On the move

Thursday morning we started our day at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek. Mishmar HaEmek is different from Kibbutz Barkai, because it is NOT privatized. All Kibbutz members share their entire salary. Interestingly, members of this particular Kibbutz are considered to be part of the upper-middle class. Because all salary is divided equally, no one has to individually pay for heat/water, housing, or even food! (Breakfast/ lunch/dinner are provided in a dining hall.) Me and my fellow group members could not believe the massive amounts of food in the dining hall. We must've appeared like we've never eaten before! I had 4 types of potatoes on my plate, and may have gone up for thirds... Only thing missing was a dessert bar. Some lady told us the only way to get into Mishmar HaEmek is by marriage, since there is a very long waiting list.

One of our guides, Lydia, took us to her new home. She has been on the Kibbutz for 45 years, and made Aliyah from London.

Mishmar HaEmek has an incredible history. Founder Kibbutz members helped fight for independence in 1948. We conversed with an older man, Aleesha, for an hour about his experience on the Kibbutz. He explained to us how he was good friends with Arabs from the area before they became refugees. He used to play with them when he was young.  One day he went to visit some of them at a nearby refugee camp, and was shot in the head. To this day, he still has a bullet somewhere in his head.
Mishmar HaEmek is also home to the first Holocaust children's memorial.

This architect of the model created the woman with disproportionately longer arms. The reason behind this was because many felt as if they didn't have long enough arms to protect their children during such awful times. The memorial presently has bullet marks in it, from bullets that were shot during one of the wars.













Later that day we went to many tour sites, including a national park with several caves. These caves contained the tombs of many historical Rabbis. It was very cool to see, because it reminded me how far back the Jewish connection is with the land of Israel.

Supposedly the inspiration for the Menorah on one of the Israeli coins 

 

Ran into some Israelis practicing martial arts, naturally.

This morning I went to a birthday party with my Kibbutz host family.  Everyone there was excited to practice their English with me. I found the party to be much different than a birthday party in the states. The only form of "entertainment" was food, and each other. (opposed to a disney princess showing up, or a jumpy castle). The very first thing we did was "La-Chaim" (take a shot) to the 3 year old birthday boy. I had an Amaretto shot at 10 AM. (That's a first). I had some really interesting conversations with many of the people there. When they found out I was learning Arabic with Givat Haviva, there was a unanimous response. All expressed some sort of disappointment that there still isn't peace in this part of the Middle East. One older lady told me she participated in Givat Haviva almost 50 years ago. (Givat Haviva is the program I am studying Arabic with. Their goal is to open a dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, and face stereotypes head-on.) I was disheartened when she told me she has lost much hope over the years. She used to be extremely active in bridging the gap, but recent times has shed some doubt. I can only hope we see a progression towards a peaceful solution in our generation.

Givat Haviva - Week 2

At the beginning of the week, me and a couple others from my program visited a town called Baqa Al-Gharbiya where we met an Arab woman named Halima. We arrived at her house where her husband gave us fresh pomegranate juice. We then headed to the old cultural center in Baqa which is now being renovated into a public library. Halima and her husband have been working on this library since the summer, 8 hours a day. Halima explained to us how the general idea of a library is new to the Arab world in this area. Libraries only existed in people's homes. The state of Israel provides the funding for public libraries which is completely dependent on the number of citizens in a given area.  Funding is equally allocated between Arab-Israelis and Israelis in Israel. 

 

The next day we headed to Jatt, another Arab city. We went to an Arab community center where we sat in on a Hebrew lesson. The teacher of the class was an Israeli who converted from Judaism to Islam. When asked her why she converted, her only response was "I've always loved Islam." She spoke Arabic with an Israeli accent. We then headed to an art center, where we met with Arabs participating in a painting class. We spoke with them one-on-one for about half hour, in Arabic. The girl I spoke to was 20 and already married for a year. She was still very excited about being married and showed me her wedding pictures. She was surprised when I told her that people in America don't usually marry until much later. 

 

The day after we visited an Arab-Israeli/Jewish school. This phenomenon of having a mixed school with both Jews and Muslims is almost unheard of in Israel. Schools are mostly segregated, only about 3 or 4 mixed schools exist in the entire country. The school we visited is the only one to exist in an Arab village, opposed to a Jewish settlement. It was a very cool experience seeing both Jewish and Muslim children learning in the same classroom. I helped a little Arab boy with his math, (to the best I could with the language barrier!) and then hung out with a young Israeli girl.  Me and the Israeli (Jewish) girl spoke to each other only in Arabic! We also sat in on one of their science classes where they were learning about plastic. There were two teachers; one who spoke in Arabic, and one who spoke in Hebrew. They switched off teaching the class to make sure all students understood the lesson. All classes are combined except for the language classes, where students study their non-native language. (i.e. The Jewish Israelis study Arabic).

Helping a 1st grader in math 

Combined classroom with Jewish and Muslim students 

1st grade 

"Welcome" in both languages 

Hanging out with an Arab-Israeli and an Israeli student 

This week was full of eye-opening cultural experiences. Today we visited a nearby Kibbutz, which was much different than the one we are currently living on. (Kibbutz Barkai). I will explain the differences between a privatized and non-privatized Kibbutz in my next blog. For now, I have to get back to studying!

XO from the holy land :)