A Week With Masa

So I just finished this morning with a weeklong Masa conference called "Building Future Leadership". The conference turned out to be not at all what I expected, but I did learn some and had a lot of fun. The programming that Masa put together, I have to say, was not very good, and I don't feel like I gained very much from it. However, the people I met were wonderful, and I was able not only to make many new friends, but to learn from my peers even more than from professional speakers and educators. Other than that, I have some specific notes, so, as usual, I'll post in bullets.

-On Tuesday, everyone at the conference participated in special interest activities, ranging from Israel advocacy seminars to visiting the Israel Museum. Coming from Temple Beth Avodah, of course I chose to participate in a full day of activities based around social justice and tikkun olam. We spent the day with an organization called B'Maagalei Tzedek, which focuses on helping underprivileged populations in Israel whom no other organization is paying attention to, including those who are physically disabled. Tuesday morning we had the privilege of traveling to Hebrew University at Givat Ram to meet an IDF soldier named Roi who is now paralyzed from the waist down due to an accident during his service. His story is incredible: he was an officer in a special missions unit, and on one particular mission in the West Bank to capture a terror suspect, a member of his own team mistook him for the terrorist and shot him 34 times. Roi died; for 25 minutes his heart did not beat, but paramedics were eventually able to revive him and after a week in a coma, Roi woke up, with full mental capabilities. The terror suspect did end up being caught, and Roi chose not to press charges against the soldier who shot him, but he spent the next two years of his life in rehabilitation. Today, he is very active in the community, and with the help of B'Maagalei Tzedek, he is studying to become a social worker. Furthermore, he is actually a widely known basketball star.... in wheelchair basketball. He taught us how wheelchair basketball works, and shared with us the history of this tradition in Israel and in Europe, and a number of people even got to try it. He's an incredible person, with incredible spirit, and having the opportunity to meet him was truly an honor and a privilege.

-On Wednesday, all of the gap year students visited an outdoor leadership/Bible study center called Neot Kedumim. Neot Kedumim is like Outward Bound with a biblical twist. It's located in Modi'in, which is at the edge of the holy Jerusalem hills, and its focus is on preserving the land as it was in the time of our ancestors, from the plant life to the traditions. It's a really cool place, and I'd actually love to live there for a while, but our day there was in the pouring rain, so six hours was perfectly sufficient. At Neot Kedumim, our group was forced to work together to pull water out of a cistern (blindfolded), make candles out of clay, cotton and olive oil, harvest the ancient herb hyssop (which is basically what za'atar is, and is in the same family as oregano), and even herd goats! Despite the rain and the wind, it was a blast!

-At Neot Kedumim, I also learned a really cool linguistics fact. So the word for "almond" (and "almond tree") in Hebrew is "shaked", which comes from the same root as "shoked", meaning diligent. Why? Because the almond tree is the first to blossom in the spring and the last to bear fruit in the fall, meaning that it works for five months to produce its fruit. The fruit that it does produce, however, is nearly perfect. It is sweet, high in protein, and has a shelf life of nearly a year, when raw. It's a perfect fruit, and an extremely diligent tree. Shaked. Diligent. Isn't it crazy that Hebrew works like that?

-Easily the worst part of my week was a discussion I had over lunch one day with a number of other gap year students. It began as a fairly meaningful conversation about pluralism and the future of the Jewish people, until one kid erupted with the statement "I don't respect reform Judaism." He followed that by detailing a number of common reform practices (a looser interpretation of kashrut and the laws of Shabbat, etc.) and saying that our traditions and practices "are not Jewish", so we "may as well be Christians." I sat and listened for a few more minutes while he bashed the reform movement and talked about his commitment to orthodoxy as the only way to preserve Judaism, until I noticed that he wasn't even wearing a kippa, at which point I almost exploded, so I got up and left the table so as not to offend anyone. (Interesting side note: about ten minutes later, I noticed that he had put on a black kippa, which are traditionally worn only by the ultra-orthodox. After that, though, I didn't see him wear one again for the rest of the week). Later, I realized that what infuriates me most about this kind of slander is the fact that it's not just one kid spewing random crap; he represents a much larger population of Jews who feel this way. I have faced more hatred for who I am and what I believe from Jews in Israel than I have from any other person or group anywhere else in the world. I have been called a disgrace, I have been told to cover up, I have been told not to show affection; I have straight up been told that I am NOT A JEW. It's INFURIATING. They are MISSING THE POINT of what it means to be Jewish. Judaism may be about kashrut and Shabbat and halacha for some people, and that's okay, but the core of Judaism is about peoplehood. It's about family, about history, and about being a good person in this world. And anyone who turns his or her back on one of their own... well, they are missing the point.

-Another thing that really frustrates me, more about programming for diaspora Jews than about being in Israel, is the way that the idea of "Israel advocacy" is framed in today's world. I've learned to keep my mouth shut during these "Israel advocacy" workshops and meetings, because I've found that if I say anything even remotely critical of Israel, I am immediately labeled "anti-Israel". But here's the problem: advocating for Israel today is decreasingly defined as promoting the Jewish people's right to a state, but has grown to mean blindly supporting whatever Israel does, and furthermore, delegitimizing the arguments of those who criticize Israel. In workshops we are taught to make analogies, to tell stories, give statistics, defend, defend, defend, but not once have I been encouraged to examine what "the other side" is actually saying. How can we advocate for our country if we are blindly unaware of the problems that do occur, of the truth that does lie in the arguments of those we call "anti-Israel"? Furthermore, how can we be expected to defend our cause if we are doing nothing to eliminate "theirs"? Rather than tearing down Israel's critics, should be not be focused on building up a better Israel, and creating a state we can all be proud of? It is true that the UN targets Israel more than it does any other country in the world, and it is true that the criticism Israel receives is disproportionate by global standards, however instead of recognizing our wrongdoings and aiming to reverse them, "Israel advocates" of today spend most of their time pointing fingers at other nations whose human rights violations are far worse than our own. But forget Libya, forget Iran, why shouldn't we, as Jews, hold ourselves to a higher standard? Why shouldn't our first priority be making sure that in the future, the UN has no basis for such accusations? It drives me crazy. I love Israel and I believe it should exist and I want for it to exist for years into the future, but I see the way we are going about defending ourselves in this publicity war is all wrong. It's not about Jewish students on North American campuses, it's about beginning with vast social change here in Israel. I can't be the only person who sees it this way. So why do I constantly feel so alienated amongst the American Jewish population here?

-For all of the faults with Masa's programming, I have to give them credit for exposing me to a number of cool organizations/companies/etc. Among the groups I recommend checking out: the NU Campaign, which aims to raise funds and awareness of different social justice campaigns through music and very beautifully designed t shirts; PresenTense, which aims to help young Jews establish themselves and their ideas in the world of social entrepreneurship; and Matt Bar and his hilarious Bible Raps, which remind me vaguely of the days of Felicia Sloin and the Jewish Character Raps (my favorite one of Matt Bar's is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iSrGQ1cwxM).

-Purim is in 8 days!!! Purim is a HUGE deal in Jerusalem, and I think I've finally decided on a costume. Anyone who has any sort of mobile Apple device has heard of the game Angry Birds... I'm going as an Angry Bird! I'm not sure Israelis will get the reference, but I'm excited about it!

Okay this is a REALLY long post. I had more to say, but my hands are starting to ache, so I'll save it for later. :)

Shabbat Shalom!