by Zahara Schara

A rose by any other name is still as sweet…yeah I don’t buy it.  For as long as I can remember I never liked my name, I blame it on the fact I was not named for almost a week, believe it or not I was difficult from the beginning I nearly killed both my mother and myself. Then as a child I proudly declared that I was going to change my name to Zipporah, to which my father replied since I am named after him he would have to change his name to Zippy. I still think this plan would work…Zippy has a nice ring to it.

So on twitter the past couple of weeks a couple of people I follow have been examining Hebrew names, for those of you who don’t know we have a first name, a middle name, a last name and sometimes a Hebrew name, excessive I know. It can be that your first or middle name is also your Hebrew name…it is a bit confusing but I have a point here.

Zahara is my Hebrew name, Lauren my legal name. But what does that mean? Is it simply some sort of quarter life crisis …no. When I moved to Israel partly because their chronic mispronunciation of Lauren, I went solely by Zahara, or Zaza for short. Here is where the important part of the story is, as Zahara I feel creative, curious and more the person I want to be. As Lauren I feel older, cautious and worrisome. I don’t have multiple personalities, even though I am sure this sounds a bit crazy! I swear this isn’t like All About
Eve!

But why is the idea of actually or legally changing our name so scary to us? Will we forget who we are? Jacob became Israel, married women take their husbands last name, sometimes hyphenating it, ’cause hyphens are sexy. As a way to shed the past or create a new future. Changing names is not only for mobsters hiding out in suburbia. So Hebrew name, middle name, name from a book or TV, who are you? Who would you be with a different name? Who do you want to be? I might always be Lauren on paper, but I will always be Zahara in my heart, or until 2012 when my passport expires and who knows I might make it legal…

Zahara is a member of the NEXT Shabbat Advisory Committee – to learn how to join the NEXT Shabbat movement here.  You can also read more from Zahara’s blog here.

Photo by Milica Sekulic. 

It’s almost Thanksgiving!  Here at Alef we are thankful for our readers, our writers, and the fabulous reporters and journalists who bring you the links that we collect and share every Friday.

1. If you haven’t already heard about the Hazon Israel (bike) Ride, then this is your chance to learn more. One of the riders has been traveling with a helmet-cam and reporting from the road (literally!).

Israel Ride 2011 – Highlights from day 1 from Elahn Zetlin on Vimeo.

2. This Rabbi has a radical suggestion — push back the Bar Mitzvah age to 25.  Thoughts?

3. The Jewish Daily Forward sits down with funny Sarah Silverman and her Rabbi Sister, Susan.

by Adam Wolfthal

We arrived to Tel Aviv by Plane
The freezing cabin drove us half insane
Got our luggage, exchanged our money
Stepped outside, it was hot and sunny
Drove north to Golan, admired the hills
Some slept soundly, rest prepared for the thrills
Got to the Kibbutz after a roundabout
Icebreakers, dinner then a few caught a stout
Time at the bar, couldn’t be better spent
Woke up early and off to a hike we went
Bottom of the mountain, temple of pan
The top held panoramic views of this beautiful land
Bunker on mount BenTal had interesting karma
And then our group got its first taste of schwarma
Visited an olive oil production facility
Where they discovered olive wastes utility
Kayaked the rapids of the Jordan river
All that’s expected and more was delivered
Learned about Israel through its musical stars
Two hours later, flaming shots almost burnt down the bar
Rose for a trek up the mountain Herten
As a group we grew closer that is certain
Made our way to Tzfat, best falafel in the world
And learned about how Kabbalah’s story unfurled
Wandered the district of Israeli artists
Then headed to the place where it all started
Yerushalim, we arrived at Caesers
And a trip to the clubs, was a crowd pleaser
Our first view of the dome of the rock could make you cry
We picked up the soldiers, Amir Alon, Eyal and Guy
Two Gals, Odil, Aviv, so pretty
We intro’d and B-line straight for the old city
Each left our note in the Wailing wall
While few wrapped Tefillin, G-d was felt by all
With our soldier groups we strolled the market for lunching
And found some yummies for oneg shabbot munching
For oneg we shared food, stories, and song
Each day made our groups bond more strong
Up nice and early to practice yoga with britty
Before heading to a small park in the city
Spoke with soldiers about scenes that can’t be rehearsed
Then some enjoyed Frisbee while many conversed
Climbed to the rooftop, for the pool, in our sandals
Before we celebrated with the Havdalah candles
Caught a great lecture from Gil, from the news
Before we spoke about what makes us Jews
Stories of our past had our emotions tossed
Continued into the visit of the museum of the Holocaust
Exhibits and pictures of Yad Vashem
Left most of us floored and מחמם (mekhamem- v. stunned)
Visited Her Hertzel, saw leaders graves as expected
But the ages on the headstones put it all in perspective
Its easy to sit back and wonder why
When G-d told Avrahim his kids would be like stars in the sky
Plentiful, phrases learned so we could say them
Soldiers taught us quick, next day we rose at 4 A.M.
To ascend the sight of the defensive
Admired the care put in like its intensive
Brought the sun up, like a bunch of rooster
Spirituality much more than we are used to
The dead sea, floating felt so divine
Mud left our skin felling smoother than this rhyme
Rode gamals, just one got bent (shoutout to Hubert)
Set up for our night in the desert tent
Gal told us all how Zeus did conspire
To burn his wife, the way we did the bonfire
We sang songs, showed off guitar skills
Amazing how 2 chords will make your heart spill
Many slept indoors, some were stargazing
The bond of this crew has become amazing
Next day started with a hike through desert sands
And we picked some carrots with our bare hands
Tomatoes too, passion fruit and some herbs
Making fresh pitas, absolutely superb
Aviv, she took us to her home base
Where we got to see this lands most conflicted place
Learned about pigeons and how they know where to fly
Then we got fa’klempt wishing the soldiers good bye
Felt like we were losing our siblings
But Shargil and Alon reminded us, its only the beginning
We thought about the future, Aliyah wishing
Mostly showed cameras, just reminiscing
Rose, packed went to Independence Hall
Israel’s state was formed there, Golda she bawled
Saw the site where Yitzak was shot
a plaque “murderer” sat right on the spot
Then at the market we all slipped off
And if you weren’t haggling then you got ripped off
The whole experience was more than we could conceive
Because next we spend the afternoon on a beach in Tel Aviv
We told the guy in Jaffa we thought we had found heaven
None of us could think of anywhere better then Birthright twenty eleven…

Read here for more of Adam’s poetry.

Photo of Masada by aguapoman, licensed under Creative Commons.

 by Emily Cornell

I’m getting married in nine weeks. If there’s a groom, that is.

The US consulate in Jerusalem is playing hard to get with my fiancé’s file.*

I’m trying to be all cool about the fact that I am supposed to be standing under a chuppah on November 22nd and there may not even be a hatan there with me thankyouverymuch, but “yiyeh b’seder” just doesn’t fall as easily from my lips as I wish it did.

It’s sometimes hard to believe that it’s already been two and a half years. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I fell in love with a soldier who boarded my Birthright bus in Kiryat Shmone. Thousands of conversations on Google chat and almost as many on the phone, seven FTD bouquets sent in an attempt to make up for the anniversaries, birthdays and no-good-very-bad-days spent apart; five transatlantic trips, three care packages filled with pop rock chocolate, cds of the latest hits getting playtime on Radio Galgalatz and random, quirky finds from the shuk; and two years after one very important promise: we will make it work.

I haven’t always believed that. Add to the count above at least thirty times that I’ve declared the situation utterly hopeless. Pure meshugas to think that two people who are so different – she an American WASP turned Nice Jewish Girl and he a Russian-born Israeli – and with so many obstacles in the way could ever even dream of getting to happily ever after.

But just as I raise my voice to argue the point yet again, I hear him say “Get real mami. When was the last time you heard a fairytale that started: Once upon a time in Kiryat Shmone?”

Again I’ve been outdone.

Of course I have. I’m marrying an Israeli. From a land where arguing is an official national sport. Where telling somebody “you can’t” is just some encouragement for them to continue on.

It doesn’t take long before I am laughing again – through the tears of frustration and longing to be in the same time zone as my best friend. I realize that this doesn’t have to be a fairytale. It just has to be the unlikely story of two people who made it work.

My name is Emily and I’m getting married on 26 Heshvan 5772. Maybe. Hopefully. Whatever happens: yiyeh b’seder.

*Update: It is early Friday morning and just a few days after I have written this. Igor waited hours to wake me up to tell me that the consulate has called. There’s not an exact date yet but “maybe in September or definitely in October,” he’ll have an appointment with a visa official. I think I’ll send the wedding invites out this week…

photo by jaaron, licensed under Creative Commons.

by Vanessa Mieger

Coming home from Birthright is tough. You’ve spent the last 10 days meeting interesting people, learning much more than you expected, and seeing amazing places. And it’s not just a vacation — it makes you think. About everything. So when you get back to “real life”, carrying this new perspective over to reality can be tricky.

When I got back, processing everything that Birthright got me thinking about wasn’t easy. I was never the involved type in school, but suddenly I felt the urge to connect, to be a part of something. I can’t fully explain this, but I can say that Birthright has this effect; It makes you feel different, think different, see different. Maybe it’s something as simple as coming home and wanting to organize Shabbat dinners with your friends. For me, I wanted to go back to Israel. I wanted to keep this intellectual and spiritual stimulation going. But I didn’t want to go back to Israel and just be a tourist. I wanted to learn and teach and be inspired and challenged and to have a meaningful experience as a continuation of my Birthright experience. So I looked into Masa programs.

I did a lot of research and finally decided on a great program called Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. I lived and worked in the heart of Jaffa, working with underprivileged women and children. I had no teaching experience and very little experience volunteering but I just jumped in. The women and children I worked with were Arab, Ethiopian, Russian, Jewish, Christian, you name it. The Women’s Court, and incredible organization where I worked taught me so much about the power of human connections no matter what race or religion. It was a big challenge but equally rewarding.

As on my Birthright trip, I learned much about myself over the past year in Israel. I have learned that I need to constantly be learning and passing on the information I learn. I need to be challenged in order to be my most successful. And mostly I learned about the importance of human connections no matter what race, religion or social class. Most of the women and children that I worked with did not speak English, but this did not prevent us from connecting. With some time I formed friendships and an understanding with them that I will keep for the rest of my life. This is true coexistence, and this is what made my experience so rich and rewarding.

So coming back to “real life” again, I come back more confident and fulfilled but also feeling that I accomplished something over the past year. Birthright introduces you to the possibilities and it’s your job to translate that into action. The challenging part for me now is trying to carry over my experience there and incorporate it into my life here in San Francisco. I’m not sure what form this will take yet, but I do know that I am passionate about keeping this feeling and not leaving this past year in Israel as just a memory.

To learn more about programs like Vanessa’s, visit masaisrael.org.

Photo provided by the author.

By Laura Silver

Israel, on my first visit, was teeming pitas, tomato-and-cucumber breakfasts, and fresh-squeezed Jerusalem juices (How did they pull milk from plump shriveled dates?)

At my cousins’ house, Cohava shuttled cutlets and salads of cucumbers, beets and zucchini to the porch and introduced each dish in French, easier for me to understand than Hebrew. Her husband asked me questions about each branch of the family tree. Yiddishized words got untangled and enunciated. Family was not mishpoche, but mish- pa-CHA. Even coziness sounded gruff.

Outside the suburbs of Haifa, at Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan, I worked behind the scenes in the dining hall. The Egyptian-Jewish cook thumped smoke flavoring from industrial containers to a plastic vat of eggplant innards. More smoke flavor. More. More. Babganush, I later learned, was called hatzilim or eggplants in Hebrew, which sounded like haloutzim or pioneers. Each time I went back to Israel, the food and the people became less foreign. I learned words for soft cheese, pastries and drinks. Café hafouch, upside down coffee, seemed to make the most sense: a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream doused in hot, black coffee.

Still, I could not find a cornerstone of my culinary upbringing. The knish seemed to be as absent from Israel as the Yiddish language. Janna Gur, editor of the Israeli food magazine Al Ha Shulchan (On the Table), confirmed some of my suspicions in an email:

On a trip to Warsaw I found a through line to the Israeli knish. At the Singer Festival for Jewish Culture, I sat next to a Polish-born Israeli woman who told me her aunt had played the Yiddish theater in Poland and later baked knishes in Tel Aviv.

Bella Sherman, now 87, arrived in Israel in 1948, and started working at Café Batya, an Ashkenazi-style restaurant that predated the founding of the Jewish state. She remembered that Batya’s husband hid Haganah weapons inside the cauldrons in the kitchen. Bella worked there for seven and a half years and remembered the recipe:

“The dough has to be elastic, if the flour is too dry, you add some water to it,” she told me. “You knead the dough, make it as thin as a table-cloth, that’s what we call it too, “a table cloth of dough” (mapat batzek in Hebrew) then you put the meat, not at the center but all around, then use a glass to press around it… the size depends on what you fill it with.”

Guidelines and traditions that gave way to improvisation. And so my relationship with Israel: different forms, shapes, aftertastes and emotions that run the gamut from hot to cold to lukewarm. But, always, a gut feeling.

Share YOUR knish story and join the International Knish Society for knish news and contests.

Photos provided by the author.

Full Pita this week, what a newsy one.

1. Robby Gringras made a list for The Arty Semite of songs to go with the tent protests in Israel. His top 5 are Lo Frayerim by HaDag Nachash, Millions by Etti Ankri, Everyone’s Talking About Peace by Muki, Rolled Up in a Newspaper by Teapacks, and I Believe by HaDag Nachash.

2. American Jews may struggle with their Jewish identity, but this week the Wall Street Journal shed a little light on the existential questions that the Jewish of Kaifeng, China are facing.

3. This Monday, The Jerusalem Post reported on a different kind of Birthright: Birthright Armenia.

4. And finally, Mazal Tov to Erika Davis! Erika, who once wrote for Alef about being Black, Gay, and converting to Judaism, blogged on Jewcy this week about her conversion ceremony.

Pita photo by VirtualErn, licensed under Creative Commons.

Back for our second week.  Is there something you want to add?  Leave it in the comments!

1. Milking Tu B’Av (Jewish Valentines Day) for all it’s worth, an Israeli solar energy firm produced this gem. This appeared this week in the Jewish Daily Forward.

2. Jersey Shore may have gone to Florence for the season, but the Russians in Brighton Beach are keeping it local on Lifetime’s new reality show, Russian Dolls.  This week, Allison Hoffman wrote in Tablet: “What Russian Dolls confirms is that, 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its Jewish exiles have found in America a place where they can finally live freely as Russians.”  What do you think?

3. The Jewish Journal writes this week about the new Jewish women of Hollywood.  It seems we’ve traded Barbara Streisand and Fran Drescher for Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.

3.5. In honor of Tisha B’Av, Jewish Ideas Daily reports on artistic memorials of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Pita photo by VirtualErn, licensed under Creative Commons.

We’re well into Birthright season this Summer and the trip staff can’t resist blogging from the road.

	Bay Area August Trip Only 13 days to go before we head off on the trip of a lifetime Read more…
	Chicago Community Trip 4:15 am for coffee and cake? Waking up at an hour like this has got to be for something worth it. Read more…
	South Florida August Trip Welcome to Israel! About to begin the greatest adventure of our life. Stay tuned for our first day of hiking and rafting. Read more…
	D.C. Community August Bus There is a pocket in the pit of your stomach you may not know you have. It lies somewhere off the large intestine, a small cavern in which remnants of last night’s dinner tie knots with nerves. This is the spot you feel first when you wake up at 3:30 in the morning. Read more…
	Atlanta Community July Trip Today we landed in Israel and started our journey at Ceaserea and had a nice mini welcome ceremony. We have made our way to Kibbutz manta. The rest of the night is a little orientation and then shower and sleep for our day in Tzfat and floating down the Jordan River. Everyone have a great day over in the states. Bennie and Liora Read more…
	Los Angeles, Bus 32 Free time at the beach in Tel Aviv, we loved swimming in the Mediterranean Sea! See more!
	Los Angeles We spent last night huddled around a campfire, introducing our Israeli soldiers to the joy of s’mores. we slept in one big Bedouin tent and awoke just after sunrise for a morning desert hike. After learning about the geology of the terrain and even discovering some skeletons, we visited the grave site of the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion. The views and the heat were both profound. Read more…
	Colorado Community Rafting on the Jordan River was an activity that some boats accomplished with more finesse (and strategy) than others. None the less, everyone had a blast. Cooled off, relaxed from the water and hungry for dinner we headed back to the hotel. Read more…
	D.C. Community June Trip The final days of the trip shed light on the struggle Jews have endured throughout history to keep their faith, community, and country. Read more…
	Atlanta Community May Trip Wow! The past 48 hours have been amazing for this group! Yesterday we woke up at 4am to ascend Masada and see sunrise. It was a breathtaking and once in a lifetime moment for all. Read more…
	Bay Area Today is Shabbat and we spent the morning discussing different topics related to Judaism and Israel. Everybody really brought some thought-provoking ideas to the table and the discussion was enjoyed by all. Today we have a day to reflect and relax for Shabbat before tonight, when we spend our last night here in Tiberias. Read more…

All images provided by the Bus Bloggers.

by Sara Halpern

After Birthright in 2005, one semester at the Hebrew University in 2007, and two summers in 2007 and 2008 and now returning for my third in 2009, I began hearing something rather important in Israel. It was on the lips of my elderly friends in Jerusalem. There were black posters on the windows of buses in Tel Aviv. My host Israeli mother in Herzliya mentioned something about providing transportation for a group of people. Generally, I just nodded and smiled. Something’s always toot-tooting from that little Israeli engine-that-could and I just rode along every time, but I had no idea that this “toot-toot” would change my life for the better.

Sitting on the beach, with unusually strong wind blowing about, I studied the map of Jaffa spread out on my towel. Right there in the advertisements, it said “Nalaga’at Theater,” a theater for the deafblind. Without hesitation, I packed up my towel and map and stuffed them in my bag. Then I marched along Tel Aviv’s beaches straight down to Old Jaffa, oblivious to the waves gently lapping the sand to my right and the congested traffic to my left. It was a Monday afternoon and the theater was only open on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So? I wanted to see if this place really existed.

I wandered into a renovated warehouse and blinked my eyes, trying to accustom to the dimness, with only sunlight peeping through the windows. I asked a young lady if I could speak to a manager or a director. A young man, in his thirties, was called in. His name was Omer and he was the theater restaurant manager. He had a big smile on his face with twinkling eyes. I sputtered, “What is this place about?” He explained proudly that this is a theater where the cast is made up of deaf and blind people. So! It was true! The shock on my face still registers in Omer’s memory of our first encounter two years ago.

“Sir, I am deaf and have nightblindness. I have Usher’s Syndrome. Does anyone have it?” I replied and my eyes widened.

“8 out of 11 cast members have Usher’s.”

I knew right then that I was truly, truly at home in Israel as if my past travels did not do enough to make me feel at home.

Two cast members communicating in “tactile signing,” using a combination of touch and sign language to communicate with each other as many do not speak, hear, or see well enough to read lips.

I showed up promptly at 6 o’clock the next night. No sense in waiting until Thursday night to see the play. The cast members were all in their fifties and sixties, many from the Former Soviet Union. When Adina, the director, introduced me to the group as a 23 year old American with Usher’s Syndrome and a cochlear implant, the room went momentarily silent before commotion began. Some shouted in excitement. Some cried of joy. Some remained silent in disbelief. Everyone held their hands out, trying to believe that there was indeed a young deafblind person who had wandered over here all by herself.

Because they had grown up in such a different world from mine with their hearing and vision losses, they interrogated me, “KGB-style” as they joked, to find out if the world today was a better place to grow up as a deafblind person. I patiently answered their questions about my travels in Israel and my lifestyle with hearing loss and limited vision. They wanted to know how I was treated in Israel and America.

Then it was my turn. I was burning inside with curiosity since being diagnosed with Usher’s Syndrome when I was 18 years old. I wanted to know what my future would hold for me now that I knew of my limited vision, and these wise people appeared as my crystal balls.

“How do you deal with it? How do you deal with the loss of your vision and hearing?” I asked in a scared voice, barely whispering.

Everyone responded, with wisdom and confidence, in unison through their sign language interpreters, “You just adapt. You learn to live with it and it becomes part of your life.”

Then, I sat alone in the dark, in my chair, and I became entranced by the performance on the stage. Tears welled up inside me throughout the play, Not by Bread Alone, as the cast members showed their lives as deafblinds and discussed their dreams and fears. What I could not articulate before about my fears and needs, they did.

Although this encounter was purely accidental, it shows that anything is possible in Israel. If you don’t think Israel has this or that, you haven’t tried hard enough. When you do, it only creates a more authentic connection. Just wander and let your curiosity guide you!

Learn more about the Nalaga’at Theatre.

Photo provided by the Author.