My housemates and I have gotten into quite a vacation groove these past few weeks. We eat delicious meals with our host families, go on sunrise runs through date farms, drink wine on our rooftop, explore new hot springs. It has been such a treat. Today we found a new waterhole. It is inside a nearby kibbutz, and to get to it you have to take a winding path through eucalyptus trees. There were a lot of kids our age, smoking hookah on the bank or laying on mattresses floating in the water. One of the trees overlooking the river has with a rope attached to a tall tree. We took turns swinging on the rope and jumping into the water. The water was cool and refreshing, and we felt as if we had found a hidden gem.

Last night was Simchat Torah. We spent the day at the Levi's, singing 80's rock ballads karaoke-style, and some One Direction for the daughters. When the sun went down, we went out to the town square, where a live band was playing. Everyone was out, and there was a circle of men (and hidden from view, another circle of women) dancing around a person in the middle who is carrying a torah. It was quite a festival, with vendors selling popcorn and glow sticks and cotton candy (called "grandma's hair" in hebrew). The head rabbi of the town came out to bless the crowd. In his speech he talked about how Jews all over the world were celebrating just as we were here, and said that our enemies could not hurt us because Israel was strong. It is a kind of sentiment commonly expressed here. During the holidays, families will bless many foods before the dinner with blessings, some hopeful (may god watch over us and protect us from enemies), and others less gentle (may all of our enemies be swallowed by the sea). It draws my attention, because here no one thinks the words are empty.

After Shabbat is over, we have training, and then Monday we start our first day of teaching! I am excited, and a little bit nervous. Thanks for all the comments and letters everyone!

I finally went to the Sachne for the first time this week, and it is more beautiful than I ever would have imagined. The water is blue and deep and the same temperature all week long, and lined with palms and flowering trees that bend low to touch the water. There are waterfalls all along the spring with a ledge built so that you can sit and feel the water crash on your shoulders, huge boulders to jump off of, and caves and shallow pools where kids can play. During the holidays, families come armed with grills and picnic baskets and eat, swim, and relax in the sunlight. My roommates and I went with the Levi's, Sarah's host family, and it was one of my favorite days so far in Israel. We ate a veritable feast, dove into the water with the kids, and then lounged in the sun.

Gila and Dudu, the family that took us to the Sachne, has adopted me, and they are the sweetest people I have ever met. Sarah and I have spent a lot of time at their family meals during the holidays. Gila teaches us to cook, and we help her prepare her cookies to sell at the market. We play with the kids, and they teach us games and hebrew words. Dudu tells us all about the history of Beit She'an, and we visit his shoe store and buy the things we need there. The extended family is welcoming, kind, and so warm. A few days ago they showed up at our house with all the makings for fricasses, a delicious sandwich with egg, potato and olive on fried bread. They stayed to see our house and talk with us, and we sang songs and played the guitar together. I love Israeli hospitality.

Yesterday I went to Haifa for the first time, and it is such a beautiful city. The entire city is built on a hill that rolls upwards from the ocean, so from the top you can see the whole city stretching towards blue in every direction. I met up with Rabbi Edgar, a progressive rabbi and friend of my rabbi and family friend, Michael. He and his wife were so kind and hospitable. He grew up in Argentina, she in the states, and they met in Israel, where they decided to settle and live their lives as a rabbi and school psychologist. Both sets of parents now live in Haifa as well. They gave me and one of my roommates an amazing tour of the city. We went to the Bahai gardens, the german colony, and a nursing home for holocaust survivors, and met a progressive Imam, to list a few highlights. My favorite part though, was when made a visit to another nursing home. Edgar brought a guitar, as well as a lulav and etrog, and we sang songs and he talked about the meaning of Sukkot. I think that the residents really appreciated us coming, and I loved that even on my short journey I was able to participate in such a mitzvah. At the end of the day he dropped us off at the beach, where we chased waves and stuck our toes in the sand. On the way back to the bus, we happened upon a film festival! We bought a ticket for whatever was open, which happened to be a silly movie about vampires, and went. It was a lot of fun.

Today Sarah and I woke up early to go for a sunrise run, and then came back and made couscous for lunch. We made it with chickpeas and tomatoes and pumpkin and dates, and it's probably the best couscous I have ever made. Tonight we will join the Levi's for a Simchah Torah meal, and I will probably spend a lot of time eating delicious food and jumping on the trampoline with the kids. I am looking forward to it.

Gmar Hatima Tova

We saw our classes finally! The word for hot mess in hebrew is balagan, and I think it helps me to describe what I saw. Beit Shean is economically depressed. The schools are some of the worst in the country, the resources so thin even in comparison to even schools that the ITF program is assigned to. Many of our schools lack hallways or textbooks, and none of us have classrooms of our own to teach in. I am lucky to at least be working with a teacher who is kind and speaks English relatively well. Most of the English teachers in this town are inexperienced, speak the language poorly, and have very little control over their classrooms. Students here walk in and out of class, talk through the entire lesson, hit other students, and rarely do the work. There is little lesson planning and zero classroom management, and a class might spend an entire hour on a one-page worksheet. Teachers get exasperated and yell often, to little avail. The environment is not at all conducive to learning. Few students can understand basic questions. Many of the students come from poor backgrounds and broken homes, and the aim of teachers is often primarily to create a safe environment for kids, with education being secondary. And yet they are sweet, bright, and very motivated to learn. Just my presence seems to be appreciated more than I could have ever expected. They delighted at hearing their names spoken with an American accent. They asked me to sing songs from all the popular American artists. They would show off all the words they knew in a rush, hellogoodbyefathermotherredbluegreenyellow. There is no concept of speaking one at a time, and my head buzzed as they all shouted over each other to catch my attention. A group of girls ran giggling out of the room, and came back holding index card with my name written on it and candies stapled to every corner. To fathom the needs of this community and the impact I can have on it is overwhelming. I am so thankful to be here.

Yom Kippur in Beit Shean is quite beautiful. Families gather for feasts before sundown, and then dress in white and go to services. There are 72 synagogues in Beit She'an (a population of 18,000), and they represent every Sephardic country you can imagine. Dan and I visited a Moroccan shul close to our house, and the services are different from ones I attended in America. They are dischordant and friendly. Teenaged boys pull at each other's talits, and when the congregation chants together, the children compete to be loudest. Prayers are not sung but chanted in a jumble over each other, and the stream of hebrew is constant. Women sit in a balcony area away from the eyes of the men, praying quietly and switching toddlers from hip to hip to hip. I was overwhelmed by the lack of singing, direction, or English, but an American cannot hide forever in such a small town. A woman with deep wrinkles and a covered head noticed me flipping through the wrong prayer book, and silently pushed the correct siddur into my hands. Another woman cocked her head curiously and asked me a question in Hebrew, and I shrugged shyly to show I didn't understand. Suddenly I was revealed, and every woman's head looked up from their praying, as if a switch had flipped in the small balcony. Like in the classroom, faces crowded my vision as everyone asked me questions in rapid Hebrew- what is your name, where are you from, who are your parents, what school are you teaching at, how many other Americans are here, are you married? I stumbled through the answers with the few words I knew. A young girl with decent English was called from the other room to interpret. No I am not married, I answered, and soft hands patted my knee. Soon, soon, they reassured me. I am teaching at Tachkimoni, I explained, and a few women looked brightly at me. My daughter goes there! My aunt is a teacher there! I smiled and nodded and tried to remember names. One woman took me to the edge of the balcony and pointed to men below. See the man davening in front of the Torah? That is my father. And the man praying next to him? That is his brother. The woman sitting here? She is his daughter, my cousin. And that boy making faces over there? He is my son. She smiled at me and held my hand tightly in hers. Baruch haban, she said, welcome.

Over two hours later I left the shul, prayers still in full swing. The car-less streets were filled with people, a sea of white. It is a tradition unique to the town. Teenagers whispered in gender-segregated clumps, children played soccer in the middle of the road, men kissed each other in greeting. I saw every single person I had ever met in Beit She'an, including friends of my program director, girls I had met in services just an hour before, relatives of our host families, and the mayor. People stroll late into the night, wishing each other meaningful fasts and a good writing in the book of judgement. Kippur day was quiet, and we broke the fast with an Israeli family, and then built a sukkah and drank beer and relaxed late into the evening. 

Beit She'an's sister city is Cleveland, and apparently this means total and utter devotion to a city who's population may have never heard of them. The town hall is filled with dramatic pictures of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at sunrise, or main streets lit up at night. Every time I meet an Israeli, upon hearing my American accent the first thing they ask is, "Cleveland?" My host mother loves to mention that a shirt she is wearing, or a recipe for a dish we are eating, was acquired in Cleveland, as if she is casually dropping the fact that she was invited to tea with the Queen. One of our housemates is actually from Cleveland, and you'd think he was a god the way people react. No one here has heard of San Francisco, or knows the difference between Washington DC and Washington State. Every day someone tells me a fact about Cleveland. Did you know they have 80,000 Jews? Did you know they eat cous cous there? Did you know the women there wear lacy flats? One girl from the town got a grant to study there for a year, and she came back with stories that she would tell to hushed audiences that were starstruck with her worldliness. Never in my life would I have guessed to know so much about such a place. 

Today was the first of many teaching seminars around the country. We had to drive a long way there and back. The bus driver, in casual Israeli fashion, pulled into a gas station halfway home and kicked us out of the bus with an explanation in rapid hebrew that none of us understood. All of us looked around in a panic, realizing that he was planning to drive away without us and wondering how we were ever going to get home, when suddenly another bus drove up and the people got out of that van and into our van. We slowly put it together that they were swapping rides because our driver wanted to end his night closer to his final destination. It seems to me like the kind of detail a driver should warn his passengers about ahead of time, but I guess it is different here. 

Another story about the land of not-exactly. Roi took us to the hot springs yesterday, and what a baligan! The original plan was that the 6 of us would bike out to meet Kevin, who was already there. Roi however gave us no direction about where we were going and biked like a maniac on the shoulderless highway. As we went, each bike slowly began to fall apart. Sarah's gears went wrong, and Dan's chain broke, and Avram and I ended up racing ahead so that he could bring my bike back and save Dan from walking the whole way. Once we arrived at the hot springs, Roi told us that in fact he had taken us to the wrong one and that, even though we were six and Kevin was one, we had to go meet him instead of the other way around. So back on the highway we went, swerving like maniacs because we are all following Roi who changes his mind about turns after he misses them and then doubles back without warning. We arrive at the second hot spring, and Roi is biking around on the grass shouting KEVIN KEVIN in this totally crowded place while the lifeguard runs after him telling him that the grass is off limits. It is not until Roi is absolutely certain that we have found Kevin are we allowed to drop our bikes and enjoy ourselves. Clearly, a simple call would not suffice.

Last night was our first Havdalah in Beit She'an, and it was a lot of fun. We went out onto our rooftop, and sang in the new week with fresh spices and wine. We brought up some speakers and a phone, and blasted party music and danced next to the solar panels. By the time we were done we had an audience of stunned Israelis laughing and clapping. What a way to start the week! I have a good feeling about it. Tomorrow we see our schools for the first time. I am excited to learn more about the schools and my job.

To introduce ourselves to the Beit She'an community, Roi wanted us to make a short video. We decided to make it in the style of the Brady Bunch, and rewrote all the lyrics. So that you can all appreciate the subtle musical genius and hard work involved, here is the first stanza:

Here's a story, about a man named Roi

Who adopted six lovely American Jews

They all lived in a home in Beit Shean

Six mountain bikes they used

We went on to describe each member of the house, including Avram (who hadn't even arrived yet). When he finally arrived from his transcontinental flight, he barely had time to put down his bags before we threw him in front of a camera for his part of the video. Poor guy. Each of us danced in front of the camera in turn, and then we photoshopped in awkward pictures of us from the first week. Put kindly, it wasn't our proudest work. But we put it on youtube anyway, thinking it would be buried under all the Belieber videos and we would never have to think of it again. But lo and behold, a few hours later it had 100 views! Which is pretty much the size of Beit She'an. When we go walking down the street people stop us to sing the song in their thick Israeli accents. I am so embarrassed. I think we may never live it down. 

Rosh Hashanah has ended, and I feel a strange mixture of relief, disappointment, and manic food addiction. Every meal was like Thanksgiving on steroids, but much worse because no one asks you before adding food to your plate, and if you try to refuse it they turn up the Jewish guilt. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah I found out that the host family I was paired with eats only meat. There was a huge range of options, from cow tongue to goat heart to turkey testicles to four kinds of steak and kebabs, but zero things of the more vetetative variety. I was so overwhelmed that I started tagging on with Sarah, whos host family was less hostile towards the color green. That family is so sweet. They have three beautiful children who are adorable and eager to play with us. They love to swim in the hot springs, jump on their trampoline, and terrorize their 2 month old puppy. The Americans love to participate in the first two activities, but cringe at the third. It's a terrible cycle because we get so upset that it encourages them to continue to up the ante. I have seen a child drop this tiny shivering puppy over and over from a height of 4 feet. They are so naughty it is unbearable. It is really good to hang out with them so often because they speak very little English. Hila (the naughtiest, which is great because her name means halo) and I played a game where we pretended to be different things under water. I learned the words for pirate, ninja, robot, hair, cucumber, tomato, and tea party. We all went to the hot springs yesterday, which by the way are beautiful beyond belief. The bright blue sky and sea-green water are sliced by dusty desert mountains. The contrast in this part of the world is stunning. Everywhere in the area (which is called emek hamayanot, or the valley of streams) is lush with bright green trees bearing dates, pomegranates, carob beans, and lemons, and criss-crossed with hot springs, and bordering this expanse are the Israeli and Jordanian desert mountains. It's an amazing view.

The best part of Rosh Hashanah is the food. It is also the worst part. And actually the only part. The families take turns having meals at each others houses, and because every family has parents, grandparents, and 4 brothers and sisters on both sides of the family, this means you need to eat a lot of meals so as not to leave anyone out. The Israeli's have somehow managed to drag this 2-day holiday into a 17-meal affair. That wouldn't be so bad, except that every woman here is an unbelievable cook. No dinner was complete without 400 dishes dripping with honey, oil, and saffron. Each dish is so incredible that I can't help but stuff my face. By the third meal I was so stuffed that even the mere mention of food sent me groaning, and yet when confronted with all those tiny plastic plates piled high with magical foods of every color, (a fancy table in Israel by the way is set with plastic cups, plastic dishes, plastic chairs, and TWO plastic forks instead of one) I find myself compelled to create more suffering by trying everything I can reach. And every time we leave the house, the host mother sends us home with boxes of handmade cookies and chocolates of every kind, as well as any other thing she can find. Today we got thumbprint cookies, crescent cookies, and a toaster. We tried to refuse it and she scolded us sharply, saying "You never say no to me!" I am so thankful to be relieved of the duty of constant eating. And yet so sad! 

Tomorrow we begin our teaching seminars. I am looking forward to busier, more structured days, and more learning. 

Yesterday one of our host mothers (the one who sang to me) invited the whole house over for a cooking lesson. It was such a feast! We learned to make berekas, corn shnitzel, apple pastries in the shape of flowers, a whole array of noodle dishes, and of course the famous Israeli dish shakshuka, with onions and tomatoes and eggs. We wore silly chef hats, and got to eat everything afterwards. It was so delicious. The host mother, Etty, played the song with my name, and we danced to it. Her parents made aliyah from Morocco, and her husband is Iranian. She speaks Hebrew, French, English, Arabic, and some Yiddish. They have a really beautiful love story, and are so proud of their children. They are warm and kind and loving. There was so much food that at one point Kevin commented that it was enough to feed an army. Etty responded that she actually used to do that- she used to volunteer as a cook for the Israeli army!

Beit She'an was only established as the city it is today in 1951. It is still quite a young town. Most of the population here can trace roots only a few generations back to Sephardic Jews who made aliyah from places like Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Italy, and Egypt. Israel is an immigrant nation, just like America. I learned a stat that made a big impression on me. Of the 13 million Jews in the world today, 5 million live in America, and another 5 million live in Israel. One in 5 Jews lives in the greater Tel Aviv area, and 1 in 5 lives in the greater New York area. What a thought.

Afterward lunch we went to the cemetery. Sun and wind and rain wear away the letters on gravestones, and upkeep is the responsibility of the family. If there is no family left to take care of the grave, it is a mitzvah for community members to pitch in. We brought paints and brushes and repainted the lettering to honor the gravestones. It was really relaxing, and I would like to try to do it a few times a month.

Some other highlights of the past few days: taking an Israeli zumba class, going on an early morning run to the Jordan border, and climbing the date tree in the backyard to pick dates for breakfast. I am constantly amazed by my life here. Tonight is erev Rosh Hashannah, and we are all going to share the next few meals with our host families. I am looking forward to it.

Address

One last thing: here is my new address, if anyone is interested.

Shicon Bet 419/8 
Beit Shean
Israel

Today our endlessly amusing program director, Roi, gave us a tour of the city. He seems to be a mini-celebrity, and everywhere he goes in the city people know him. He told us he was famous because he was a news-anchor on local TV, but we learned later that he meant he was one of the people working on the computers who sometimes gets into the background of the shot. He is one of the silliest people I have ever met. He howls at every dog we passed, inciting a chorus of barking up and down every street we passed. He also meows at all the cats. I expected us to have a whole entourage of animals following us by the end of the tour. When he passes by street vendors, he pretends to be a European tourist with a poor command of Hebrew and asks how much things cost. He likes to do Jim Carey impressions, and makes a lot of puns that only work if you are speaking with a thick Israeli accent. He brought his super undisciplined dog with him everywhere, and interpreted its dog poop as if he was reading tea leaves. I am endlessly entertained.

I got my host family and school placements today. I will be in a religious school, which means long skirts and shirts that cover the elbows. The school is a few blocks from my house, and I will meet the principal soon. All the host moms are enthusiastically welcoming. One of the host moms has invited us all to her house tomorrow to teach us to prepare a traditional Israeli dish. When I introduced myself to her, she belted out a sad love song that went something like this: "REBECCA REBECCA REBECCA REBECCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA." And then pretended to sob as she explained how moving and beautiful this song was. How did she know that would make me feel right at home?

The mayor gave us a warm welcome, with a ridiculous amount of gifts. When we walked into the room the first thing we saw was projected onto the wall an enormous photograph of ourselves that we had taken the previous night and posted to facebook. The mayor had found our facebook group, seen the picture, and inserted it into pretty much every single slide of his powerpoint. We were fed all kinds of delicious food, and then toasted with wine and doughnuts. Then each of us was given a backpack and a towel individually monogrammed with our hebrew names, and then as parting gifts we were all given loaves of honey bread for a sweet new year. I was overwhelmed! Everywhere we went people, people offered gifts and especially food. If this city keeps it up, I may be rolling my way to class.

Everything here is a little bit off. We tested out our bikes today, and all of the seats are rusted in a position so low our knees hit our chins when we try to bike. We looked so silly, a group of knees and elbows jostling down the street. Other things are surprising too, like a door with no handle, a toilet seat that tilts so that you have to sit on it sideways, a freezer that doesn't freeze, a shower with no stall. The most surprising however was the bathroom door. It got stuck a few times, leaving the panicked person stuck inside the stall banging and shouting on the door for a few minutes until the door finally opened. It happened first to Kevin, and then to me, but luckily we both got out ok. When KT got stuck though, she couldn't get out! At first we sat there laughing, knowing how frustrating it was and imagining that the door would eventually give. But after 5 or 10 minutes of constant banging, we started to worry. We all took turns trying to ram the door open to no avail. We used knives and keys and all sorts of odd things to try to open the lock. We even tried to climb through the windows! Finally, we called Roi, who came with friends to break down the door. It was all very exciting. I cannot wait to see how the rest of our journey goes. One thing is for certain- we have all sworn to never close another door inside of our flat!

Hey everyone! I just arrived in my new house, and it's beautiful. We have fig, orange, lemon, date, and clementine trees in the yard, and a kitchen with big windows. Our program director is silly and kind. His parents have a fluffy little puppy that spends a lot of time in our house. I am living with 5 other wonderful Americans, we click well as a group. We were hand-picked to represent our program in its debut in a new city, and so we have a bigger budget for things like bikes, trips, and everyone in my group is outgoing, passionate about teaching, and a natural leader. Also everyone loves to dance as much as myself. I feel too lucky for words. 

The first week was adventure-packed. We hiked through a river, took a moonlight swim in the Kineret, had a dance party on a boat, and spelunked through a tunnel underneath Jerusalem. There has been little time to sleep or think, and I eat hummus at every meal. Pedagogy classes start next week, and we will spend the holidays with host families. The more I learn about the upcoming year, the more excited I get.

Today is our first day in Beit She'an. The population is less than 20,000, and it is the first time the program has sent American teachers to such a remote town. It is so small, in fact, that we are famous- they have written about our arrival in the papers, and today we will toast in the Jewish new year with the mayor!