating in the Jerusalem marathon. I will be running (maybe crawling the last couple miles) the full 26.2 mile race. I am not running this race for me however. I am running this race to raise money for a foundation called One Family Together. As many of you know, thousands of rockets have been launched into Israel, not only in recent escalations, but since 2001. Over 17,000 Israelis have been affected by these rocket attacks and bombings. One Family Together helps these people affected by the rocket attacks. As it says in their mission statement, One Family's mission is "To positively affect the rehabilitation of each victim of terror and their family. To empower each victim of terror to achieve their financial and emotional independence." One Family Together provides legal, financial, and therapeutic assistance, unique to each person or family affected. They also run camps for children affected by these attacks. If you would like more information on this program, please visit http://www.onefamilytogether.org/. I am writing this blogpost to ask if you would be willing to donate to my cause. Any amount would be greatly appreciated. To donate, click on this link: http://www.teamonefamily.org/jesseabelson. Please forward this on to anyone you can! Every little effort and donation is appreciated. If you have any questions, feel free to email or Facebook me.

Thank You!

A Soccer Game to Remember

"If Palestine were to lay down their guns tomorrow, there would be no war. If Israel were to lay down theirs, there would be no Israel." -Benjamin Netanyahu

For anyone who knows me well, you will know that much of my life revolves around soccer. Some of my happiest moments have come while I was playing soccer, as well as some of my saddest moments. But I can honestly say I will never remember a soccer game better than the game I was playing in on Friday. Friday I experienced a new emotion while playing soccer, sheer terror.

It was another seemingly normal Friday afternoon in Jerusalem. Nice weather, people preparing for Shabbat,  people heading towards Shul, and me not having any idea what I was doing over the weekend. I was originally supposed to head up to Northern Israel with two of my friends but unfortunately we missed the bus. So with traveling out of the question since most of Israel was off-limits because of the Gaza conflict, we returned to Beit Ar-El for Shabbat. As soon as we returned, I saw there was a soccer game going on, so naturally I joined, playing with fellow Year Coursers at a concrete pitch across the street. We were about 20 minutes in when I heard a noise I've been dreading to hear. A noise that incites sheer panic into a group of 18 year old boys. A noise that no one should ever have to hear. Sirens. Red alert air raid sirens. Those sirens meant that there was a missile heading our direction. It paralyzed us. All those lessons that we learned at the beginning of the year that seemed so irrelevant suddenly were completely relevant. Those lessons I paid no attention to were suddenly racing through my head, trying to remember what we should do in this scenario. If only I had listened during this part of the lesson, maybe I would know what to do. But who ever expects a missile to land near them? After all, this is Jerusalem, the "safest" city in Israel. No one would or could ever send a missile into Jerusalem...right? Wrong.

Once we got over the initial shock of those sirens going off and realized what those sirens were, it sent us scattering to pick up our wallets and phones and run for cover. We had less than a minute to get from an open pitch to somewhere "safe". We seemed like little kids, playing hide and seek, trying to find the best place to hide so that no one could find us. But we weren't. This was no game. This was real life. You get found in this game and you're dead. No arguing rules, no re-spawning. No mulligans. 1 wrong step and you're done. We were playing hide and seek against a 2,000 pound, 21-foot, killing machine. 

As the sirens continued to go off, we were sprinting, trying to find the bomb shelter. The only thing going through my head was to get to safety. I wasn't thinking about how much my ankle hurt. I wasn't thinking about why this is happening. All I could think about was where to go and how much time I had left before impact. Unfortunately the nearest bomb shelter was too far away, about 3 blocks, so we settled for the next best option, staircases. We found an open apartment building and ran into their staircase, 10 or 15 of us just sitting there, comforting each other, hoping this rocket wouldn't land at our feet. We waited. We just sat there waiting. Finally we heard it. A boom. Faint, but definitely a boom. The boom of a rocket exploding. Then, a sigh of relief. The rocket, which I later found out landed about 5-7 miles from where I am was the first rocket in decades to be aimed at Jerusalem.

We stayed in the staircase for another couple of minutes before running back into Beit Ar-El where we sat again for a few minutes in the staircase. Finally we got the "kol beseder" (all clear) announcement and we went back to our apartments. Later that evening we returned to our normal lives. Now I could easily take this and turn it into an argument for Israel and how 1 million people have to regularly do what I did on Friday. But I'm not going to. Whether you back Israel or not, I think everyone can agree, no one should have to live their lives in constant fear of rockets. No one should have to run to bomb shelters or sleep in bomb shelters every night. Those sirens. A noise I will never forget. A noise that I hope I will never hear again. In a span of seconds I went from only caring about winning a game to only caring about living to see another day. It was a day I will never forget and surely a soccer match I will always remember.

 Everyone here is doing alright. People seem a little on the edge and a little shaken up but we are staying strong. Please keep Israel in your thoughts and prayers. I not only standby Israel, I proudly stand IN Israel, my home. 

עם ישראל חי

Yad Vashem and the Picture

First off I wanted to apologize for my lack of blogging recently. I've been ill much of these past 2 weeks.

This past Sunday all of the kids in Section 1 of Young Judaea traveled to  Yad Vashem as part of a 2 day Holocaust (Shoah) seminar. Those two days were some of the most powerful and thought-provoking days I've experienced not only here in Israel, but in my life. This was the first time I had gone into Yad Vashem. Previously when I was here, I was only 12 or 13 and my parents didn't think I could handle the museum (good call).
It was a very emotional day and there's one picture that stuck out more than any other picture in the museum. That was a picture of a boy, a teenager who perished in the Shoah. As I looked up on the wall and into his eyes, it immediately sent shivers down my whole body. As we locked eyes, it wasn't just a picture that was staring at me, it was my eyes that stared back at me. It was my face that was looking at me. It was the 1940s version of Jesse Abelson. It was almost as if there was a picture of myself on the wall. I stood, without words to say, staring at a picture of my twin on a wall of people who perished in the Shoah. As I stared at the picture, all I could think of was why him? What did he do to deserve that? And then I began to wonder, did he have a mom and dad like I did? Did he have a brother? What did he want to be when he grew up? I've never thought of Shoah victims on that sort of level. I've never known of any relatives of mine that perished in the Shoah so it's been personal to me by the fact that 6 million people of my religion were murdered but until seeing this picture, it's never been personal on the family level. I don't even know if this child and I were related in any way but just by the fact that by looking at him I saw myself on that wall, it became as personal as it could get. 6 million is not just a number. It's not just a statistic. It's 6 million stories that ended too soon. 6 million people with families and stories to tell. 6 million people that will never live to see their children, grandchildren, mothers, fathers, or siblings.It's 6 million separate faces, all with different stories and lives. 6 million dreams shattered. of the 6 million killed, 1 face stood out to me among all of them.  His name, I may never know. His story, I may never know but his face I will never forget. I will carry with me a piece of him for the rest of my life. He will never be forgotten. Along with the other 6 million people, they will not be forgotten. Never forget. Never again.

Magen David Adom Certified

Ever since I was a kid, I've always had a passion for helping others. Much of the reason I came to Israel is to help people. For the past 10 days, I have been in intensive training to become a Magen David Adom (MDA) certified first responded. MDA is the national ambulance service in Israel that takes overseas volunteers to work in their ambulances. A very large part of me signing up for Young Judaea is that I will get to volunteer with MDA for 5 months, starting in January.
After 10 days of 12 hour a day classes, I finally became MDA certified. That means that, beginning in January and ending in May, I will be volunteering for MDA, riding along and working in ambulances in Israel between 2-5 times a week. This is a great opportunity for me to gain experience and I am very excited to begin my volunteering for MDA.

Starting at 8:30 in the morning and officially ending at 8:30 at night, we often stayed until 9 or 10 practicing and perfecting CPR or back-boarding  We learned about what it takes to work for MDA and how to provide care and basic life support in an emergency situation. While the course was extremely intense, it doesn't mean we didn't have fun. Sometimes the fun came from just hanging out with my MDA friends, guessing about the life of one of our instructors, and sometimes it came in a nice competitive back-boarding race against the Spanish class (which my team won in 1:40). Sometimes it came with acting out scenarios and trying to come up with the craziest scenarios, and sometimes the fun was with watching me try not to pass out after they put an IV in me and took it out. All in all, it was a very fun, but intensive class.
For me, volunteering in an ambulance in Israel means more to me than just gaining that experience. It means that I am making a difference. I am helping people in Israel. I'm not a tourist anymore. Israel is my home for the next 7 months and I am making a difference while I am here. It means a lot to me to be able to help people here. As I've said before, Jews have survived for this long because we work together and help each other in any difficult scenario. Volunteering for MDA is part of my way of helping other Jews survive and working together with them. I am honored to be MDA certified and I am looking forward to beginning my MDA volunteering. Shabbat Shalom and stay tuned for more updates...

Tzfat, Shabbat, and Eilat (Ok I didn't actually go to Eilat, it just rhymed)

This past week has been a rather hectic week for me. I have been traveling around a lot and I haven't had much time here in Jerusalem to update my blog. So I'll quickly update you on what I've been up to the last week.
  Last weekend 5 of my friends and I traveled to a friend's house in Rehovet for Shabbat. We got there Friday afternoon and spent the next couple hours making Shabbat dinner for the 7 of us. Once Shabbat began, we went to the Sukkah to do the blessings and then we went back and ate our meal. We had a great meal but the best part about the meal was that we were actually talking to each other. For the first time ever, I actually kept Shabbat. That meant no phone, no music, no TV, and no computer. No distractions at all. Just the 7 of us sitting around the dinner table talking to each other, undistributed. That night, as well as the next day, we just hung around the apartment, talking to each other,  playing games, learning card tricks, discussing politics, and having the deepest conversation about religion I've ever had. In a world where I can be 6,000 miles away from people and still have instant communication with them, it was nice for once to be able to put away my phone and my computer and focus on the people who I was actually with that weekend. It was nice to just get away from the normal, fast-paced world for a little bit and just relax and have a legitimate day of rest. While I may not consistently keep Shabbat every week, I did learn a lot from that Shabbat and I realized how nice it is to get away from your normal life every once in awhile.
 Saturday night after Shabbat we came back to Jerusalem only to leave for Tzfat (Safed) the next morning. For those of you who don't know, Tzfat is a religious city in the Northern part of Israel that is the central city of Kabbalah. It is one of Israel's four holy cities (along with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias). We traveled there for Simchat Torah which is the end of the holiday of Sukkot. After a long bus ride there, we arrived and almost immediately began our celebration. Simchat Torah is a very unique holiday, especially in Tzfat and I was so lucky to be able to spend it in Tzfat. After about an hour of settling in, we walked across the street for prayers. But these weren't just any normal prayers. These were anything but normal. These services were 4 straight hours of dancing and singing. As the Rabbis' said, "On Simchat Torah, we dance until our feet can feel the Torah." We danced to Israeli songs, to prayers, and to basically everything. It was 4 hours of dancing in a circle, going crazy. We literally danced the night away. But it didn't end that night. The next day, starting even before I woke up, the whole city of Tzfat was dancing. We danced in the street, we danced with the chief Rabbi of Tzfat at some random synagogue, we danced wherever we were. It was a great, albeit tiring experience. It was unlike anything I've ever done before. I knew Simchat Torah was a day for celebrating, but I never knew that the celebrating included 48 hours of nearly constant dancing and singing. It was a crazy holiday but one of the more fun things I've done here. We did also learn about the history of Tzfat and about the Kabbalistic thought but out of everything, most of it included dancing and/or singing.
 After Simchat Torah, we came home and ever since then I've been hanging out at Beit Ar-El. On Monday I begin my 10-day Magen David Adom class, which I am very excited for. Also, this Thursday there is a huge Hadassah 100th year celebration which I will be attending. I will update again soon, most likely after the Hadassah celebration. Hope everyone is doing well back home! Miss everyone!

The Hunger Games: Yom Kippur Style

(My apologies in advance, this is a rather long blog post...I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about food.)

Today marks the holiest day of Judaism and I am humbled to spend it in the holiest place of Judaism; Jerusalem. This holiday has been a very awe-inspiring and hunger-filled holiday for me. It is incredible to watch how Yom Kippur is celebrated in Jerusalem. Never have I ever seen a whole city just stop everything and shut down completely. There was absolutely nothing open. "24/7" shops were closed. Stoplights were shut off. Cars were non-existant. The only thing that could be seen was a wave of white. Thousands of people all wearing white, walking through the streets of Jerusalem in celebration of Yom Kippur. It was a sight that you could only see in Jerusalem and a scene that must be experienced. Words cannot describe how weird and incredible Yom Kippur in Jerusalem is.

Yesterday afternoon was a bit of a disaster attempting to eat enough to get me through Yom Kippur. I was originally going to go shopping and make food before the Holiday, but I woke up a little too late and all the stores were closed already. So we went onto plan B which was a pizza place right next to us. When we got there and that was closed, we started freaking out a little bit. When you live with 6 other guys, no matter how much food you buy, it disappears faster than my leftovers back home when I put it in the fridge (I'm still mad at you dad for eating that cookie). Anyway, we had almost no food in our apartment so I quickly cooked up the little food that we had which included rice, frozen peas and carrots, and eggs. I ended up have a pre-feast meal of undercooked rice, veggies, and some eggs. It was pretty good for a spur of the moment meal.

Once Yom Kippur started, a couple of my friends and I walked to the Kotel. While we were on the way to the Kotel, I had one of the first moments where I didn't feel like a tourist in Jerusalem. On our way to there, we passed a group of American high school kids. They were lost and asked us for directions to a synagogue. Surprisingly, I immediately knew what synagogue they were talking about and I gave them directions on how to get there. That's when I realized that I wasn't just another tourist in Israel, I'm a student here. I live in Israel now. 

When we finally got to the Kotel, it was another incredible sight. Everyone was dressed in white having small services, all with their Torahs. I ended up joining a Spanish service full of kids from South America. It was confusing trying to juggle speaking English, Spanish, and Hebrew but it was nice to speak all three languages within 20 seconds of each other. As I've said before, I'm starting to realize what Judaism truly is. It brings us together. People from all different countries, backgrounds, and cultures, all coming together as one identity to celebrate the holiest day at the holiest sight in Judaism. It was a great experience and made me realize even more what Israel means and what being Jewish truly means.

After sitting in that service for about 30 minutes, I decided to leave because it was getting too hard to hear the service. I couldn't find any of my friends so I decided to just walk to the reform service nearby alone. After a very peaceful walk, a walk where I was in the middle of the road and could count the number of moving cars I saw on one hand, I showed up to the reform service. It is a very nice service and the Rabbi there knows my grandpa so the services are very similar to my services back home. I spent about an hour there and then once those ended, I walked back home. At about 9:00 that same night, a big group of Year Coursers, all wearing white, a tradition in Israel, (it is said that you wear white to be like angels and that we will never be closer to angels than on Yom Kippur) left Beit Ar El and walked around for a couple hours. We walked through the middle of normally busy streets, where all you could see were people dressed in white. It was like a scene from a movie. No cars were around, just people walking around everywhere, all dressed in white. It was an eerie sight but an incredible sight at the same time.

Today, I've spent most of my day with friends, playing games, talking about food, having an "alternative lunch", dreaming about food, and salivating over food we can't have for another couple hours. I think it goes without saying, I'm hungry. But it does make it a lot easier the fact that we have almost no food in our kitchen anymore. I'm heading back to the Kotel again in a few minutes so I'll wrap up this blog post. Hope everyone back home is having a good Yom Kippur and I miss all my family and friends!

Shana Tova!

Shana Tova! Hope everyone had a great Rosh Hashana. I had a great experience being here in Israel on Rosh Hashana. I spent the first night of Rosh Hashana in Jerusalem and the second night with friends in Tel Aviv. It was very interesting to see the differences between not only in the states and Israel, but between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I had a great Rosh Hashana here in Israel, although I did miss the big family dinners that we have back home every year (and my mom's challah).
  The first night of Rosh Hashana, me and my roommates Matt and Zev, hosted a small Rosh Hashana dinner

for anyone who was still at Beit Ar-El. We had a nice, small Rosh Hashana dinner out on our rooftop with a lot of apples and honey and a lot of food. After we filled ourselves with food, we chilled out for a little bit before eventually heading for the Kotel. We walked about 30 minutes to the Kotel and spent about 30 minutes at the wall. Surprisingly, there were very few people at the wall so it was a very nice, peaceful experience. After we left the Kotel, we were walking home when the Israeli police randomly stopped us. We were searched for about 20 minutes for drugs or anything illegal until we were finally allowed to leave. We finally got home, about an hour after we left the Kotel.
The next morning Zev and I woke up early and walked to Shul. We went to a reform synagogue nearby which was nearly full but luckily we were able to find 2 seats. The services lasted a couple hours and were surprisingly extremely similar to our services back in the United States. I imagine that is partially because the founder of the synagogue (who knows my grandpa) is from the United States and came here to start this synagogue. It was a very nice service and it was great to go to a service that reminded me of services at Beth El. Later in the day we went to a potluck lunch on our Madrichim's roof before Zev and I traveled to Tel Aviv to see some friends from a different section. We had a great time in Tel Aviv and it was great to meet some people in different sections, as well as seeing some people I already knew.
While I did have a great Rosh Hashana, it was very different than what I am used to. I loved being in Israel for Rosh Hashana, but I did miss sitting at the dinner table with my family, making jokes, eating amazing food, and making fun of my mom's dessert.

An unexpected adventure in Ein Gedi

The best things in life are said to come from the most unexpected moments. That could not be more true than what happened to my friends Matt, Max, and I on Friday and Saturday. Friday morning my friends and I decided to take a spur of the moment hiking/camping trip to Ein Gedi. Ein Gedi, which is a national park that includes beautiful mountains and the dead sea is approximately an hour away from Jerusalem and has some of the most beautiful views I have ever experienced. We left Friday afternoon not knowing where we were going to stay or what we were going to do and we came back Saturday afternoon after having one of the most incredible days of my life. Surely a day I will remember forever.

We left our apartments Friday around 3, hoping we'd find a bus to Ein Gedi. Unfortunately on Fridays there's only one bus to Ein Gedi and we had already missed it. So instead we took a taxi all the way to Ein Gedi. After getting there, we instantly went to the dead sea where we lazily floated around until I got the water in my eye and had to get out. After that we ate our dinner (peanut butter sandwich and a cliff bar) and headed up the mountain. We hiked until we found a good base camp and then we set up there. It was a perfect place to wake up and watch the sunrise. We watched the stars for awhile before we went to bed which was an unreal experience. There was no light within a mile of us and you could see every star in the sky. I don't think I've ever seen more shooting stars in my life. We fell asleep early to the sound of a guitar being played in the youth hostile nearby and after an interesting night on the mountain we woke up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise. The sunrise was incredible. The view of the sun rising over Jordan and the dead sea was like a picture on a postcard. It was such a great view. After the sunrise we hiked another hour or two to a waterfall which was another beautiful sight to see considering we were in the middle of a desert. After the waterfall, we finally found our way out of Ein Gedi and found our way back home safely that afternoon. It was an incredible experience and I will never forget that sunrise over the dead sea. Truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Shana Tova everyone! Will update again after Rosh Hashana.

Red Hot Chili Peppers!

For the first time ever, the Red Hot Chili Peppers came on tour to Israel this week. In front of 50,000 people, the Chili Peppers delivered a concert that will surely never be forgotten by anyone in attendance. My two friends and I were lucky enough to be among those 50,000 people that night at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv. The concert was an incredible experience and I am so grateful that I was able to have the freedom to go to this concert. While we ended our night with thousands of Israelis screaming to “Californication” and “Can’t Stop”, we began our day at a much different spot in Israel.

We started our day traveling to Hebrew University and Mount of Olives learning about the history of Israel. We traveled to the cemetery and saw the glistening city of Jerusalem from many different angles and perspectives. We learned all about the history of Israel and one thing always seemed the same; Israelites always stick together. From the beginning of the history of Jerusalem to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, all Israelis stick together. Sometimes at the concert a little too close together…There were definitely times were I got stepped on or elbowed by the person next to me. Standing next to random people, starting chants as we waited for the Chili Peppers to come on was an experience of its own. It didn’t matter who we stood next to or spoke to at the concert, just being together in Israel, we instantly formed a connection to anyone we spoke to. Whether it was an Israeli, an American, a Canadian or anyone else, there was always that connection to being in Israel and sticking together, not only as Chili Pepper fans but also as a country.

 I began my day learning about Jews in Israel thousands of years ago and ended my day spending time with thousands of Jews at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Israel. None of this would have been possible if there had not been the incredible Jewish state of Israel. If Israel didn’t exist, I would not be here. I would not have been able to have the most amazing experience of my life. Not been able to meet all these Israelis with some incredible stories.

                The concert, which was dedicated to the late Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Hillel Slovak, a Haifa native, who sadly passed away in 1988, was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever witnessed. Not only was it an incredible concert, but the fact that we were in Israel, made the concert that much more special. Taking pictures with random Israelis around, moshing with anyone who was nearby us, no one cared about anything but the music. Obviously, the music was incredible also. With every song we would sway or jump to the beat, hanging around 50,000 other Israeli Chili Pepper fans. There was nothing that could have made that night any better. Having the freedom on Year Course to have these experiences is what is going to make these 9 months the most incredible 9 months of my life. Already I have met so many amazing people from Israel and other countries, spent a Shabbat in Jerusalem, attended a crazy Friday night service, a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, and just today an Israeli National Soccer game. These experiences are what make my time here so special. Being not only a tourist but having the freedom to be part of the Israeli culture makes this trip so much more meaningful for me. These experiences are teaching me what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be a Zionist. These past 2 weeks have been an incredible experience for me, I can’t wait to see what these next 8 ½ months have in store for me.     

Salaam Shalom

Singing the Hatikva in Jerusalem

The past couple of days have been a lot of orientation, signing up for classes and just getting used to life in Beit Ar-El. Yesterday the other 2 sections of year course came to our home in Jerusalem for the opening ceremonies. It was nice, although a little hectic, to get to see all 300 or so people on year course. After eating Falafel for like the 4th time that day (that's all I'm living on) we sat down to listen to speakers which included past year coursers, some current year coursers, and some older woman whose speech quickly became extremely political and just kind of weird. After the speakers were finished there was an Israeli band playing and what was all 300 of us quietly sitting, quickly turned into everyone dancing. We moshed to classic Israeli songs like Salaam Shalom, going crazy, jumping and pushing everyone around, just happy to be in Israel. At the end of the opening ceremonies, we all turned to the Israeli flag for the Hatikva. With my arms around 2 other people that I've never seen before and probably never will again, we all sang the Hatikva. It was during the Hatikva that I realized that it didn't matter if I didn't know these kids next to me, we all had a special connection. A connection to Israel, to our homeland. With the Israeli flag blowing in the night and 300 kids of all different backgrounds signing to one song, I began to realize what it means to be Jewish. Everyone always says that when a Jew goes to Israel, they are "home". I now realize what they mean. I have begun to figure out what being Jewish really means. It doesn't mean that I need to believe in God or not use electricity on Shabbat. It means sharing a connection with all Jews. A connection of Israel. A connection of culture. This weekend is my first Shabbat in Israel and I am looking forward to it. Stay tuned for more updates...

First glimpse of Jerusalem

Yesterday we got our first view of Jerusalem during the daytime. We walked about 20 minutes to a park where we could see all of Jerusalem. It was such a beautiful view. We then had our opening ceremonies and came back to the apartments. After a little down-time, we learned how to keep kosher in our apartment and how to budget the apartment and we went on our first shopping spree....Obviously we didn't learn very well how to budget; we spend over 1000 shekels (over $250) on our first week of food. Hopefully it'll last us longer than a week. I've decided that while I am in Israel I will be suspending my vegetarian ways and eat turkey and chicken again. It just makes sense so it's not a hassle on the apartment and just to be sure I'm getting enough protein every day....Anyway, after shopping and surprisingly managing to find our way home we ate dinner, had another orientation seminar and then most of us went out to explore the city at night. A couple of friends and I took a bus to Ben Yehuda street. Even though it was a Tuesday night, there was still a lot going on. We met up with a lot of the other Year Coursers and just hung out on Ben Yehuda street till we finally caught a cab ride back home for some well deserved rest. More updates soon! Hope everyone back home is doing well and I miss everyone back home.

First Day in Israel

After leaving Minneapolis at 10:00A.M. on September 2nd, I finally arrived in Israel at 6:00P.M. on the 3rd.  The 10 hour flight to Israel was rather restless with a continuously crying baby 2 rows ahead of me. Needless to say, I am exhausted. Tomorrow we get our first look of the city in the daytime and our first chance to go shopping and go out. We are staying in apartments in a little campus-like area in Jerusalem. In total there are 7 people in the apartment and 3 bedrooms. We have 3 British people, 3 Americans, and one Canadian in our room. All of them (including the Canadian...surprisingly) seem really cool and nice people. My phone is working normally so feel free to text or call me to my normal phone number. There will be more, in depth posts soon but for now I need my sleep. Shalom

100 Hours

In 100 hours I will be on my way to the biggest adventure of my life. As you can see, it's rather hectic packing my life up for the next 9 months. While I am excited to go to Israel, it's hard to realize that a chapter of my life is ending. While a new chapter is beginning there are still parts of my life that are extremely difficult to give up and parts that I don't want to give up. In 4 days I will be getting on a flight going to Israel. In 100 hours a chapter of my life will be over. 100 hours to say some impossibly hard good-byes to friends and family. But at the same time in 100 hours I will be starting the most amazing chapter of my life. A chapter full of adventure, learning, fun, and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

For those of you who would still like to communicate with me while I am in Israel, I will have a computer with internet and hopefully my phone as well (if there is good wi-fi I will still be able to text/call people with my normal cell phone). If you would like to know my skype, phone number, email address, or anything else, please let me know.

What I am doing

In 12 days I will be leaving on what I hope will be the greatest experience of my life. For those of you who don't know what I am doing, I will be traveling to Israel for 9 months starting on September 2nd. So what exactly am I doing while I am there? Well I have about as much of an idea as you do. What I do know is that I will be spending my first 3 months in Jerusalem and then moving to Bat Yam my second 3 months.

My program is called Young Judaea Year Course. I will be traveling with a few hundred other students from all over the world doing the same gap year program I am. Within the Young Judaea program, I am doing a medical specialty track. That means that many of the classes I take and much of the volunteer work I do will be based around medicine and learning about medical careers. My final three months in Israel I will be doing a program called Magen David Adom, which involves riding and volunteering in an ambulance around Israel. So as of now, that is basically all I know about what I am doing in Israel. A lot of classes, volunteer work, and just hanging out getting to know people and getting to know the country. It should be a great year and I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be hard to leave and hard to leave my family and friends (and dog) but I know that once I get there I will have an amazing experience there. I will make sure to update my blog at least every few days while I am in Israel. Stay tuned...