March 16, 2008

My roommate's alarm goes off. Ugh, I really don't want to wake up. Its Friday, so we don't have class but I have to go do a Tzedakah project. I'm not excited, at all. After grabbing some breakfast and getting on a bus we go off to a senior citizen center. An older man in a wheelchair came up to me and started talking to me. He had once been in the army but now he only has one leg. My mood started to get better. The social worker then called all of the EIE kids over to give us tasks to do. When she said one was making chocolate balls, my ears and body perked up. Now my mood was actually good. With a few of my friends, I walked over to a bunch of older women and motioned to ask if they wanted to make chocolate balls. Some of the women barely spoke hebrew, so as a group the Americans girls tried to speak Yiddish and Hebrew as they taught us a thing or two about making chocolate balls. As the women called us very cute, all of us (the Americans and our elders) also were singing along to guitar in the background that was playing different Shabbat songs. After a few hours of fun it was time to wrap it up. We split up the chocolate balls, then had a talk with the social worker. She told us how for many years these women made pounds and pounds of chocolate balls for their children, and the first years they couldn't they went into a depression.  They felt like they were of no use to their families and they couldn't do something they enjoyed so much. Then she commended us for doing a wonderful Mitzvah, because the chocolate balls we made could now be given to the women's children and it gave the women so much joy to feel useful agian. I couldn't help but to cry at that point. I felt bad for earlier in the day not wanting to go and it made me remember my own Grandmother going into a depression the first Hanukkah she was unable to make my Dad and I potato latkes. Later I thanked the women I had made chocolate balls with because even more then I helped me, they helped me. From them I learned some good techniques to make chocolate balls with but also how important it is to put helping your family first above everything else in the world.

L'shalom,

Laura

March 12, 2008

Picture this, you are in Tel Aviv eating some ice cream while sitting on the beach. You are having a ton of fun with your friends and then you get a phone call from your mom. She's really freaking out. Turns out there has been a shooting in Jerusalem. That's what happened to me on Thursday night. For those of you who don't know, a terrorist went into a Yeshiva in Jerusalem and killed 8 people with 30 wounded to different degrees. Even though I wasn't hurt and I was far from where the attack took place, I am nonetheless shaken. This was the first successful terrorist attack since 2004. On Thursday night, every kid on EIE was required to go to a late night meeting. David, our assistant principle, explained to us what happened. Something that he said reminded me of things I heard many times after the terrorist attacks took place in the United States. "Terrorists know they can't kill everyone, so they try to make the country live in fear by attacking as many people as possible,that's why terror is part of their name," he started. "But we cannot give them the victory of letting us live in total fear and not continuing on with our lives." Even though I am going to be careful while I am here, I am not going to give the terrorists any victories. I am going to continue on with my studies here, and honor those killed by enjoying this wonderful country. I am sorry my first entry had to be this upsetting and I promise the next ones will be much happier.

L'shalom,
Laura