This Sunday we are lucky to have two fantastic updates, one by Emma Beigelman about Friday and Jared’s write up about today, Sunday. Attached is the program for this week. It is supposed to be very hot; some plans might change in the morning upon instructions from HadarMatzav, the situation room.
Hi everyone! It’s Emma Beigelman and I was asked to write today’s journal. First off, happy birthday to Jess!!
This morning, we checked out of Agron in Jerusalem and ate a quick breakfast before we left on a bus to Tel Aviv. After a nice long nap on the bus, we got to our graffiti tour in Florentine.
We walked with a tour guide who told us all about the meanings behind some of the artwork. There were multiple pairs of eyes at the tops of buildings that we were told to look out for. Yuval, the tour guide, explained how the eyes are meant to remind people to watch out for your surroundings and keep you from staring at your phone instead of experiencing the beautiful city. She explained how the people doing this graffiti have to be in pairs as one person dangles the other off the roof and the artist paints upside down. Another work we saw was inspired by the famous graffiti artist Banksy. It depicts a person holding balloons and flying towards one of Banksy’s pieces. The artist’s name is Kislev and we were able to see much more of his artwork. We stopped by a set of freehanded hearts that represent the LGBTQ+ community, painted by a member. The hearts were spray painted freehanded in order to show the uniqueness of each individual, however because of its location and message, people have attempted to cover it up. Throughout our tour, we passed by many teddy bears attached to buildings and lamp posts. The story behind these bears is that a father wanted to help his daughter find her way to school, so he set up a teddy bear trail. My personal favorite was the stenciled graffiti by Kislev of the 27 club. This piece was done on a crane and Kislev had written “Tel Aviv Municipality” to trick the police into thinking that he was working. He chose Yom Kippur as the day to make this because Yom Kippur is the only day that no one is working so no one can be called to fine Kislev. On the far right of this piece is the face of Kislev himself, however people have covered his face in order to say that he is not worthy of being next to these legends as well as the fact that he lived past age 27.
The 3 most meaningful pieces in my opinion were the last 3 we saw. The first depicted the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It is a sad piece but the beauty in it was how much people in the area cared for it. The police had tried to cover it many times but the townspeople protested to keep it. Next was a piece of two women crying in each other’s arms. This piece was created in 2014 after 3 teenagers were kidnapped and murdered. One woman is a Jewish mother of one of the murdered people and the other is a Muslim mother of a kid, who was kidnapped and murdered by a Jew in revenge. It showed the viewers the same pain on opposite sides of fighting. Lastly, we saw a piece that used braille. The braille read “Did you see the swastikas? No I didn’t.” to remind people of how easily people ignore antisemitism and to call it out when it is seen. Just under that sentence reads “I must remember that I am blind also.” Because the artist had realized that she ignored hatred towards other religions but did not take her own action.
We ended the tour by spray painting on an old vinyl with a stencil of Golda Meir, which turned out very nice. After this, we walked to Shuk HaCarmel where we ate a quick lunch and walked around. We ended the activities for the day with a long bike ride along a nearby shore while other went shopping for Shabbat dinner and snacks. I had my own small “Neshama Moment” as we like to call it when you step out of your comfort zone. I have not gone on a bike for probably over a decade, but I still tried it. I may have crashed into a stranger and stopped biking, but the experience was nice regardless. As of now, we are getting dressed and ready for Shabbat and eating dinner.
Jared’s update, a little bit about Shabbat, a lot about today, Sunday:
Our Kabbalat Shabbat was led by Rafi, followed by dinner, peula with Madrichim, and to bed. After Shabbat morning prayers we went to the beach and spent a few hours relaxing on the beach. We had a special Pizzur dinner in Tel Aviv for Erev Jeremy’s birthday umptza umptza. I got pasta and ice cream with my group and we had a great time. We got back, packed up, and hung out with each other until curfew. Woke up at 8ish ate brekky then took our stuff on the bus to begin our day long journey in the north. First, we went on a hike along the Mediterranean coast about an hour north of Tel Aviv. As we walked along the coast we began to talk about the Kabbalah and mysticism which is characteristic to the north of Israel. I had the pleasure of leading neshama in a brief meditation along the coast looking out into the calm blue sea. It was a deeply relaxing experience that opened up conversations about personal spirituality unrelated to, but not forgetting, the traditional Jewish spirituality we are all familiar with. As someone who regularly meditates alone, it was a new experience to be the voice in the ears of others. I found this more gratifying as I don’t have an opportunity to share what I practice personally with others very often. After we finished our hike, we took a sleepy bus ride to the Atlit detainment camp museum where we heard about the conditions that many Jews faced when they finally made their way into Israel. Quick history lesson: due to tensions between Jews and Arabs under the British mandate, the British decided to decrease the number of Jews allowed to legally immigrate to the land of Palestine. The flow of Jews from Europe did not decrease by the necessary amount, so Jews were either turned back to Europe (usually to face pogroms and antisemitism) or they were placed into detainment camps. These camps visually resembled concentration camps in Europe, which scared many Jews, however their function was that of a waiting room. People were held in the camp for as little as 1 day or as much as 2 years. These people waited for the opportunity to be given legal immigration papers, but the conditions of this camp were not up to par. Rat infestations, partial separation of families, and mandatory curfews were just a few of the characteristics.
After learning the history of the camp and walking around it, we began our final bus ride of the day to Deganya bet - a Kibbutz in the South of the Galilee.
Peace out my dudes
Jared