Monday 7/7

Hey Everyone. Sorry it's been a while since I last posted, it's been very busy here. Thursday, we had classes at the kibbutz, and we had a day to study a bit for a Jewish History quiz. At night, we had a prep activity for the community service activity on Friday. Friday morning, we had no classes. After breakfast, we left the kibbutz to go to a nursing home where we sang and socialized with some seniors. We also made them cards for Shabbat. After we left, we went to a big mall. It is very interesting that here, they make you go through metal detectors when entering a mall. Definitely something I am not used to. They have all sorts of American brands here. Lacoste is very big, and they sell just about every American brand in the mall, or at least a lot of them. After the mall, we went to Friday night services at Kol HaNishama, the reform synagogue in Jerusalem. There may be more than just that one, but it was beautiful. While we were there, we ran into Rabbi Hecht from Eisner. He remembered Samara, Alexa and I. After services, we split up into our class groups and went to our history teachers' homes for Shabbat dinner. Ariella's apartment was very nice in a quaint neighborhood in Jerusalem. We had Humus, quiche, salad, and chalah. They had a nice shot glass collection from places they've been (her and her husband). We went back to the kibbutz, and had free time until 1AM. On Saturday, we had a relaxed day as usual. We got to sleep in late, and had morning services around 11. We were led by Rabbis Meir and his wife who's name I can't remember. We had open Shabbat after services and a few people went to visit relatives for the night (fri into sat.) It was a relaxing day, but we did a good amount of studying for our Jewish History quiz on Sun.
Sunday morning, we had a Jewish History quiz. It wasn't hard. After the quiz, we had more history class. It seemed like all day. We then had a "Babylonian Bash," basically, a history class with a different name. Baruch dressed up in like Babylonian style dress, and looked really funny. After that, we had some free time, and then dinner. After dinner, we met with Rabbi Meir again and had a seminar on tikkun olam or repairing the world. Today, we had a Hebrew quiz, which was VERY easy. It was just reading a short dialogue. After Hebrew, we had Jewish History for a while. After Jewish History, we went to the pool. That was basically it for the day. We are going to Masada tomorrow.

See Ya,
Ben