Today like every other day was a jam-packed day. Jet lag is slowly wearing off and I am almost back to a normal sleep schedule. I sense that the rest of the group is also moving in that direction as everyone had plenty of energy the entire day. We started off going to our work groups as we have done the last two days. I am part of the group that is working in the community garden as opposed to the painting group so I will focus on that work in this entry.

The community garden is a wonderful program in that it provides a place for the elderly to go to so that they can work a bit and feel that they are accomplishing something and are not just left at home to be useless. They each have their little plot of land where they plant mostly onions, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, and hot peppers. In this way they are able to go home after a day of working in the field and bring back crops to their family. It’s a statement of hope and personal power that they are able to come into their homes and say “Look what I accomplished!” at the end of the day. We were given two tasks at the farm. One was weeding. At first the people here were telling us that we shouldn’t go in the field because the rain has made the ground too muddy. However our group feels very strongly about the “holiness” of the earth of Israel, and about the importance of making the land bloom. We were very eager to work among the plants notwithstanding the mud and worked a nice sweat weeding the dirt in between the furrows and protecting the prolific garlic and onion plants so that they may grow tall and strong.

We also have been painting a mural in what is known as “the clubhouse” among the people who work at the farm. It’s really transformed the room. Tomorrow we won’t be at the farm though. We will all be working together painting murals on the apartment complex that the other group has been painting the past three days.

On Monday we will be back at the farm to finish the mural and complete some of the weeding in the field. Afterwards we went to lunch at the Garin Villa in Kiryat Gaat. After a tasty lunch we broke up into groups to discuss ideas relating to how we should allocate towards different charities. Larry Sternberg, the Executive director of Brandeis at Hillel said a thought that particularly stuck with me about providing for the elderly- if we don’t give to the elderly, what are we saying about how we will be treated when we are elderly? We have to set an example so that the elderly are always going to be well taken care of.

We also got sweaters from the Garin today! Israeli sizes are sized a bit different from American sizes so the larges where more like Mediums and so forth. All is good now. The sweaters are a bit tight on some people but it gives a European edge to the sweaters. We then went to hang out with the children that we have been with the last couple days. At this point the awkwardness of having to meet so many fresh faces is gone and the children are comfortable with us and us with them. They are really great kids, full of life and with very limited cynicism. They want to play and won’t say something like “this game is boring” but are really excited for anything we want to do. We returned back to the kibbutz for an early dinner and are now on the way to our “pub night”. The pub is a café in the day that becomes a pub at night and is staffed by people with disabilities in Beer Sheba. The U-Mass and Brandeis groups are together for this, so it will be a nice opportunity to have a beer and relax and meet some new people. Until tomorrow… Shabbat Shalom!

It has been a fun, exhausting, emotional, enjoyable and intensive day. We split up again like yesterday –5 of us headed to work in the garden while the rest went back to the house entrances to continue on our painting. Today’s job started a little slower and less smooth than yesterday’s. As it turns out, the residents were not happy with the color of the walls (the yellow was very bright). Therefore, we were asked to split up between a number of smaller jobs. This included continuing the columns but not the walls; painting and scraping the ceilings; or painting the fences which line the entryway into the housing entrances. I was working on the fences, which we used a stronger oil-based paint than we had been using for the walls and columns. (Trust me, this stuff sticks to your skin–we used turpentine to clean our hands later). As we were worked, more community members or people who lived in this housing came out to help, thank us, or offer us desserts and drinks. The sun was out, our music was playing loudly, and we managed to really spruce up the fences, finish the columns and begin work on the ceilings—a great start to the morning.

 Next up, we headed over to the Jewish Agency’s office in Kiryat Gat, where we had a yummy lunch provided to us and we heard from representatives of the JDC, the Jewish Agency, and about the partnership between Chicago and Kiryat Gat (amongst a couple of other communities). I worked at the UJA-Federation of NY this summer and during high school I stayed in Ofakim, the sister community of MetroWest, New Jersey, so I’m familiar with these types of partnerships. But it’s great seeing another community’s connection to Kiryat Gat, a place that we also are getting the chance to learn about and get to know. One speaker noted that this is not exactly a flashy community, as opposed to NY, which is connected to Jerusalem or LA is with Tel Aviv.

After lunch, we took some time to talk about our experiences so far, positives and negatives. Hearing from the whole group was a good chance to see where others stood, and helped clarify some questions which we had been wondering as we got further into this work, such as, who lived in these homes we were painting? Or what was the deal with the paint debate? (Answers: a diverse population, often are socio-economically challenged, and from several different countries such as Russia, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia or born in Israel. The paint, a debate explained above, was in fact chosen by the community members, but they did not like the shade of this paint and wanted us to switch over to a new paint color for the rest of the walls).

 Realizing we needed some caffeine, we jumped over to a convenience store, and then were dropped off in our various locations for the afternoon activities with children. The group I worked with are called Hashachar, specifically their Girl’s Leadership group (made up of girls ages 16-17). This group meets at the local Bnei Akiva branch, and today one of the students explained to us that Hashachar is a subgroup of Bnei Akiva for Ethiopian children and teenagers to join and get involved in Bnei Akiva.

This group of girls is really terrific. They are sweet, funny, and are more than willing to bear with the language barrier. After playing a couple of games (all roughly using teamwork as the baseline goal), the girls shared with us a lovely and moving story of a project they are currently organizing. A social worker identified a girl whose family cannot afford to throw her a Bat Mitzvah celebration. This Girls Leadership group has been working to raise funds for the girl, and so far have managed to collect 2,000 shekalim. They have a hall booked, food, a DJ, and photographer all lined up. They are going to be the waitresses and are continuing to raise funds. We were then sent out to go out to the community for 15 or 2o minutes and ask for any donations. I went with two girls, Hadas and Etti, as they stopped by a number of local businesses and told the story. One bakery owner gave them his business card and said he would provide a cake for the party. This was a really special and touching moment in the day—after hearing this sad story, I was also really elated to see these girls taking on a huge responsibility, and seeing real results. A cake was exactly what this bat mitzvah girl would want and need, and thanks to these girls and the community members, she would have it. 

We soon returned to the Bnei Akiva building and then went back to the Gar’in Villa, where we split up to go to our various hosts’ homes for a home hospitality meal. I went with two others to an incredibly smart and inviting family, headed by Natan and Yehudit. We also got to meet their three sons, Har-El (age 4) Oren (age 3) and Eli (age 2), all of whom seemed to put more of their soup on the table than in their mouths. Natan told us he was born in Ethiopia and moved to Israel when he was 12. After studying in Yeshiva and serving in the army for five years, he studied law and began working as a lawyer. But he and his group of friends felt the need to give back, to continue to change and make improvements for their community. So, he and his wife chose to live in Kiryat Gat after they got married. Yehudit was born in Tel Aviv, but her parents emigrated from Ethiopia. They were so kind to open their homes up to us, and we had some very interesting conversations about our families. The meal was delicious and it was great to have some serious interaction time with the Gar’in families living in the Kiryat Gat community today. 

The night concluded with discussion groups back at the Villa, with Ethiopian coffee served and snacks to go along with it. The groups each met with a Hineni Gar’in leader, and discussed some thoughtful questions relevant to our lives. My group focused on social changes we hoped to address. Then conversation turned to issues of racism, as it stands today in the U.S. and in Israel. Yaacov, the Gar’in leader in my group, told us he wants race to not be a factor in people choosing friends or potential marriage partners. His wife is not Ethiopian, but skin color is not a defining factor for either of them and while others have mistaken them not for a married couple, he hopes that these types of assumptions or misconceptions will be lessened with time and the work of those like him.

All in all, a powerful, tiring, and full day.

Hi everyone!

Today was our first full day in Israel and we made the most of it! We woke up early and had breakfast at Kibbutz Ein-Tzurim. We then headed onto our bus to drive to Kiryat Gat. It was about 20 minutes away from the Kibbutz. Kiryat Gat is the town that we will be working with throughout our service trip here. Upon arriving we were welcomed by the community and Rabbi Moshe Solomon, who is the Gar’in Hineni Director and a Kiryat Gat resident. Rabbi Moshe Solomon gave us a great welcoming speech, told us a bit about the community and the projects that we will be working on. The Gar’in is a group of socially active citizens who are well educated who have decided to come back and help their Ethiopian community. Throughout our week here, we will be assisting the Gar’in in their various projects ranging from beautification to empowering youth. We then had some food, and delicious ceremonial bread and then we were off to work!

We split up into 2 groups. 5 people went to work on painting a refrigerator while the rest of us began the project of painting and refurbishing building entrances. We all had our awesome overalls, which were indeed a fashion statement. I was part of the building entrance group and we got a lot done and had fun. Basically there are 4 entry ways to a set of buildings which currently are not very aesthetically pleasing and are kind of falling apart. So today we began painting them to make them look more welcoming. As Rabbi Moshe Solomon said during his opening remarks, just painting the area will make it look nicer and help the residents feel better about where they live and brighten their days. The colors chosen were really bright: lime green and yellow. We painted the columns green and walls yellow. One of the people leading the activity is a student at a local university who is doing this as part of a school project. Community members were coming throughout our time there, offering opinions and helping paint. There was a photographer from the local paper there who was taking a lot of pictures. Someone brought down a stereo so we were able to listen to some music while painting which was a lot of fun. About 2.5 hours later we finished the project and went back to the bus.

We then all came back together as a group and drove to the mayor of Kiryat Gat’s office. His office was located within a mall which was interesting, but was really nice. The mayor and his staff gave us an overview of Kiryat Gat. Basically the town has 50,000 people and a lot of them are immigrants from Ethiopia, former USSR, South America, North Africans, Yeminites and some Americans so it is a really diverse population. Kiryat Gat is well known for the industries which are here. He even mentioned that some of their residents are well known cellists and tennis players. We could tell that he is very proud of Kiryat Gat and that he is excited to have us here.

By this point, we were all hungry so we went back on the bus and arrived at Gar’in Hinneni’s headquarters for lunch. The building was absolutely beautiful and they call it the “villa.” After a delicious lunch of chicken, hummus, salad and rice we had a JDC activity. Erica (our JDC leader) led us in a discussion about what Israel is for Americans and then about the population of Israel. We learned that the majority of the population is young and that many people are living below the poverty line. Knowing this information, we were ready for the next part of the service day: working with the youth.

We were split up into 3 groups: elementary, middle and high school. The elementary group played a lot of get to know you games as well as dodgeball and soccer outside. The middle school group is a girl’s leadership group. The girls created some programs with us to help us get to know each other and the afternoon culminated in a big scavenger hunt and food creation – it was a lot of fun! The high school group is also a girl’s leadership group where the girls ran activities to meet each other. They discussed some of their favorite things (Justin Bieber came up a lot!) and had a big water balloon toss. We were all with our kids for about 2 hours. Although there were language barriers, every group seemed to have a great time and we are all looking forward to seeing our kids tomorrow!

We then met back together as a group and were met by another member of Gar’in Hinneni, Segi. He told us a lot about what the process of coming from Ethiopia to Israel was like for him when he was younger, and how the Gar’in was formed. The Gar’in has been around for 3 years and is working on addressing problems in the community, like youth development. It is focused on getting the adults who have been successful and having them motivate youth and share their talents. Segi is also a Brandeis graduate student alumni so it was great hearing from him!

Now we are getting ready for dinner and will then have a evening activity with the Rabbi of Kiryat Gat. He will tell us about the challenges facing the Ethiopian-Israeli community and we are excited to hear from him.

We hope you enjoyed hearing about our day and will be sure to update again soon with pictures!!

-Lara Solinsky ’11

We made it! It is Monday night in Israel, and the Brandeis group is happily settling into our accommodations at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim.

Most of our group flew in together, leaving JFK on Sunday night. We met by the El Al counter at 9pm, after all the Birthright groups were done checking in, so the lines were short. Once everyone was checked in and through security, the Brandeis and UMass-Amherst did a quick ice breaker at the gate. The UMass group is doing a similar program to us, but volunteering at different sites. We’re all staying at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, and we’ll have some joint programing, so it was nice to start to get to know them!

Our flight left JFK just before midnight, and proved to be pretty uneventful, in a good way. Most of us got a decent amount of sleep. A lot of people watched “The Social Network”. And of course, when our plane landed at Ben Gurion Airport, everyone burst into applause. That’s one of my favorite things about flying to Israel: people are so genuinely happy to get here. Who starts clapping after they land at Logan?

We landed around 5:15, but by the time we got through passport control, picked up everyone’s luggage, went through customs, exchanged our dollars for shekalim, met up with Larry and the other early arrivals, picked up our rental phones, and loaded up the bus it was past 7:00! Getting into Israel takes time, especially in a large group. The Brandeis and UMass groups rode to Kibbutz Ein Tzurim together, and we arrived around 8pm. We dropped off our luggage and went straight to the dining hall- dinner time! After dinner, we had an hour to settle into our rooms.

At 10pm, we all met up to discuss ground rules and tomorrow’s schedule. We’re getting up bright and early- breakfast at 8am, and the bus leaves at 8:30am! But the most exciting part of the night came right before the meeting ended: Overalls! Hopefully we’ll have some pictures soon of our oh-so-awesome work overalls. Tomorrow we begin our service work with Gar’in Hineni in Kiryat Gat!

-Rachel Goldfarb ’11