I got all messed up the week after my last blog post, because I had three REALLY busy and exciting days. So I'll start with those!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012:
We visited the Kinneret. Which is in the north, in the Sea of Galilee region. If you would like to see photos, please click here! "What is the Kinneret?" Good question. I'm going to try to explain this as clearly and as simply as I can. The Kinneret was a farm-settlement-type thing that was founded in 1908 by a very small number of pioneer Labor Zionists (like, less than 50). They believed that a Jewish state could only become a reality if people built their lives there in Israel/Palestine, opposed to a political Zionist who believed (at the time) that if the Jewish people advocated to the higher European powers (Britain, Germany, and the Ottoman empire) basically it would happen. So the Labor Zionists were just a little more proactive about making this whole "Jewish State" thing happen.
We learned about the struggles that these early settlers endured, and specifically the role of women in the Kinneret. They were equal, which is pretty cool. Hana Meisel started the an agriculture school specifically for women.
I particularly enjoyed learning about Rachel Blewstein. She moved to Palestine and joined the Kinneret when she was 19, where she attended the agricultural school. She was good friends with this guy named Aaron David Gordon, also known as A.D. Gordon, he was just, like, one of the most influential Zionists and the driving force behind Labor Zionism, I mean its casual. She also kind of dated this guy, Zalman Rubshov, who like later became Zalman Shazar, who was the third president of Israel. Which, you know, is pretty cool I guess. However in 1913 she left her beloved Kinneret to study more agriculture things in France. Shortly after WWI broke out and she found herself unable to return to Palestine. She lived in Russia for the entire war and returned home in 1919, but to a settlement not too far from the Kinneret called Degania. At some point before returning to Palestine, she contracted Tuberculosis, which was incurable at the time. Because they didn't want it to spread through the community, Rachel was kicked out. She died in 1931, at the age of 40. She's buried at the Kinneret cemetery, which we also visited. Other important Zionists are buried there as well, but I didn't mention any of them, so why name them now? I'm not going to start explaining those guys, as cool as they are, we still have like three weeks of catching up to do.
After the learning part, we went on a nice hike on Mt. Arbel, which is over 500 ft above sea level, so that's pretty cool. And that concludes my short summary of Tuesday, October 16, 2012.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012:
First we stopped at the Hadassah Neurim Youth Village, and basically just talked to a ton of tourists visiting Israel about Year Course. I'm not going to lie, I worked the room. A very nice woman came up to me after I spoke and made jokes and said I was adorable and introduced herself. It wasn't until the next day I realized that she was Marcie Natan, the national president of Hadassah. So that was kind of super awesome.
After that we went to Nachal Taninim! (Click here for pictures!). To make a long story short, its like a park reserve thing. They have animals in a river and trees, and some other stuff. But honestly it was just a nice pleasant walk that ended at the beach. It was fun, I took a lot of photos, but I didn't learn much. Still a good day.
Thursday, October 18, 2012:
I had volunteering that morning, I taught a little bit of English for the first time, and it like worked, they understood A B C and T. I threw T in there because there was a cat walking around the room, who they really didn't like, and so it was a good way to get a real life example of some words. That was totes fun.
That afternoon we put our cute little Year Course button downs on and headed to Jerusalem. We got off at the International Convention Center for a Hadassah event.
Now if I were you, I'd be asking, "What's Hadassah? Why were you at an event for it?"
Well my friends, Hadassah is the Women's Zionist Organization in America, which was founded in 1912, so that means this is the 100th year of Hadassah, a very good reason to celebrate. Year Course was there because Hadassah used to fund a number of Young Judaea camps in the states and they continue to fund Year Course. So we were there to show everyone (because a very large number of women and men traveled to Israel to celebrate) how important Year Course is. And it is important, because without Year Course I would've been at Tulane which was hit by a hurricane right at the beginning of the semester, so thanks Year Course (But in all seriousness, this program is great. Thanks Hadassah!)! Ummm what else? It was basically a concert, and oh yeah, the PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL, Benjamin Netanyahu was there, casuallyy. I got some really great photos of the whole event (click here!).
Ohkay I know I've only covered three days, but I feel like my eyes are going to melt out of my head if I stare at this computer any longer. I'll write a sequel to this post soon (actually soon).
As always,
Julia Rose
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