HUC-JIR Homecoming Game 2009!

Today was our homecoming kickball game, boys against girls. We won’t say who won, but it was a close(ish) game. Here’s our Top 5 of the Homecoming Game:

1. Imagine this: Bess is in the outfield. The ball is kicked towards her. The ball hits a random kid on the head and bounces right into Bess’s hands! The best out ever.

2. David, the first random Israeli that joined our game.

3. Liron, the second random Israeli (from Detroit) that joined our game. He kicked the ball with his youngest daughter in his hands and then ran the bases with three children hanging off of him. Impressive.

4. Dave Mendelsson and his son, Itai, joining in on the fun. Dave getting Itai out might not help the father-son relations, but their participation certainly made an impression on our student-teacher relations. We have the best faculty ever!

5. Referee Lauren. She can get pretty feisty and it’s always entertaining to watch.

Shalom! We just returned from our three day tiyul to the Galilee/Golan. Hopefully we’ll be able to add more photos in the future, but for now here are our Top 5 Highlights of our Tiyul:

1. “Meeting” the famous Moshe Hess (see photo above) at the Kineret

2. Swimming at Sachne, which was beautiful and refreshing despite the unnatural fish

3. Learning with another one of our new professors, Jeremy Lee, about the “New Jew” that emerges in the late 19th century and early 20th century by watching clips of old films about the “Chalutzim”.

4. Visiting Tel Dan on Thursday with our professor, David Ilan. Even though it was a long and hot day, this site had both archaeological interests as well as a beautiful nature preserve (Keara and Molly pretended they were in the Pacific Northwest for a precious 5 minutes while walking through the nature preserve).

5. Our Wednesday evening “sing-song” (song session) with classmates, professors, and plenty of random Israelis who joined in on the fun

Every rose has a thorn: When the post-tiyul survey asked if anything was missing from the tiyul, we so desperately wanted to write “Dave Mendelsson”. The heartbreaking truth was that Dave had the stomach flu and was not able to come on the tiyul with us, and for that we are still in mourning.

The following post is the result of an assignment we gave our history professor - to help us learn about the man (pictured above) who’s the namesake for our lovely street.

Five useful things to know about Moshe Hess:

1)   Moshe Hess is often understood to be the first thinker to integrate Socialism and Zionism

2)   According to his writings, he had been estranged from his Jewish roots for twenty years during which time he was a central figure in the Communist movement.

3)   His book, Rome and Jerusalem published in 1862 is said to have solved some sixty copies when it was first published.

4)   Hess is buried in the Kinneret Cemetery after his remains were brought here from East Germany. In the days of East German Communism, Hess was one of the icons of the Communist movement. The others were Marx and Engels. We shall be visiting Moses Hess’s  grave during the Northern tiyul.

5)       In Jerusalem, adjacent to Moses Hesss street is Zamenhof street, who is considered the founder of the “international” language Esperanto. Needless to say Zamenhof was a Jew.

THANK YOU DAVE MENDELSSON!

Yom Molly - יום מולי

Top 5 of Molly’s 26th Birthday:

1. The “Facebook wall” full of birthday wishes made on a typewriter

2. Not-quite-as-good-as-last-time-but-still-tasty Chocolate Balls - כדורי שוקולד

3. Skipping around the auditorium, even though Dave Mendelsson wasn’t there to witness

4. First official day of orientation!

5. Yummy dinner made by wonderful friends