Shana Tovah! שנה טובה!

A happy new year to you all. The Jewish people this weekend will celebrate the beginning of year 5770. This year I'm in Israel and its feels like the week before Christmas in America. There is gifts, sweets, dinners, parties, and lot of love...but more importantly time for refection on the last year. I have been doing a lot of soul searching this week and reevaluating my current position in my life. How do I see myself? What am I doing? What do I care about? How do I care about? How do I fit into a certain persona?

On the kibbutz this has been a time to see where I fit in...in a very basic sence there are three "groupings of people"
1. The Group: Try to be friendly with everyone, talk about everyone, get drunk and party, no one has a private life, your problem is everyones problem
2. The Pairs: Always together/ sometimes in the bubble/ always someone to go to.
3. The Singles: At events, but mostly in their own world. Needs to have their time/place. A few people to go to, but not all the time...serious about studying, and more mature.

I know these are just the way I see things, I'm not trying to offend anyone.

I see myself caught up in the group, trying to be a single, but longing for a pair. Back at CU, I had many groups, many friends and I was always busy. Now I'm not busy and have time for myself, if I don't get caught up in all the drama and partying. So in short, maybe this is the time for me to really look back on the past year, and say "Sweet" and then start this next year off on a different foot. Now just to figure that out.

So to update you on my last post... I think currently I'm going to stay on this Kibbutz. #1 reason...$$ but really I need some more time to figure things out. I'm looking into getting another job at the factory and maybe even another room. Its not that I don't like my roommates, but that I would just rather be with guys that I can connect to better. *Just for an example of the group think...Someone over heard me in the dinning hall talking about switching rooms, so they told my roommates, and now without me being able to talk to my roommates, they are going around to everyone saying that "Tzvi hates me, what did I do wrong, I thought he liked me, maybe its because i'm weird...ect." Well the group think then responds you are weird...so now he is pissed and depressed....AAHHHHHH! So much DRAMA and I'm not even a drama major now...what do I do?

Alright for the New Year, 5770. We should all ask ourselves what we can do. Personally I am starting off the year giving Tzdakah, Charity. Check out these two sites if you would like to do the same. They both have a large need in Colorado and have helped me out a lot in the past.

Jews at CU

Jews in Colorado

Shana Tova! May all of you have a very blessed year, full of love, peace, respect, and success!

Reflections (27 Days)

This past week has been quiet hecktic for me...some things have come up in my personal and Ulpan life. I'm only going to talk about the Ulpan Stuff.

While on another trip to Jerusalem...after a really fun night in Tel Aviv. btw, I got to hang out with Or, Yael, and Tali from Camp!

I ended up meeting up with James, a guy on a kibbutz near me, from my last Birthright trip. His brother was staying at the Mayanot Yishiva. James and I both had stayed there before so we decided to stay there for Shabbat. The Shabbat was great, it was good to be around good old Chabad Energy, loud singing, good food, and great stories. It was also a good time to relax and reflect on how my Aliyah was going so far.

So to lead into and/or add to this reflection of how my Kibbutz Ulpan is going...

Last week three Laptops were stolen from the room near mine. There room was locked and must of been a break in....well last night, my room was broken into. Thank G-d, I was in another room with my laptop/money/phone, but my Ipod Touch and My roommate's laptop were stolen. This was at about 11:30pm when missing Items were noticed missing. Well after some investigative work be other people in the Ulpan.. there was a suspect, a guy in the Ulpan, and he admitted to taking my Ipod and selling it on the street. Well the Ulpan Director is called, the kibbutz security was called, and the police were called. I don't really know what is going on now, but the guy that admitted to taking my Ipod is still here and working...I'm not to happy about that and now a lot of us are feeling very unsafe because three Punk types have been see in the ulpan area and they know the guy that took my Ipod.

So after this event, having a horrible mindless job, and not enjoying the company of kids in the ulpan that party every night...I have started looking into other options for the time being. There are many other things that the Jewish Agency offers for Olim and maybe another kibbutz with different work...I have been making calls and sending emails, so we will see what I will do next. I just really need to get away from a place where I don't feel safe and where I am sold into slave labor (building pyramids) and where I feel like I'm in the freshman dorms again....

Well thats it for now....I'll keep you updated on what I do...

First week of Work

I have just completed my first work week. Well two days. It is usually three days a week I work. I am working in a plastics factory called Palram. Click on the link to see more about the company.

My job is in the Recycling department. Yes, it sounds very Boulder of me...but it is concerted one of the worst jobs for Ulpanim on the Kibbutz. I stand in the same exeact place for 7-8 hours of the day and peel a thin plastic covering off a sheet of plastic. Sometime they are double sided, sometimes they are really small and sometimes they are huge...like giant windows. All this plastic got messed up somewhere in the line or is the scraps of the cutting for customers. My supervisor then comes when we finish a pile and takes it to someone else who sticks it in the grinder.

My supervisor speaks no english, but its alright because all he says is come here, do this, and go. He is never around and we can take breaks whenever, talk on the phone, listen to music, jump in the piles of soft plastic, or just take a cat nap. Today we finished about an hour before lunch with two huge piles of window plastic. I took a nap til lunch, came back after lunch, no new work, so took another nap...my supervisor came over to get another guy to help him. I asked what about me. He pointed to the pile i was napping in and made a hand motion to sit. So I did.

Not a bad job after all...

We will see how the rest of the days go.

My Birthday, Yom Huledit Salee, יום חולדת שלי.

Sunday, the first thing to start off my birthday was....CLASS! Oh yea, more hebrew even on my birthday.

It was kinda fun for the morning though, because we added all the different ways of wishing someone/me happy birthday and all the luck and money...so the class activity was then to make me a bday card. It was really great of my classmates and they looked great. After class, I took a nice long nap until dinner. At Dinner the girls made me a really nice chocolate cake, lactose free, which I have to have now...some how I'm lactose intolerant now...its bad...I'll skip the details.

After dinner some of my friends from the Ulpan took me out to an Ice Cream/Waffle place in nearby Kirat Ata...kinda ironic now that I just told you about my lactose problem...but sometimes I can take a few pills to help with the digestion of the dairy...most times that don't work very well, so I took one before I left and two more right before I ate. and it worked...Thank g-d because we had a 25 minute walk back to the kibbutz.

Well thats my Bday! and I got to talk to some friends back in Colorado...It really made my day! Thanks also to everyone that wrote on my wall. Your all great! I love you guys and miss you all. and I'm really sorry the Buffs lost to the freaking rams. I did see a good facebook status though..."F... the rams, well at least we don't go to CSU."

Here is a pic of the Waffle...one of two waffles...

Jerusalem Weekend

I just had a great and crazy weekend in Jerusalem and today is also my Birthday.

So after class on thursday I decided to head to Jerusalem to meet with some friends and spend a restful shabbat. It was pretty easy to get there by bus, just two buses. I wanted to go to this event for Lone Soldiers/ future lone soldiers. They had workshops and information and a chance to meet others in your same position. The only problem was that I got on the 5pm Bus to J-Town. I arrived in the German colony of J town, where the event was and all I had was a small note with directions written very vague. I saw two other guys speaking english looking for the same place. We walked around in a few circles for 30mins trying to find it. Once I got there it was about 8pm and most people had left and there was no more beer. But right as I walked in Becca Baskin, a great friend from CU. She happens to live in the same spot as the event in a dorm like place. It was really good welcome to J town. We decided to go and meet some of her friends up near Ben Yeduda street to have some drinks and chat. I also called some other friends to meet up. Caitlin from my IsraeLinks trip last summer and Lisa Braverman from CU. It was a really good night and we had fun. I went with lisa to stay the night and she had a very nice apartment. On Friday, Yom Sishe, Lisa and I went for brunch and a walk around the hills of J town. It was a very nice day, but we also wanted to go check out the mall. The mall was very busy and we got some coffee and window shopped. After that we went to the Skok. Now if you don't know the Skok, you would be info a surprise if you went the last few hours until Shabbat. Hundreds of people getting their last minute food and the vendors want to get rid of all their stock before Shabbat...so lots of yelling, prices dropping, and people running over the top of you. We also met up with two of my friends from the Ulpan...Eillor from Sweden and Casey from Minnesota. We then said good bye to Lisa and went to find our Hostel.

Now this is where the story gets interesting. I was really smart and booked a hostel online a few days before for the three of Us. Not really thinking about where near the old city meant. We took a taxi because it was getting close to shabbat and we needed to get ready. The taxi driver did not know where to take us, so he dropped us off at the Jaffa gate to the old city. This is in the Armenian quarter of old city, Jewish friendly, very touristy. But our hostel was near Damascus gate, christen/arab quarter. So Its friday night of Ramadan, I don't know what this means, but I guess it was the time for all the arabs/Muslims to congerate near the Damascus gate. There were tour bus after tour bus letting off Muslims in their full dress. Mostly women. We found ourselves pushing though the crowd of thousands of them to get to the hostel. We finally make it in to the hostel, which had no security and no main locked door. Now in Israel most places have a security guard and a locked door, esp for a hostel. We get in there and everything is in Arabic and English...they told us to wait for 20 min for the manager...we sat down looked around and ran out of there as fast as we could, back in the the growing crowd of arabs. It was quiet frightful and we did not seem as if we were welcome...we did not have our Kipot on and my friend had to cover her Jewish star of David, because we were getting very unfriendly looks and stares.

Now we had about 45min until shabbat. This means we really had to find a last minute hostel close by. We went back into the old city and straight to Jeff Sidel's office. A Jewish Student hospitably organization. Which I knew of because Jeff was already setting us up for Dinner with a family. We got a guy to bring us to the Heritage House right in the old city with not much time to spare. 50 shekles for shabbat. The only problem was that the girls slept in another building then the guys and we were two guys and one girl. But we had no choice. Casey and I sit in an office with this guy David. David is arguing with his Mom on the phone about how guys see the world differently then women. Not only was this weird for us, but when he gets off the phone he continues the conversation with us. The next 15 mins or longer were about his and his mom's relationship and how guys see the world different than girls...then we had a few minutes to shower and go to the Kotel (Western Wall/Wailing Wall/the closest place to the holy of holys for the jews to pray. We have our quick Kabbat Shabbat service and then go to meet someone from the family we are going to eat at for dinner. We walk for 25mins to their house. It was us three, and four other random people doing the same thing as us with a family of four kids...half Canadian and American.

*The next day. Yom Shabbat

We get woken up at about 10:15am to head to the kotel to meet up with the next family that will be hosting us for lunch. We had no clue that we also had a place for a shabbat day meal. We go to the kotel, wait awhile and then go to an older couple's house in the old city. It was an amazing meal...even with a good english Cloant. They even knew Rabbi Yisroel's father from England. After the meal we went to go take a nap under a tree just west of the old city in a nice park. While hanging out, a young guy about 20 years old starts talking to us. He turns out to be this random, Christian Arab. My friend Eillnor is really friendly and starts speaking to him...all in hebrew. The next two hours we are walking around with this guy just speaking hebrew...it was good practice, but really really weird. He was tottaly trying to hit on her. So after we had enough we decided to make up that we need to go meet someone and that we have to leave him...he leaves after an awkward kiss he gave to her...

We then had too much time left on our hands before the buses start running for our ride back to Kibbutz.
We go to a few bars and just hang out and have a few drinks. It was a really great time and the three of us became even closer after our shabbat bonding.

So what a shabbat. I hope I get to have many more experiences like this.

Next Blog... My first day at work and my Birthday!

First day of Class

So today is the first day of hebrew class. The main reason why I'm at this kibbutz. I passed the test and got into Kita Bet, class two. There are three levels, Aleph, Bet, Gimmel. Class starts a 8am and goes until 3:30pm, with about 1 hour and 45 mins of breaks/lunch. My teacher is really nice and helpful, but doesn't speak much english. The whole class is taught 85% in Hebrew. Its really awesome, esp because I understand about 80% of what she is saying. However the first two weeks are review, to help everyone in the class to get on the same level. There is about 18 people in my class, two don't even speak english. Some have some major ADD problems, they are driving me up the wall, but I'm staying clam and just hush them every once and awhile. We started with going over common verbs, numbers, and basic sentences and dialogs. The best part, but the hardest for me, is talking to each other in the class.  I have some light homework and a day to do it, so I feel like this is going to work out.

Also today I found out my job on the Kibbutz. We have this plastic factory, Palram, on the kibbutz where most of the guys are working. We had to take a safety tour the other day and it seems like the most boring and tedious work. Well when we were on the tour he told of some of the possible jobs that would be assigned. The worst one he told us was to be a peeler. and I was like...oh there is no way I want or could end up with such a job...well guess what...I am going to be a peeler!!!! I'm so excited...NOT. I now start next week, 8 hours, three days a week, peeling a thin plastic film off recycled plastic sheets. Its outside, with no escape from the heat...well until winter. Oh well, I'll do it for awhile, work hard and hopefully transfer.

After class, a few friends and I went to go to the mall. I needed to go get another phone, sense I lost my other one. I got the same looking phone and the same number, just going to have a higher phone bill for the next year and a half...shit...oh well. Also my friend got a Hai (Life), חי, tattooed on the back of her neck. Its looks really good.

Well today is also my Hebrew B-Day so I'm going to have a bit of fun now. The real one, well real is debatable, but it is on Sunday. I can't believe I'm 22...

Feel free to call anytime this week, maybe not thursday morning, but call. 972549229224.

3rd and 4th day

Thursday was quiet the fun day. Six of us started out the morning by leaving for the beach at 9am. We have been going to Kirat Hiam's Beach, about 10-15mins away by Taxi. The beach is really nice, but the water has a lot of trash in it and little fish that nibble on you. Its always really hot, but the water is perfect. We came back for a meeting at 2pm to talk more about life at the Ulpan and rules that need to be followed. I always love when they give you the rules only after you have broke the rules...Also all the Olim Hadashim stayed behind to make sure we all had our paper work done.

After the meeting, a few of us Olim needed to go to the Bank and get our Health insurance card. We decided to walk to Kirat Atta, about 20 min walk to the town. The people I was with were really slow and we all had our own place to stop. We finally got to the bank, so I could make a deposit. btw, the banks suck and charge you all kinds of money even to make a deposit. Then we needed to go to the Kupot Holim, Health Insurance, to show that we paid the registration fee. Then the rest of the group wanted to check out a near by workout gym and see about a membership. On the way there the girls realized that they left the bags at a mini mart. So I went with them to get the bags and the other guys went to the gym. After we found the bags...thank g-d, we got Ice Cream and took a Taxi back to the kibbutz. We made it back just in time for Dinner.

After dinner it was time to get ready for our first night at the Kibbutz pub. We hung out around our dorms for a bit and then went to the pub. There was the kibbutz's band covering the Beatles. The music was really good and the singing alright. I decided that I had enough of the Ulpanim I was with and wanted to meet some of the Kibbutzim. I started talking to a guy and his girl friend. We got into a really good discussion about Israel and why I make Aliyah. Later I also got in a good discussion with some of my friends from the Ulpan about being Jewish and living in Israel.

*After this, about 3am, is when my night got really crazy. My roommate decided to go out after drinking a lot on the kibbutz and better yet, he was with the two of the craziest kids here. I was pretty worried about him, as he is young and already very drunk before leaving. So me and my other roommate headed out to the Bar in Town. We got there and picked him up and took him back. When we were leaving I noticed that I didn't have my phone, and the taxi just arrived. I searched all over looking for it in the bar and no luck. Shit. Well I needed to get my roommate back so we left. We pretty much had to carry him back to the room from the taxi. What a night.

Now Friday should have been a good day to sleep in, but we had to have a tour of the kibbutz at 9am. Wow, this should be fun. We dragged our selves around and saw the kindergarten, store, offices, heath center, horse barn, milking room, and cow pins...and then we had another meeting about the rules for about 45min...oy vay...we were dying. Then ended our meeting with a very nice and short Shabbat Welcome, because then we are allowed to leave after this for Shabbat. I did the kiddish!

Then to lunch and BED. Well Tonight is shabbat and the whole kibbutz is getting together for services and dinner. I can't wait.

SHABBAT SHALOM ALL שבת שלום