Israeli Cinema

Israeli Cinema

A couple days ago, instead of class,we went to the Belmont to learn about Israeli Cinema. Ariella's mom came in order to explain and teach us about the films. She showed us several clips, a short film, and then a full length film in order to give us n in depth Israeli Cinema experience.

First we watched a couple different clips from different Israeli movies. The first was Someone to Run With, a film with two connected story lines. The first was a girl trying to find a character named Shay. She shaves her head and lives on the street with her dog while trying to find him. The second story line is about a boy who has a mission to find the owner of a dog that was put in the pound. It turns out that this is in fat the same dog that the girl had earlier in the movie. The second clip was from a film called Time of Favor. In it, there is a nice, obedient, strong male soldier, a smart, successful Yeshiva student, and the daughter of a Rabbi. This feature film is complete with a love triangle, rebels, and hard choices. The girl doesn't want to be a prize and has a thing for the soldier. There is a point where she tells him about some sensitive personal experience that make her wish she lived in a city rather than a settlement. The daughter also states that the soldier sees the world in black and white while implying that she believes differently, In this scene she also flirts with him by playing with shadows on the wall. Scandalous! There was another movie clip that we watched where we find out that the father of two kids was killed by a bee sting. Both kids react differently, the boy is very introverted and private while the girl is slightly more open. The girl also feels guilty because he died when they stopped to let her go to the bathroom. Next we watched a short film called The Bus Station, where two religious women meet at a bus stop. One is Arab and the other is a Jew, they at first are very anti social but after a tomato incident start talking and realize they are more similar than they thought. At the end, they go back to their normal lives and forget how similar they were. The  last thing we watched, which was a full length movie, was Late Summer Blues. In this movie a bunch of friends deal with the growing threat of the War of Attrition. Sadly the first friend drafted into the war is killed during training. In the movie his friends have to learn how to cope with this tragedy and figure out who they are as individuals. There is a couple who gets married, a radical who eventually goes to war, a singer, a pianist and guitarist who is killed at the end of the movie while fighting in the war, and a boy with diabetes who cannot fight even though he wants to. This movie is a very realistic portrayal of teens during the War of Attrition and what they went through leading up to being drafted and fighting in the war.

This tiyul was very informative and a great look at Israeli culture. My question is what was your favorite clip/movie and why?

by Nichole Haynes

Ammunition Hill & Hebrew University

On Sunday we took a trip to Ammunition Hill and Hebrew University to see sights of the Six Day War. The Six Day war was started when The Old City was blocked off due to Jordanian seize, Nasar (leader of Egypt) makes a pact with surrounding countries, kicks out troops from Sinai, and blocks the strait of Tiran, so Israel's leader Yitzhak Rabin wants to go to war. At this point Israel is surrounded on all sides by enemies, and Israel decides to surprise attack all the armies. On the first day of war, June 5th we attack troops by surprise,  destroyed the Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian Air Forces. On the first day of war we won. Within two days we took over the west bank and on days five and six, we take the Golan Heights from Syria. In total Israel gained, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and Jerusalem from Jordan.

The view of Jerusalem from Ammunition hill

The trenches on Ammunition Hill

During the Six Day War, living in Jerusalem was very difficult. The city was under a Jordanian seize. Nothing could go in or out of the city except Israeli aid to its citizens only once a week. The city was divided by Israeli parts and Jordanian parts always filled with soldiers. In the city there were also many "no man's lands", here no one was allowed to live in these areas and much of the city was filled with snipers, the snipers would be on top of walls and would just shoot any one if they wanted to. In addition, Jews were unable to visit the holy sites such as the Western Wall and the Jewish cemetery.

Picture of Jerusalem in the bunker

During the Six Day War, Ammunition Hill was the biggest battle fought. Ammunition Hill was a fortified Jordanian Military post in Jordanian occupied East Jerusalem. On the second day of the war the Paratroopers landed on Ammunition Hill, and took it back. Also during this time Hebrew University of Jerusalem was in Jordanian-held territory and was not accessible.

The view from Hebrew University

Did you think the soldiers who fought on Ammunition Hill were heroes?

War for Independence Tiyul

May 14th 1948 Israel is declared a state. Before this idea was eve made possible, there was a war. It lasted from November 30th 1947 to around October of 1948, and was comprised of two phases. Phase one took place from November 30th 1947 until May 14th 1948 and was an internal war meaning that the war took place within the borders of Israel and involved the Arabs and Jews living in the state, mostly in Jerusalem and along route 1 going from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The second phase is the external war that happened almost immediately after Israel was declared a state going from May 14th 1948 until around October of 1948 where Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon all attacked Israel. We’ll get back to that in a minute. During the internal war Latrun was the most wanted spot at the time because you could always see what was around you and you could prepare for the attack that would come and it was right along route 1. Also during this time Jerusalem was blocked off and hundreds of thousands of people were starving, so the  people fighting decided it would be a good idea to build a secred road to get supplies like food and other materials to Jerusalem.

Then when the war became external (when the arab countries attacked Israel) the underground bullet factory at Machon Ayalon had really started contributing. They helped Israel win the war by making bullets with outdated machinery under a kibbutz.

I think the establishment of the state helped the war effort because the state could organize a real army and a state/ country army is a lot more effective than three separate organizations because everyone would be working for the same cause at the same pace.

Then at the very end of the day we went to Tel Aviv and learned about start up companies, and how Israel is ranked first in start ups. It was interesting having to run around the city for a while. To me it almost seemed like a simulator on how CEO’s of companies live their lives. Running around from place to place just to see that there wasn't a problem, then later seeing that there was then having to run around some more because you need to get the problem fixed. It’s easy to see what you can do if you just set your mind to it.

What was your favorite task from the Start Up scavenger hunt??

Now here is a lovely picture of Evan from a while ago.  

Resistance Tiyul

A room honoring many people who helped to create Israel.

In the late 1880s and early 1900s, there were a series of massive aliyah to Israel. This influx of Jews took over much of the land that the Palestinians claimed as their own, which led to riots. It was a cycle. An aliyah would take place, riots would ensue, the British would create a commission to investigate, and then white papers would be released to solve the problem. This, unfortunately for the British, did not work, which led to the repetition of the cycle. The white papers released increasingly put harsh restrictions upon the Jews, eventually limiting aliyah to Israel to 75,000 Jews in five years. That’s less aliyah, and more aliyawwwww! 

           White papers were the British solution to the riots that occurred to protest the massive aliyot that occurred in the early 1900s. The earlier white papers just confirmed British commitment to a Jewish state, talked about peace, and about opening Jewish immigration. The later white papers limited aliyah and the amount of land Jews could purchase in Palestine. The Jews’ solution to this was the creation of different groups in order to either protect Jews in Palestine or to get around British law that they deemed unfair.

       David Ben Gurion was the leader of one of those groups. That group was the Haganah (הגנה), the very first resistance group, which worked to protect Jews by defending them against Arab terrorists. The Haganah also worked to change or evade many of the British laws that were making it difficult, if not impossible, for many Jewish refugees of the Holocaust to enter Israel. What’s your favorite color? Reply; I want to see who is actually reading my blog. Include it with your answer to the later question. However, The Great DBG (David Ben Gurion) believed that Jews had to cooperate with the British because they were some of our closest allies in fighting the Nazis. “We are going to fight in the war as if there are no white papers, and we are going to fight the white papers as if there is no war.” This view was not shared by other resistance groups such as Etzel and Lehi. This was perhaps the most divisive issue among these groups. 

One of the "nicer" cells

Etzel stands for “לאומי צבאי ארגון,” which means National Military Organization. Zev Jabotinsky, who did not agree with DBG about peace, formed this group. (He’d probably say, “Haganah? HagaNAH, man.”) He wanted a more active resistance against the British, which is his main reason for the split from Haganah. Etzel was overall more extreme than Haganah. The group was much more militaristic in it’s actions. They also had differing ideals for Israel. Haganah was satisfied with borders of Israel as defined by the UN partition plan, whereas Etzel believed in the so-called “biblical borders” of Israel, spanning from the Mediterranean to the other side of                                                              the Jordan river.

Prison Yard

        The third group was Lehi, which in Hebrew stands for “ישראל חרות לוחמי,” meaning Freedom Fighters of Israel. This group was the most extreme, and sometimes it was even referred to as a terrorist group due to many controversial actions it took in the name of the Jewish State. It was a splinter group of Etzel, run by Yair Stern.

   Out of these three groups, I personally connected most with Haganah. I think David Ben Gurion job did a good job of keeping the group as a moral and Jewish group, well still fighting and protecting the people. The other two groups, Etzel and Lehi, felt to me like they were not just protecting the people but also hurting other people, which may or may not have been the intention, but it just does not sit right with me. One thing that I loved was that all of the groups participated in was Aliyah Bet, an underground aliyah, because of the limit on Jewish immigration. Of the people who aided in smuggling Jews into Israel, some were caught, and they were sent to British prisons like the one we saw in Jerusalem. 

Fellow classmate, Max Wallach,
playfully pretending to enter the trapdoor.

       In fact, Zev Jabotinsky himself was incarcerated there. It was not a very good life for those who were imprisoned there. Although, what can you expect? It’s prison. It was very difficult for the captured resistance fighters, knowing that they were unable to help the resistance from inside the prison. Near the end of the British occupation, 12 people were able to escape the prison through the sewers, by means of a trap door that they created from their cell. (Seems like a pretty stinky escape plan to me.)

      Others, however, were not as lucky. Two Jewish Men, Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein, were on death row in the prison. They, as their final act of rebellion, were able to get a grenade 

Where Barazani and Meir would have
been hanged

hidden inside an orange peel, and they blew themselves up before they would have been hanged.

      At the end of our Tiyul, we learned about the King David Hotel. On July 22^nd, 1946, Etzel members blew up the hotel, leading to 91 deaths and 45 people wounded. Etzel claimed they attempted to call the hotel to get people to leave first, but this tragedy, often referred to as a terrorist attack, forever split Etzel and Haganah. Even until David Ben Gurion’s death, he refused to speak ever again to Menahem Begin, Etzel’s leader. However, as terrible an event this was, it impacted Israel’s statehood, at least shortening the time it took. 

So what do you say? Which group, Haganah, Etzel, or Lehi, do you think had the biggest impact on the creation of Israel?

   

Chalutzim Tiyul

          On Thursday, we visited Kfar Tavor and the Kinneret to learn about the chalutzim. Chalutzim חלוצים means pioneers. Between 1881 and 1903, 25,000 to 35,000 chalutzim moved to Israel with the goal of reclaiming the holy land. This was the first Alyiah. The second Alyiah was from 1904-1914, when about 40,000 people moved to Israel with the goal of finding a safe place for the Jewish people. They faced many challenges including: robbers, infertile land, starvation, malaria and other diseases, and a drought. The JCA, or Jewish Colonization Organization, founded by Maurice de Hirsh, gave the chalutzim land that was difficult to farm, and the chalutzim had to pay taxes to the JCA and the Turkish government. Even so, they were able to turn the swampy land that they received into fertile farming land.

          The second Alyiah consisted of mostly young socialists. They established the first Kibbutzim. The word קיבוצה (meaning group) becomes קיבוץ (Kibbutz), which is what we call them today. In 1906, at the age of 20, David Ben Gurion made Alyiah. "Settling the land. That is the only real zionism. Everything else is only self deception, empty verbiage, and merely a pastime." Also, he believed that there shouldn't be employers and employees, but that there should be a few leaders on top and everyone else has equal roles.

         The cemetery of Kinneret expresses the hope and despair of the chalutzim. The graves that we visited belonged to Rachel, Lotus, Natan Icar, and a few others. Rachel is one of the most influential poets of modern Hebrew. She died at age 40 from tuberculosis, and requested to be buried by the Kinneret. The first grave in the cemetery was that of Lotus, the first baby born on the kibbutz. The grave was just a small and simple rock. The kibbutz wanted to communally name the baby Adam, but the parents didn't want to give him that name, so they chose the name themselves. Lotus died at six months. Because there were no experienced parents on the Kibbutz, he was given meat, which made him sick. It was at the hospital in Tiberias that he was given medication to treat his illness. Unfortunately, the doctors miscalculated the dosage, and he died.  The second grave in the cemetery is another baby, which prompted the Kibbutz to hire a professional nanny.

        The lives of the chalutzim were very difficult. Their actions were admirable, even in their failures. They were very brave to start new lives in a foreign country without the support of their families and the guidance of their elders. Having learned about the chalutzim, would you have decided to make Alyiah?

View of the Kinneret

Kinneret Cemetery

Sonja Botnik

Nichole Haynes

Caroline Mellow

Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism?

Shalom Kitat Dekel!

Very much enjoyed our tiyul up north today learning about the first and second waves of aliyah. For your homework assignment, please read the articles I gave you from the NYTimes. Here is a link if you prefer to read on the computer: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/04/is-anti-zionism-anti-semitism

Please respond to which article speaks to you the most and why.

Shabbat shalom,
Evan

Poland Day 3

Day 3 of Poland took us through an array of emotions.  It was the first time we visited a concentration camp, that being Maidanek.  It was also when we first got a bit of free time around the Lublin Old Town.  It emphasized how life was like before the Shoah.  The town was an experience that I never thought I would have in Poland.  It was very unique and has a lot of charm to it, in my opinion.   Thought it was in a very European style, even though a lot of the buildings were renovated. 

            It was very interesting for me to see what it was like before and to be able to connect to how people used to live.  It used to be called little Jerusalem.  The remains from the 19^th century are there, but no earlier.  There are only two lamp posts left, which we are still able to visit.  It was not originally the Jewish quarter, but then it became that and we got to walk through "The Jew Gate".

            Maidanek was the first concentration camp we went to.  It was very emotional seeing the buildings still standing and walking exactly where people had to walk just 70 years ago.   Maidanek had a lot of the buildings there because it was poorly managed and the Nazis didn’t manage to destroy everything in their attempt to cover up what they were doing.  The Soviet Army had also moved in very fast, which also helped keep some of the camp intact.  Maidanek was a labor and death camp.  It was originally meant for prisoners of war, but then it changed to hold mainly Jews.  This camp was extremely close to the city, which led to some people wondering how nobody asked about what was going on.  Sadly, there was not a very good answer to give, since most likely people just turned a blind-eye to it.  Even though nobody helped, the people in the camp could also use it to their advantage..  They were able to communicate with other people outside, by smuggling notes in and out.  We followed the story of Helena Berrenbaum and it was very heart-wrenching.

The hardest thing for me to see was all the ash, especially after hearing that about one cup is only one person.  As I was walking up, I was expecting some medium sized pile, but I was thinking in my head, “I don’t think I want to see this at all.”  I did walk up though and I saw the huge hill, which completely shocked me.  It was so difficult to comprehend and imagine that such a horrible event and place actually existed.  It was very unbelievable to me and I still am unable to picture any of it, even after seeing all the proof there is.  I felt extreme sorrow for the people who had to live through this, and everyday for them was a hardship.  They had to struggle to live.  It was a good and bad feeling knowing we got to walk out of there while so many others didn't.  As we discussed it is as if we are showing everyone that yes we all survived and we can still walk out and we are strong enough to do so.  At the same time it is horrible that such a place exists to walk out of and we might have felt a bit guilty doing so when a lot couldn't.

It was a very eventful day, we got to see all sides of before, during and after the Shoah.  It was very interesting and nice to see the town before the destruction of the Shoah interrupted the lives of everyone there.  The Yeshiva was very moving, especially seeing how close it was to where we were walking around just a few minutes beforehand.  Maidanek was a very shocking, emotional, heart-breaking experience.  So havirim, my question for you is... Since it was the first concentration camp we visited, did you experience the emotions you thought you would or was it different? Was there anything that really intrigued, surprised, or upset you the most?

            

Poland Day 4: Krakow: Jewish Community and leadership

The fourth day of our Poland Masa was spent in Krakow. Many of our days in Poland, we started off learning about the Jewish Community before the Shoah, and in the afternoons we discussed how it was affected or destroyed by the Shoah. The Jewish community in Krakow first started in 1335 when the Jews were invited by the neighborhood of Kazimierz in Krakow. Kazimierz became the Jewish part of Krakow and over hundreds of years the Jewish community grew very large. While in Kazimierz we went "shul hopping". The first Synagogue we visited was The Altschul, it was built in 1407, and was the center of Jewish life and served as one of the first Synagogues of Kazimierz.

The fence on the outside of the Altschul 

While visiting all six of the Synagogues I was very proud, I was proud because there was such a lively community, for so long, with so many Synagogues in such a small area and this just showed how important the Jewish community was before the Shoah. I have only known life after the Shoah and it was greatly devastated. All the Synagogues were so different and unique in there own ways and I can only imagine how lively they all were before the Shoah.

Two of the temples we visited

Later in the afternoon we returned to Kazimierz to visit the JCC of Krakow. In my opinion, the JCC of Krakow is a very awesome place, their goal is to bring back Jewish life in Krakow. The JCC is like our JCCs here but more special, they offer more services to all types of people. One thing they do is try to connect people to their Judaism since many Jews converted or lost their roots during the Shoah. After we learned about the JCC, we all walked to the ghetto where the Jews of Krakow were forced to move to. During this walk we walked out of the Jewish part Kazimierz, over the bridge and to another area where the Jews lived. This walk was very surreal, we were following our fellow Jews footsteps to where they were forced to uproot their lives and their homes and move to overcrowded apartments with horrible conditions and very little food. After we spent some time learning about the Krakow Ghetto, we walked over to Schindler's Factory, during one of the bus rides we watched Schindler's List and learned about his story, and how he saved the lives of so many Jews. While at the factory, DSol shared more stories with us about other Righteous Among the Nations members. The stories DSol shared with us about the Righteous Among the Nations members was so uplifting, I was really amazed how these non Jews risked their lives and the lives of their families to save so many Jews. During the Shoah there were so many bystanders who did nothing to help the Jews, but also there were many people who helped the Jews. Its important that we recognize these people so their stories are remembered and shared and we learn that not everyone was a bystander to the Shoah.

Oskar Schindler's Factory

My question to y'all is, which place in Krakow that we visited had the most meaning to you and why was this place meaningful?

@ZoeDress and I in Krakow town square

Shabbat in Poland

Shabbat in Poland

After a very stressful week in Poland it was very nice to finally relax. Spending Shabbat in Poland was really fun and it was really interesting to see the similarities and differences the Polish Jewish community has in comparison to ours at EIE.

We started our day on Friday at the Lodz Ghetto. Before the Nazis took over the city, Lodz held the second largest Jewish community in Poland. Walking through the Ghetto was really sad but hard to imagine what it was really like because so much of it was not there anymore (although the original buildings are still standing). However we did learn a lot about Chaim Rumkowski who was a Jewish man in the Ghetto that relayed messages to and from the Nazis to the Jews within the Ghetto. He was the leader during the time of the Lodz Ghetto and dealt with the dilemmas facing the Jews there. He got them more food and “better” working conditions, relative to the conditions in other ghettos that we saw. However, it was still very difficult to be in this ghetto as we heard many stories of hardship and death. Rumkowski was often faced with the difficult task of handing over Jews to the Germans to be sent to the gas chambers. In his most infamous speech, he asks parents to give up their children so that the community may live. We had a discussion about whether or not the work he did with the Nazis was good or bad. On the one hand, he helped keep many tens of thousands of Jews alive during this time by having them work and on the other he paraded around the ghetto in a horse and buggy, acting like a dictator. I think that he did what he had to do in order for him to survive through this hard time. Although it was his job to make sure others were safe, he had to look out for himself as well.

For Shabbat Services we went to Beit Warszawa. This was one of the best services I have ever been too. We sang, danced, and ate amazing Polish food (Kosher of course). During the service it was really cool to see how two different groups of people who spoke different languages could come together and understand each other through these services. I also did not know that there was a large enough Jewish Community still left in Poland to have a synagogue. It made me really happy to see people still living here stick to their Judaism. This Shabbat I really felt that I could connect to the people around me.

For our final day in Poland we went to

the Museum. Here we got a break from learning about the Shoah and had the opportunity to learn about how the Jewish community came to be in Poland. The museum was really interesting and had a lot of really cool quotes on the walls. One that I found really interesting was “There was not a house in all of Poland in which the Torah was not studied”. This just really showed me how big the Jewish community was in Poland at one point.

Overall I think Poland was a great experience. While I do not see myself ever going back, I do believe that every Jew should visit and see what is left from the Shoah and learn everything there is to know. I really learned a lot and I was amazed by how affected I did feel while visiting the camps. My favorite part of the trip was the service and feeling the sense of community that was there. What was your feelings on having Shabbat in Poland? How did their community seem to you?