I have just two short weeks left in Israel before I return to the United States. What can I say? יש סוף לכל דבר. I'll soon be moving on to a different stage of my life. For those of you interested, I now know that I will be spending next year in North America, although where still remains to be seen.
School began again this week, I'm pleased to say, and after six days without my students (due to Shavuot break), I returned to school on Monday. I had a busy week, and did my best to stay on top of my workload. My students seemed happy to see me again, too, and some of them behaved surprisingly well. Throughout the week, more of the school's walls received decoration and embellishment; there seems to have been a real effort to beautify Rambam over the past few months, and it's a much more attractive and colorful building than it was when I first visited it nine month ago.
On Thursday afternoon, ITF Ramla had its graduation ceremony, even though the program doesn't officially end until June 27th. Veta and I had spent most of our free evening hours together preparing the slideshow for the event. It was a lot of fun, except for the moment when I thought that I had irretrievably corrupted the entire file (I hadn't). Guess who fixed my bungling? There is a reason why the file name of the final version of the show included the acronym VITB: Veta Is The Best. We watched the video at the Veradim House, then Carmel and Einav drove us to Palmachim Beach in Rishon Letzion. Carmel brought fruit, and made fondue, and we had a small picnic on the beach. Alex, Veta, Natalie and I all frisked about a little bit in the Mediterranean, which was quite warm. Our pedagogical advisor Marsha, as well as Moshe and one of Noach's teachers joined us. Carmel spoke a little bit about each of us, and handed us our diplomas. I had my favorite job as tzalam rash'i. I got quite a few good pictures, thanks partially to my having adjusted my camera's settings ahead of time (check FB, for those interested). If during the Community Involvement graduation, Juliana and Alex were the most photogenic, Natalie and Alex win this award this time around. After everyone except Noach and I went to Tel Aviv, I realized that I had forgotten to ask Veta or Alex for the key to my apartment, and was locked out for the night. Eventually, I ended up spending the evening with Noach, which was fun (I even had the opportunity to annotate his siddur). When Perrin arrived, she gave me Veta's key, and I arrived back in my apartment at around 12:50 am -- not terrible, really. Throughout the whole process, I remained calm -- I was in too good of a mood to be upset.
I was up at 6:00 am on Friday morning. I needed to finish my morning routine in time to catch the morning bus to Sapir school, where Natalie and Perrin were having their English Day. Alex and I rode the 247 together, and arrived well on time. Scott (from Petakh Tikvah) and Noah were also at Sapir to help. I had maybe twenty minutes to meet the Perrin and Natalie's students. I spoke mostly to the eighth graders. They were quite diverse; most were chiloni Jews, but there were also a few datim, Christians, and non-Jews. The level of English (and academics in general) seemed to be, on the whole, higher than that at Rambam, but not as high as that at Ofek (where Noah teaches). When they realized that I was dati, they gave a surprisingly positive response; it seemed to endear me to them quite quickly. Noah and I were assigned to help out with a basketball-themed English game, but, unfortunately, there had been a printing error with the schedule, and nobody ever came to our station. We spoke in English to the older students assigned to help us. One of them, Dani, seemed quite anxious to continue spending time with us, and when we eventually moved to Scott's soccer station, he ended up running half of the station. It was a lot of fun to work with Scott. He's a very friendly, energetic person, and I wish that he were part of our program, so that we would all see him more often. I think that Natalie and Perrin did a much better job with their English Day than I did with mine. They were very well-organized and well-prepared, and the activities that they planned were both fun and informative. Although I do not question that I made a difference while teaching English here, I honestly do believe that the other members of this team are better teachers than I am. After 10:00 am, we had finished helping, and we all said goodbye to Perrin and Natlie, who needed to assist with a spelling bee, and to Scott, who wanted to remain until the end of the school-day. Before I left, Scott revealed to me that one of the eighth-graders had offered to sell him marijuana, presumably seriously. All the more reason that this city needs more volunteers. Noah returned to Ramla, while Carmel drove Alex and I to Tel Aviv for the Pride Parade.
The atmosphere in Tel Aviv right before and during the parade reminded me a little bit of Slope Day from Cornell. The main differences were more politicization (I ended up wearing a rainbow-sticker from the Meretz party) and less clothing. But the event was a real party. Unfortunately, there was less of a cohesive message than I had expected (there were no speeches about human rights, about harassment in school, about restrictions on marriage, etc.), and, like Slope Day, it was a whirlwind of colorful clothing, loud music, and alcohol. Carmel had to leave, and we never met with Veta and Maor, but Alex, Alex's boyfriend Dennis, Alex's co-worker Lior, Lior's cousin, and I all marched together. I was still wearing the button-down shirt and dress pants that I wore to school that day, and because of that and my kippah, I attracted a lot of interest from passers-by, who thought that I was gay and dati (they were only half-correct), because, unfortunately, there aren't many dati gays or allies in Israel. To me, this is perplexing, to say the least. As an American Jew, I am accustomed to Jews taking especial interest in causes of social justice, especially younger Jews, of my own generation. Several people asked to take my picture (or just took pictures without asking), and one person even had Alex and Lior pose for a picture kissing me. I had an enjoyable time, and it lightened my heart to see Alex excited by the drag-queens, etc. I headed back to Ramla at around 3:00 pm, went shopping for fruit, and then, tired and sweaty, returned to Ramla for the evening, taking one of the most welcome showers of the day. I went to synagogue in the evening, and was so exhausted that I fell asleep at around 10:00 pm, while Alex was at Maggie's birthday party.
I spent most of today, Shabbat, reading Homo Mysticus, which I have nearly finished. I only have two more Shabbatot here in Israel, and two more weeks of school. I am becoming increasingly anxious to return to the United States, especially due to recent developments.
Love from Israel
~JD
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