Life in the Holy City

So second semester of Aardvark has OFFICIALLY begun, and I LOVE it. Exactly one week ago I moved from my wild neighborhood of Tel Aviv to a much quieter, calmer neighborhood in Jerusalem. I live in a small, cozy apartment with four other girls (all of whom are wonderful), in a building that houses all of the Aardvark students, the office, several young families, a group of Israeli teenagers, and has a yeshiva full of Americans across the street. It's fantastic. This city is absolutely beautiful, and I love my new madrichot and the office staff, and the new students are all great people (I have a new roommate from Australia!). Everything here is just INFINITELY better than it was in Tel Aviv.

Almost as soon as we arrived in Jerusalem, we left for a trip to Masada with the whole group, including the new Tel Aviv residents. It was my fourth trip to Masada, and the second trip in the last month, so I kind of hated it, and I was really excited to get back to Jerusalem. As soon as we got back, we jumped right into programming for our first Shabbaton as a new group, which was wonderful. I got to go to services at Kol HaNeshamah, which is my favorite reform shul in Jerusalem, and eat lunch on Shabbat with a host family in our building, and after Havdalah on Saturday night we had this amazing drum circle. Jerusalem is awesome.

I'm working as part of a think tank with an organization called Atzum, which does a variety of things, but ultimately aims to fill in gaps in Israeli society that the government isn't addressing. It's an interesting contrast from my work with Windows last semester, but I'm also pursuing an internship with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which is another classic left wing human rights organization. I'm taking ulpan, Israeli politics, and psychology, and I'm spending a lot of time exploring new parts of the city. I've figured out how to walk to the Old City, my favorite park, my favorite cafe, and Neta's house. Today I was interviewed for a radio special on Masa programs. Living here is better than I ever could have imagined it.

I feel like I'm being cheesy and gross, but honestly, it's incredible. You should all come to Jerusalem, if you haven't already been. This city is AMAZING.

I'm off to a peula with some Israeli kids!

Happy snow days, Bostonians!