Three Yoms... Three Days... Shoah, Memory, Independence... Bitter Cold, Sadness, Exhuberant Joy!

When I last wrote a blog, we were finishing the Yam L'Yam walk and we were headed back to Jerusalem.  When we finally got back to Jerusalem, we began to prepare for Yom Hatsmaut, yom hazikaron, and yom Hashoah. On Thursday we went on a Tiyul to the king David hotel, and a British prison to learn about the British occupation of Israel during WWII. We learned about the underground military organizations of Israel who wanted to A) Not drive out the British because they were fighting the Nazis and then fight the British, B) Wait for the British to give them the land, or C) Fight the British because the army was busy in Europe. On Shabbat, I brought Shira with me and stayed with Maia and German who live near Rehovot. My dad married them, and I had a great time with them!  

 German is a member of an Elite Swat Unit of The Tel Aviv Police and Maia is one of the daughters of Rabbi Mauricio Balter.  They are like family to me! They have a baby named Maor who is only 4 months old, and he does not make a sound!

With my parents and Moshe who is really an awesome teacher!

One of the most amazing experiences of my life was being in Israel for Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron, and Yom Hatsmaut. On the week of the Shoah, we spent every day learning about the Holocaust. On Sunday night we went to a ceremony open to everyone on campus. The ceremony was all in Hebrew, and songs and poems were recited. The next morning, we walked to a busy street to hear the siren sound for two minutes. All of the cars pulled over to the side of the road and the drivers got out and stood in silence, traffic completely stopped. We held a ceremony and shared the stories of our families and how they survived the war. When we got back to the hava, we had an all day learning session in ICC class. Near 9:00 we ended the session by playing songs on the guitar and singing in the memory of the 11 million who died in the holocaust. At  this moment, I felt every emotion at once. Happiness because we are still here, and sadness for the ones who were senselessly murdered by the Nazis.

On Wednesday my parents came to visit me! I felt bad during their whole visit because I did not really want to be with them, I wanted to be with my friends, my family, TRY. I still cannot believe how fast time flies, I feel like I got here yesterday. 

On Thursday we went to Yad Vashem. I have been to Yad Vashem 5 times, but this was my sixth time, the first time I went into the museum. I never went into the museum because I was either too young or too scared, I did not want to learn about the holocaust or ever think about it because I would just get sad. In the museum, the huge electric fence poles from Auschwitz filled me with emotion. We went to the Children’s Museum, and our guide asked us to remember one name. I remembered Ziev Curtis, 13 years old, from Hungary.

At Palmachim Beach on Yom Hatsmaut...

For Shabbat I stayed with my parents and we visited 4 different families in one day, it was crazy! Right after school, we drove straight to Tel Aviv to visit my aunt Tali who came with the March Of the Living with the kids from Mexico. I was really happy to see her because I never get to see her, and I really love her! On Saturday we saw Yossi and Susan Silverman (Susan Is Sarah Silverman’s sister she is a reform Rabbi and very active in Women of the wall, Yossi owns a solar power company which he started in Kibbutz Keturah) Then we walked to Andy Green’s house (Rabinical student) who hopefully will be my father’s Rabbinic Intern in Las Vegas this coming year. On the way there, we saw Arie Hasit (TRY Recruiter). After that, my uncle Yahel and his wife came to visit us.

On Sunday Night, it was Yom Hazikaron. We held a ceremony and watched two documentaries on Michael Levin and Yoni Netanyahu. We watched the Ceremony at the Kotel and stood in Silence for two minutes to commemorate the 23,000 who gave their lives for this country.
The next morning we went to the Hava ceremony where we all stood in a garden and listened to songs and poems. It was not like the Yom Hashoah Ceremony, it was more powerful because it is still an ongoing event. More people are added to the 23,000 every year. Everyone in Israel knows someone who has been killed in the army or in an attack. It was even more sad than Yom Hashoah. At night we walked to a temple to have a ceremony to transition from Yom Hazikaron to Hatsmaut. We all sat outside and there was live music and a lot of people. Everyone was dancing and singing, the atmosphere completely changed from sad to happy in 30 minutes.  Below is a video of what the streets of downtown Jerusalem looked like on Yom Hatsmaut!

 

It was extremely weird. We then walked to Ben Yehuda Street to party. There were so many people, it was ridiculous. I have never seen Ben Yehuda more crowded in my entire life! After walking around Ben Yehuda for a little bit, I saw my friend Yoni who is in my USY chapter who came on march of the living! I then went to a side street off of Ben Yehuda where there was a huge concert and everyone was Israeli Dancing. When we got back to the Hava, it was 2 in the morning and my feet were killing me. I crashed on my bed. The next morning I could not feel my feet!

We got to wake up at 8, which was amazing because we never get to sleep in! We went to the beach and had a barbecue. Even though the weather was horrible, we still made the best of it! On Wednesday we went on a Tiyul to the Hebrew U to learn about possibly doing University here, which sounds really cool! On Thursday we went to the Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, the place were Israel was declared a State and The Palmach museum, which is a museum about the War Of Independence. These past two weeks have been extremely powerful to me, I am really proud to be Jewish. Off to Gadna!

At The Hebrew University Of Jerusalem!  What An Amazing Place...