Molly and Bess on Moshe Hess

One-Week Countdown!

In just one week, Molly will be heading up north to participate in Ride4Reform, a 5-day bike ride to support the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), but she still has a long way to go to reach her fundraising goal.

Please support the Ride4Reform and the IMPJ by donating on behalf of Molly!

Thank you!

It’s Purim in Jerusalem, which means that secular Jews dress up as Haredi Jews, and Haredi Jews unknowingly dress up as Santa! Also, Spiderman finds the time to put a note in the Western Wall.

Thank you to Nancy Dubin and Jodie Gordon for sharing the photos!

Molly’s friend, Nick Barrat, showed up in Jerusalem for a semi-surprise visit! Tal, Nick’s girlfriend, is Israeli, so they are here visiting her family.

Here is Molly’s Top 5 List of Things That Were Great About Spending Time With the Coolest Seattlite Nick (this was Nick’s title, and luckily Molly doesn’t know that many people named Nick from Seattle):

1. Classic Israeli lunch at Minaret where you think the table full of food is the complete meal and you fill up quickly. Turns out all those salads were just the appetizers.

2. “Starbucks Talk” at Aroma.

3. Clearing up the rumor that Tal is NOT in medical school. I’m pretty sure the reason I thought she was in medical school was because I met her at Callie’s Halloween party…and she was dressed up as a doctor. Let’s just let that one go.

4. Discussing Casey’s zombie-knees.

5. Getting to spend more time with Tal and meeting her parents, Yitzik and Irit, and their family friend, Danny. Yitzik and Danny were quite the pair. I lost count of how many jokes Yitzik and Danny made about Reform Jews.

COWS! The highlight of our Shabbat was visiting the cows at Kibbutz Yahel with Gingy and learning all about the process of having dairy cows…and eventually meat cows :(

Day three of our South Tiyul and you’ll be shocked to learn that it’s still hot as ever. Nothing like a good dance party to beat the heat though! Here is our Top 5 of Day Three:

1. Molly’s “Salach Shabbati” moment at Kibbutz Lotan, when she couldn’t find the project she worked on ten years ago.

2. Learning about Kibbutz Lotan’s creative ecology! They turn human waste into soil with a process that doesn’t smell and doesn’t use any water. Check out more at their website.

3. Realizing Kibbutz Lotan’s composting bathrooms are way nicer than any of the bathrooms at HUC…

4. Molly and Bess’s dance party on the bus to Eilat. Our dancing may have made someone on the bus want to throw up. literally. proof video to come.

5. Snorkeling at the Coral Reserve in Eilat!

It’s day two of our South Tiyul! Down to business, here is our Top 5 for the day:

1. Hiking Har Shlomo was the name of the game today!

2. The invention of the new HUC drinking game - we’re talking about water here people.

3. We made it up AND down Har Shlomo…don’t worry that we can barely walk now.

4. Back at Kibbutz Yahel, picking pomelos and learning about “Partners in Pomelos for Peace” (a little deja-vous for Molly)

5. Vad Kef (aka the “Fun Committee”) program - HUC student trivia night. We learned important things about our community, like how Yoshi was voted “least threatening” in high school (we don’t actually think that’s true though) and how Molly is NOT the only person terrified of fish.

More photos of Molly and Bess (not on Moshe Hess) brought to you by our fellow classmate, Ethan Prosnit!

Thanks to our classmate, Keara Cummings, for sharing these photos!

The first day of our South Tiyul began with “the historical connection to the Judean Desert” with some of our favorite Davids (Dave Mendelsson, David Levine, and David Wilfond). Here is our Top 5 of the first day:

1. Stopping at Qumran to see where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

2. Climbing the snake path at Masada in the heat of the day is a totally different experience from hiking it before sunrise…we see where NFTY in Israel was going with that plan…

3. Stalking our tour crashers on Masada (photos to come)

4. “You just HAD to take the cable car” - Molly got separated from the group on a different cable car….

5. Outdoor dinner at Kibbutz Yahel - David Levine, you owe Molly 100 shekels…

Two of these things are not like the other….here are some photos of our lovely tour-crashers on the top of Masada!

Molly spent two very long and cold days in Bethlehem with Encounter, a program that takes Jewish Diaspora leaders to the West Bank to learn about aspects of Palestinian life. While the educational aspect made the trip worthwhile, the touchy-feely aspect was a little difficult to endure. Before we get to the Top 5, here is Molly’s official count of the trip:

Number of times we sang the official “Encounter” niggun: 6
Number of times we were asked to give a “collective head nod” of agreement: 4
Number of times we had a “check-in” to “unpack how we are landing”: 7
Number of times we did official introductions: 6

Here is Molly’s attempt to fit a lot of information into one very small Top 5 list of the first day in Bethlehem:

1. We started out our day with a visit to Hope Flowers School to meet with Ghada Issa Ghabon, the Program Director of the school. Hope Flowers School was started by Ghada’s father, Hussein, who said that “it is better to suffer for peace than to suffer for war.” What I really like about the school is that it doesn’t just promote peace and democracy through the curriculum, but it also provides psychological support and trauma counseling for the kids and their parents. They believe that it’s not enough to just put the kids in a safe environment at school, but you also need to provide the tools to parents to make changes in their homes.

We also spent time coloring with some of the students! See photo of Molly and Mohammed above.

2. After we left the school, we took a bus tour of the Bethlehem area and the Separation Barrier with Leila of Open Bethlehem. This is about when it started hailing, so every time we got off the bus we ended up jumping right back on. That’s pretty much what I remember from that part of the day.

3. Later that day, we went to the Nativity Hotel for lunch, and then we listened to a panel of women Palestinian activists. The three women had such moving personal stories, and even though they could easily turn their hardships into hatred and violence towards Israelis, they are choosing to devote their lives to work towards a peaceful solution.

Rula works in the media for JustVision, and she told a story about how she couldn’t get a birth certificate for her son in East Jerusalem, where he was born, until he was 5. The short story is that it had to do with her husband’s citizenship, and to get the birth certificate she ended up divorcing her husband. The son has never really met his father, and can only communicate with him through the internet and phone.

Sheerin is a religious Muslim woman, who ended up going to Darfur to work with the UN on human rights issues. She wanted to be on the outside of a conflict for once, and she uses her personal experiences in Bethlehem to relate to the Sudanese refugees.

Suzan works with Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans and she shared a story from her childhood about her village that chose to protest non-violently. Basically, her father’s shop and her home were raided and emptied, leaving them with nothing.

4. After several more activities, we went to dinner with our host families at the Tent Restaurant. There was a lot of laughing at our table, half out of hilarity, half out of confusion.

5. At the end of our long day, we went to our host family’s home for the evening. Shifra and I stayed with Abir and Freddy, and their three daughters, Gina, Emilie, and Lena. Freddy’s brother and his mother live in the apartment upstairs, so they also came over for a visit and to share their stories.

In case the house wasn’t full enough, there were also three American guests staying there. Krista and Kristen are two Mennonite Christians studying at a small private Christian college in Virginia. They are studying in Bethlehem for three weeks and then in Jerusalem for two weeks. Kurt, a special education teacher from Iowa, was also there (thanks to couchsurfers.com) and is spending the year traveling around the world.

After playing Phase 10 and Dutch Blitz (a vonderful goot game) with everyone, we finally went to sleep!

The bad news is that our shower is a broken disaster.

The good news is that our landlord is buying a dryer for our apartment!

Bethlehem Cat Photo of the Day! We think this cat got lost last year on the Christmas walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Poor kitty…did you forget your US Passport?

Courtesy of Josh Bloom and Jodie Gordon

Today was Megan’s last day in Israel <tear> and it was jam-packed full of fun. Here is their Top 5 of the day:

1. Megan experiencing the shuk on a typical crazy Friday morning - the opposite of her first experience on Sunday morning.

2. Traveling to Bethlehem and visiting the Church of the Nativity was quite the adventure.

3. Services at Shira Chadasha, the modern orthodox congregation that loves to sing!

4. Having a lovely Shabbat dinner with some of our classmates.

5. Megan. Meets. Bess.

…did someone say “pit stop at IKEA”?

Day 2 of Molly and Megan’s rental car adventures! Today’s journey: Israel’s Northern Cities - Taking the Much Beaten Path. Here is Molly and Megan’s Top 5 of the Day:

1. Traveling to the Bahai Gardens and meeting a lovely couple from Whidbey Island. They own the only summer hotdog stand in Coupeville, WA - check it out next time you’re there!

2. Visiting the Stella Maris Monastery

3. Dodging into the saddest mall of all time to avoid the sudden downpour followed by an impressive round of thunder and lightning!

4. Visiting the beautiful (port) city of Caesaria

5. Pit stop at IKEA!…