Independence Tiyul

Independence Tiyul

              

The Castel

            One of the biggest keys of winning Milchemet Ha'atzmaut was getting to high ground. Only a short 10 minute drive away from Kibbutz Tzuba, is the Castel Fortress, which played a major role in Israel's Independence War. During the war, the Arabs tried to blockade the Jews inside Jerusalem from receiving essential supplies for survival from convoy trucks. David Ben-Gurion said that if we lose Jerusalem, then we lose the war. So, in order to win, Israel went on the offensive side with Operation Nachshon, or the ד Plan.
           The main focus of this plan, was to open the roads to Jerusalem by holding the high ground. The Castel fortress at the time was controlled by the Palestinians, who were led by General Kadar al-Husseinii. On April 3rd, 1948, the Jews sieged the Castel without a single casualty. While the Jews had control of the Castel, a convey truck was able to evade the blockade, and enter Jerusalem with supplies. General Kadar al-Husseinii and two other men, came up the mountain to inspect the area, and saw Israeli soldiers. It's not clear whether he recognized them or not, but it is said that in English, al-Husseinii announced, "Hello boys!". Right then and there, the Israelis opened fire and killed al-Husseinii. The Arabs became frustrated with this, and 1000 of them stormed back up the Kastel with rifles to reclaim the land. The Israeli soldiers were forced to retreat and take the defeat, with 39 casualties. Then, during the funeral for Kadar al-Husseinii, the Israelis took back the Castel, and they still have control of it to this day.

Machon Ayalon
         At Machon Ayalon, in Rehovot, we visited a Kibbutz that had been secretly made into a underground bullet factory. During the British Mandate, the people on the Kibbutz had a fully operating bakery, and laundry business in order to cover the noise of the bullet machines. Some British soldier even sent their clothes to the Kibbutz without any knowledge of what was happening beneath their feet!

Yad La-Shiryon

         We visited Yad La-Shiryon which is Israel's official memorial site for fallen soldiers from the armored corps, with an amazing display of tanks outside. We even got a chance to climb some of the awesome tanks.

The question I leave you with, in our last month traveling the wonderful country, is how much Israeli pride do you feel? What culture do you find yourself flourishing in more? (Israeli/American)

Cultural Zionism: Street Art Tour in Tel Aviv

Cultural Zionism

Religion can be expressed through many forms of media. Some people express their religion through praying three time days. Some people also eat shrimp on the beach.

In Tel Aviv, we saw Judaism expressed through street art. Street artist come from all sects

of Israeli society and express their political, religious, and/or artistic point of view.

Every piece, from a number to a wall, has a backstory.

“269”: This is a common tag that is used after a cow was sent free and, since animals

in the meat industry have numbers, the cow was tagged with this number. A lot of vegan

street artist use this tag and, among the Israeli vegan population, some even get a

tattoo of this number. 5% of the Israeli population is vegan and Israel has the

highest number per capita of vegans in the world.

“Even santa Deserves a Toy”: While this piece was my least favorite, it was the

first time I saw something from Christian culture expressed in Israeli society.

Even though I hated the message from this piece, I thought

all the comments were interesting.

The Jewish piece: The piece below was painted by a religious

Jew and was one of the only Jewish pieces I saw.

The Peter Pan Piece: This is one of the most famous piece,

which shows an artist chasing another. The artist is expressed as

Peter Pan and you can see the other artists’ legs in the corner.

The chasing is believed to represent that the artist

will always be in the other’s shadow.

The Blue Girl: This piece is one of the most beautiful pieces, in my opinion.

The woman has long black hair with dark blue streaks.

Her face is covered with graffiti. In her hand, she is a bright green frog who

she is about to kiss. I believe this piece represents women

meeting the unrealistic expectations of men.The woman looks

powerful, but she constantly is faced with messages from men,

or the frog. The frog in her palm, which signifies that women

have half the opportunities of men because they are in women’s

hands. Likewise, the frog is not facing the woman because

it does not need to because, unfortunately, has the upper-hand

in society.  

The People: Around Tel Aviv, we kept seeing black and white

sketches of people with vibrant red lips.

The Two Brothers: This is a famous piece signifying that there

should be peace between the Israelis and the Arabs.

The Girl with the Earring: This piece is my favorite because the piece is

very simple, being black and white, but the earring adds so much

detail and perspective. The women looks very human, at first,

until you notice her distorted neck. I think this piece represents that,

while everything might look black and white, life is very complex

and does not go the way you planned.

“Passion is like the movies, it has a

beginning and an end-but love on the other hand…”: This piece is the most

interesting to me because it is kind of a mystery. At a first glance, I thought

it was a piece for LGBT equality because of the rainbow hearts.

Likewise, I thought that the quote meant that love is unstoppable.

When analyzing it more, I am now unsure at the meaning.

What do you think this piece means? How does it tie in with Cultural Zionism?

Labour Zionism Tiyul - Caleb Ernst

       On Monday, April twenty third, Kitat Keshet, and all the Jewish History classes took a two hour bus ride to the north of Israel near the Kinneret. Up to this point we had been learning about all the horrible things in Europe that happened to the Jews, such as the pogroms in Russia, that would force the Jews to leave where they were living and explore other options. Many of these Jews left Europe and moved to America, seeking a better life with more economic opportunities and religious freedoms, but some of the more ideological Jews decided to try to return to our homeland, Israel. Our tiyul would help teach us about these early Zionists, called labour Zionists, by taking us to the places that they actually settled. This group of Zionists was categorized by the belief that the best way to create a Jewish homeland in ארץ ישראל was to physically work the land themselves. They were categorized by  two groups, first and second wave aliyahs.

     

 At our first location we learned about Labour Zionism as a whole but focused more on First Wave Aliayhs. Here we were shown a video that was designed to depict the struggle the first group of  Jews faced when moving to Israel. We learned about all the work they had to do in order to make the land farm-able in the first place. The movie also showed all the other struggles the Jews faced. The Jews had to pay a ten percent tax a Jewish organization and to the Turks who governed the land. They also had to pay a guard to watch and make sure that no one stole from them or attacked them. On top of all this the Jews had to deal with diseases and figuring out how to run there own society with things like education and eventually their own defense. After the movie we were shown a replica house a model of what a home back in the early 20th century would have looked like, complete with slightly creepy life size human figurines. Finally we got the pleasure of having a professor who one the Israel prize speak to us. He drilled into our brains that these people came to Israel because of ideology, ideology, ideology. He also taught us that this wave of aliyah was from 1882-1903 as well as some other important dates like 1897 was the first Zionist Organization, 1948 was when Israel was created, and 1967 was the 6 day war. Along with this he told us that the first wave consisted of about 25000 Jews, most of whom were middle class workers who had never farmed a day in their life. Because of them not being able to adjust to the farming life style, as well as all the other struggles, about half of these Jews would end up leaving Israel. 

       after a short bus ride and a stop for lunch we arrived at our second location. Here we learned about the second wave of aliyah and the very first kibbutz. In this wave, which lasted from 1904-1914, David Ben Gorian came to Israel, he believed that settling the

land was the only way to get our own state.We watched another short video that showed what life on the first kibbutz, kibbutz degandya, founded in 1909, was like. We learned that the kibbutz was founded with very socialist ideals and consisted mostly of young Jews who were much more ready to farm the land. We also learned about some important women figures, such as Hannah meisel who was an important leader for the first kibbutz. 

     

     One last short bus ride later we arrived at our last destination, the cemetery for the first kibbutz, which is still active to this day. The first thing that hit me when we got there is how beautiful the place was. From the cemetery you could see the Kinneret and it was amazing how beautiful this place full of death was, it perfectly showed how in Judaism death is really a celebration of life. there we learned about

some of the lives and eventual deaths of people who helped to found our country, one man killed himself cause of how hard life was, another was the story of the first child born there and how he only was able to live for 5 months cause of how little infrastructure there was. finally to end out the day, Evan told his Aliyah story and what drove him to coming to this country that me and so many of my classmates have grown to love.

      On our long bus ride back to the kibbutz I thought about how hard it must have been to come to Israel in these early days, and how tempting it must have been to just go to america instead, I do not know if I could have done it. So I will pose the same question to you as I asked myself, if you were leaving Europe and had to choose between America or Israel, would you have moved to Israel or America?

Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut

Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut- Disha 

Yom Hazikaron is a very special day for Israelis. Yom Hazikaron is the day to remember the fallen soldiers and victims of terrorist attacks. Israelis take this day to honour and remember the soldiers who have lost their lives fighting to protect the state of Israel. For 24 hours on April 17, everyone in Israel is mourning and showing their respect to all who unfortunately lost their lives. As we learned, this day is extremely hard for people who live in Israel because everyone knows either a family member, friend or someone who knows someone that has died in the army which is different from remembrance day back in North America. On this day from sunset to sunset, all public places like clubs, theatres, cinemas, etc. are closed. On Yom Hazikaron this year, we all got to hear the two sirens that sound all around Israel. The first siren marks the beginning of Memorial Day at 8 pm and the second one is at 11 am the next morning. On the night of Yom Hazikaron, we went to the kotel and saw the ceremony where many Israelis gathered for the beginning of Memorial Day. That is where we heard the first siren and the next day we heard the second one which sounded for 2 minutes while seeing the highway where the cars had stopped as soon as they heard the siren. On this day radio and television stations broadcast programs which portray the lives and heroic deeds of the fallen soldiers. We went to the kibbutz cemetery and got to see how everyone on the kibbutz had some connection to the people who died, which made it extremely personal and meaningful for people here.

Immediately following Yom Hazikaron, comes Israel's independence day which is known as Yom Ha'atzmaut. This is a huge celebration in Israel because there is a mood switch that takes over that goes from mourning to partying and we witnessed that at the ceremony.  On the night of Yom Ha'atzmaut we went to Ben Yehuda street for a huge festival celebrating Independence day and I think all of us can agree it was the best night we've ever had. Everyone was out decorated in Israel accessories and rejoicing with huge stages full of music and lights that took over the night. We definitely experienced the change from us giving silence for the fallen soldiers to partying in Jerusalem. The next day we went to the Palmachim beach to have a barbecue and we watched the air force fly their jets across the sky to celebrate Israel's 70th birthday. After experiencing Yom Hazikaron in Israel do you think remembrance day in Israel is more meaningful to you than in North America?  

Pesach

This was my first Pesach in Israel, and I'm sure it was for many of you as well. I am used to a fairly traditional reform/conservative seder that lasts a few hours at maximum. And for some reason, I was expecting the orthodox of the orthodox seder this year. I was wrong, but I wouldn't say I was let down. For pesach, I went to my friend's aunt's family. Jake's (my friend) Uncle married into a Yemenite family so I had the pleasure of experiencing what I now think of as a typical saphardic seder. Thankfully everybody spoke very good English, although, the entire serder was in Hebrew. Everybody read faster than I could ever imagine, and so the seder would have otherwise gone fairly quick. But in between readings from the Haggadah, at every moment possible (or not possible) someone would start an argument. Not an argument like you see at an American dinner table. An authentic, vulgar one with yelling and sweating. I kid you not, the giant hulk of a man sitting across from me had veins popping out of his head. They would go something like this: Alone, in his early twenties, would take a shot of whatever 120 proof beverage he was drinking. His uncle would pour himself one while Alone's father would yell from literally the opposite end of the table at him for drinking. Jake's other cousins would start talking about whatever. The grandmother, a very traditional, observant, stout lady, would muster all her strength to yell one of two things: the next reading or "Sheeeeekeeeed!" I honestly had a lot of fun observing a true Israeli seder. What was yours like?

Pesach has always been a special holiday for me. My favorite movie is The Prince of Egypt. I find the seder to be quite enjoyable. But the most important part of the holiday is remembering that we were once slaves in Egypt and that we escaped and we were given the Torah at mount Siani. Not our ancestors. Everyday, each one of us faces some sort of "slavery" every day, we cross our own "red sea" and everyday we obtain some sort of knowledge from our actions. To add to that, us Jews have always seen oppression. The pass over story serves as a reminder that we have, we can, and we will overcome oppression and how we can cope with it mentally. But wait, there's more. We are also reminded to ask questions and the importance of questions. Questions are what educate us, an answer is just a dead end. What does Pessach mean to you?

Gadna

Gadna was an experience that helped us all learn and grow as individuals, it tested us physically as well as mentally.  Gadna was fun at times and not so much fun at other times, it was fun trying to make our mfakedets laugh while it wasn’t as fun crawling through rocks.  One of the things that we learned about quickly was discipline, this includes small this like being disciplined enough to have our water bottles filled up all the way on time but also includes important things like getting places on time.  The experience of doing Gadna also helped us learn about the IDF and what it is like being apart of it.

Doing Gadna showed us what some of the challenges of being in the IDF might be.  This includes many of the things that any soldier would have to experience like yelling loudly when your commander walks over to you or standing with good posture all the time. In addition to these things a combat soldier has to do even more difficult things like shooting a gun or covering your face with dirt and trying to stay hidden.  Even though it has challenges Gadna also showed us some of the better things about being in Gadna like belonging to a group and having a necessary job inside of that group.  

Gadna helped us get closer with the people on our team because of the fact that everything we did had to be done by working together.  One of the things we learned about is that in the IDF nobody really had a more important job than somebody else because everybody was working to better the group as a whole.  This is different from what I have experienced in different teams I’ve been apart of and even jobs that I have had. The difference between jobs I have had and being apart of Gadna is the level of respect I am treated with. I took away the importance of working for the team and not just yourself from Gadna, because of it I now understand more of what it means to be apart of a team.  Although it is very easy to put yourself first Gadna showed us the importance of putting your team first (even if it is just sometimes).

 Majdanek Concentration & Death Camp

Majdanek

As we tried our best to think about the life in Poland, we had to talk about death. I was constantly asking myself why we were there. We were not on this journey for a good reason. We did not want to be there. But because of what took place there during The Second World War, we were there to learn, pray, and remember the lives of six million people. This brings me to death. A topic that affects so many, making them feel scared, sad, uncomfortable and uneasy. We as a group visited the sight of mix between a concentration camp, and death camp. As we approached the entranced, my teacher paused us and said, “Welcome to Hell on Earth.” We were at Majdanek.

Crematorium

This place was cold, lifeless and smelled like what I can only describe as the smell of death. We walked through the gas chambers. Then we walked through the bunks, and the proceeded to the crematorium. Yes, I am describing a camp where people were brought, and for the most part would never leave.

Standing at the edge of the gas chamber...

No words will describe what lays there. We stepped into the crematorium, and that's when it really hit me. How could anyone, do this to another living person. No words can put an image, any detail to what you see there. Finally it was time to ascend to the monument built by the soviets. This monument was built by the USSR after the holocaust to remember the lives that were lost there. The monument reads, “Let our fate be a warning to you.” As I climbed up the stairs, I knew what it was, and I did not want to see it anymore, and after a few seconds I ran down the steps in tears. There was pile of human ashes. A mountain of human ashes lay in front of my eyes. One humans ashes fills one cup. And there was a mountain. 

So I leave you with this one question: Do you think this monument should have been built, and do you think the Soviets message written is accurate for what took place?