(no subject)
first mari and i saw "Hotel Rwanda" the other night. such an amazingly impacting movie. then ilana and i watched "Fever Pitch" which made me kind of homesick cause of the whole being in boston thing.
Ilanas friend from year course came to visit this weekend. it turns out shes really good friends with becca and moose so hopefully ill be able to talk to them soon. then friday i got on the 46 bus. and got to the train station and was on my way to Tel Aviv alone. At the train station i was picked up by my cousins and we went to their house. it was a beautiful apartment, if you look at november pictures you can see the view from it. I learned a lot while being there. but i got to see my two 3rd cousins. then the sister of my 3rd cousin, her husband and their granddaughter Noa who is my age. She is a beautiful girl, very thin with red hair. She is a social worker in the Navy. She doesnt really like her job but she likes being in the navy. she helps soliders whos families do not have enough money. I also saw my great aunt erica who i have not seen for at least 11 years. she was very sick so she is very thin and frail. she also has no teeth so her face is thin but she is still beautiful. The Old Age home she lives in is right near Israeli Beach so we walked down there.
friday night my two cousins and i had a nice dinner of turkey, rice, soup and a BUNCH of fruit. Then they took me on a tour of Jaffa. Which was so exciting because we had just studied that in history. Jaffa for those who dont know an arab city when israel was first being formed. we drove by the port in Old Jaffa where they closed it down to not let immigrants in anymore. there were so many art galleries and museums and music places. We also drove by some old mosques where my cousin aharon told me that in 1948 arabs shot out of the mosques to Tel Aviv because it is right at the border.
on saturday i also saw my uncles brother eitan who i have never met. he is a very nice man and his wife pnina who is also very nice. she reminds me so much of my aunt susan. They have a son that is almost two named Omer, he is adorable. he doesnt play with toys he plays with boxes and cans and bottles but hes adorable.
we watched video of my uncle when he was 14 playing the violin. he is an amazing violinist and he won all kinds of awards and played at all kinds of concerts and he ended up in New York with Pincas Zukerman learning. Silvia told me that during a war a pianist from a camp he attended called and asked if ariel could come live with him because he was worried something would happen. it was funny watching videos of my uncle though. ariel-your glasses were classic. nice and big. very 80s. I also saw baby pictures of him, and now i can see how much jeremy (my baby cousin) follows after you. its so crazy.
and i learned about my family coming to israel. my grandmother and her sister erica were sent to sweden during the Holocaust so they could survive. my grandma lived with a family but erica lived in a childrens home. Then they came to israel and erica was sent to the army, but she didnt knwo hebrew so it was very hard for her. all in all erica had a very hard life. then i learned about silvia and how her family could have go to the US but at the time the us were not accepting people from several places including poland which is where her father was from but luckily they got a paper to let them go to Israel.Aharon was the youngest of 9 children in his family, if his oldest brother was alive, silvia said he would be 106. He was the only one of the 9 born in israel, everyone else was born in Iraq and then dispersed.
Facts i learned while going on a tour. When the US Embassy came to tel aviv everything changed. since there is a common enemy everyone had to be more cautious. I also found out that when my mom lived in Israel she lived in a place called Holon which is near Tel Aviv. Im hoping i will be able to get the address so i can see where she lived even though it was a long time ago.The first mayor of Tel Aviv was a man named Dizengoff and a lot of things in tel aviv are named after him. mishtarah means police in hebrew, silvia said its one of the most important words to know.Rothschild street was where aharon grew up and also where yitzhak rabin lived. (OH and we went to the place where he was shot, its a very nice memorial, but it was sad because since the 10th anniversary was this week so many people were around)in the 1940s, Eliyahu was the head of te Hagana (the underground army of civilians that were trained, the palmach was the commander of the hagana group. i need to learn more about it. La-Guardya was a palmach.
it was exciting seeing my great aunt because she knows a lot more english than last time i saw her so we could actually talk more. when we went to see her though. there was this woman who was very shaky but was giving erica a massage and silvia said " you can see what they used t be like. we think about what we will be like when we are older and what will change" i didnt really think about it but really its a interesting thing to ponder. but erica is very happy living there. she has a lot of friends and has a very nice room. there are a lot of animals there too; birds, turtles, fish, rabbits, and chinchillas.
leaving i was really confused at the train station. but then this nice boy helped me figure out which track to go to. his english was very good. he asked me what and where i was studying and then he said that he didnt like u haifa. its okay though.
and then i came back and i really didnt/dont feel well and its sunday and i should be at leo baeck but i am here. i think its from the food i ate this weekend. im not used to it. i had a lot of rich cakes, turkey, chicken, rice, fruit..just a lot and my stomach didnt like it. and i also have a sore throat. oh well hopefully ill feel better tomorrow because i have class that i refuse to miss and a memorial for yitzak rabin. and i have my first day at my placement.
and with that. i need to sleep. i feel gross.
but it was nice seeing my family. its nice being able to get away for a bit. if you wanna look at pictures of israel and my trip. go here--> http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jcohn86/my_photos
oh not to put a damper on things..but i feel like its good to inform people about stuff going on while im here so you can get a different take than the us gives since they dont live here. if you didnt read about what happened in jordan with the bombings of the three western run hotels you should.about 50 or so people were killed and the biggest death toll was at a wedding where they think it was a guest. but read more about it because i was told the US reported it very accuratly. but i am safe.but its a terrible thing that happened. go read about it.