Birthright-tastic Extravaganza Weekend! (1/7-1/8)

The Birthright madness has already begun. Groups and buses have been all over the place. I was walking to the garden for my Sunday volunteering when I saw a Hillel Birthright bus in the parking lot of the tayelet/overlook to the Old City. Of course, I stopped to see which group it was and if I knew the staff. I didn't know them but introduced myself, and ended up bumping into the same people later that day. Go figure.

Today, the Birthright madness, was REALLY madness. I made plans with Lisa, from UAlbany Hillel, who is staffing Bus 917, to meet up at the shuk/market for lunch, and spend Shabbat with her (and many others!) at the Shalom Hotel in Jerusalem. I obtained permission to stay overnight in the hotel which made me so happy, because I knew I'd have tons of time to spend with Lisa! I knew the first place at which we would meet was at the shuk/market for lunch on Friday. I wasn't exactly sure of the time, so I planned well in advance to get there early to capitalize any moments I could have with her there. While I was waiting at Cafe Aroma, just killing time, I saw Jordan Diaz, a participant on Bus 866 from a year ago! What a great surprise! He was on an Aish trip and they had free time in the shuk like every other tour bus in the country. He sat with me for about half an hour and we got a little caught up on each other's lives. It was such a nice reunion. He left with his buddies from Aish so he could stay with his group, and when I got the call from Lisa to come and meet her, I ran into Jordan again (with Eric Fox's brother who also was here on a trip) and had Eric's bro take our picture. It was just meant to be. Photo below:

After meeting up with Lisa, we walked over to Marzipan, the BEST place in the world for rugelach. YUM! I promised her in advance that I'd find the Israeli in me and push my way through the lines to get 2 kilos of rugelach for her group's oneg. Mission successful. I gave her the 2 boxes, turn around, and see Joe Davis, Hillel Director at Buffalo, who was a freshman with me in 2001 at UB! So excited to run into him. Photo below:

The day continues, and once Lisa and I make our way out of the crazy pedestrian filled Marzipan area, we make our way to Ichtidana, the vegetarian Indian restaurant in the shuk that I LOVE going to, and know won't be crowded with Birthright students. But who IS there that I know? Alli Mondell! (Photo below.) She is also staffing a trip and is enjoying lunch with her tour educator who knows the owner of the restaurant. I love going here and try to go at least once every other week, because everything there is so tasty and so fresh - from the shuk of course! Lisa loved it also. What's not to love?

After our meal at the restaurant, Rachelle meets up with me so we can figure out how we're getting to the Shalom Hotel to spend Shabbat with our friends, and it turns out that we are allowed to take their tour bus to the hotel! We had planned on taking the public bus but this saved us so much hassle (and a small fare). When we got to the hotel, I wasn't sure which room I'd be staying in, so I brought my things up to Lisa's room anyways; she was sharing with Julia from Cornell that Rachelle wanted to see over Shabbat. This could not have been any more perfect. We changed into our Shabbat outfits and went downstairs to light candles with each of our friend's buses, followed by Kabbalat Shabbat (receiving the Sabbath) services in various rooms in the hotel. We all went to the Reform, partly because Julia was assisting in the leading of the service, and because we heard Lynn Schusterman (of Hillel's International Center and of the Birthright Israel Foundation itself) was going to be there too! I actually did not see her in the room but went nonetheless.

Shabbat dinner involved over 200 people in the hotel's dining room, with lots of blessings over wine and bread, tons of food, and good company - Lisa's students were AWESOME! I definitely enjoyed my conversations with them - most of them wanted to know what I was doing here, so naturally I gave them every detail of WUJS and how I've been spending my time. Some seemed very interested in the idea of life here as opposed to 10 days visiting. I still feel very much like a visitor sometimes because I know I'm going back to NY in a few months, but compared to them I felt like such a local.

After dinner, each bus was assigned a room to go to for an oneg/celebration - Lisa brought the Marzipan and the participants each bought snacks at the shuk that they contributed to the oneg, so there was tons of food and a few bottles of wine to share amongst everyone. I ate way too much. Surprise surprise. When I got back upstairs to their room, basically, we all stayed up way too late having girl chat, cause, well, we're girls and we chat. Too much!

The next day, we slept in until after 11 for the most part. I woke up a little bit before everyone else and stole Lisa's modem to sneak on the internet. Not very Shabbastic but I don't really care. I like being able to use Shabbat to catch up with people and also do some Facebook stalking. Let's be real; it happens. The first thing the students had to be at that day (which meant Lisa, and me of course) was lunch! So I snacked on the pillow cereal (Kariyot I think it's called) with the nougat in the middle. PURE SUGAR! So yummy but probably going straight to my thighs. Oh right, there are no calories on Shabbat! I think I ate about half the box. Then went to lunch and wasn't very hungry! I decided to kill some more time by going back to the room and just kind of hanging out and doing nothing. Dan Yagudin, my Birthright co-staff of bus 811 from January 2009, was in the Jerusalem area, and wanted to come to the hotel to hang out for a little while to say hi to all of us who were there! He arrived around 3pm so we had some time to chat and catch up before Havdallah (the separation ceremony at the end of Shabbat) which was so nice! Unfortunately, we didn't snap a picture of us while we were together, but he tucked me in so nicely under the covers of the super comfy bed we had in the hotel, and Rachelle snapped a picture:

Snug as a bug in a rug. Or something like that.

Havdallah began around 5:30 on the 4th floor roof, which I could see from our 5th floor room. I wasn't quite packed up or dressed for the evening when everyone else scooted down there to do Havdallah, so I stayed in the room to get myself together, clean up the room a little bit, and watched through the window so I could pretend to be a part of the ceremony. Once they were done, I made my way downstairs with Rachelle and Dan so we could leave the hotel for Baka, and meet up with the group again (and each of us had more people to meet) on Ben Yehuda Street! We got in a cab and made our way back to WUJS headquarters.

Dan and I decided to head out a bit earlier than Rachelle, to meet up with some very important people! One of the most important people that I wanted to see was Joel Abramson, who was a freshman at Kent State University when I worked there as a JCSC Fellow in 2005-2006. Not only does he work for a Hillel now (at Virginia Tech), but he also was staffing a trip! I knew he'd be on Ben Yehuda Street with his group at some point that night so I knew I wanted to meet up with him, and we certainly did. It took us a while to actually connect (due mostly to technical difficulties, thanks cell phones that suck) so we were short on time. We went to Burgers Bar so Joel could have a nice kosher burger while in Jerusalem, and although I wasn't that hungry, I got to reap the benefits of him ordering fries - YUM! Before we had to part separate ways, I thought that it would be important to keep this photo tradition going, and I asked someone to snap this photo of us on Ben Yehuda:

A few minutes later, I ran into Alana Kayfetz who was also a JCSC Fellow in 2005-2006, who was back now staffing a trip. I told her Jason Pressberg was also staffing a trip and around. He was a JCSC Fellow in 2006-2007 and has continued to work for Hillel and in the Jewish community since then. He wasn't able to join us, but Alana and I went to Japanika for SUSHI for dinner! Alana took this fabulous photo herself before we wandered down Yaffo Street.

And we ordered the sushi sandwiches (despite the fact that they were unrecommended by our waitress who was hilarious) which I thought were delicious! Alana and I had such a great time catching up with each other about our lives and comparing experiences. It was fabulous! No sushi experience would be complete sans photo, so here goes:

I called Lisa to get my book back from her (I had put it in her bag since I had none!) and to give her one final hug goodbye, so I met her and walked to the top of Ben Yehuda Street and waited for her group to cross the street to board their bus. While I was walking back down the hill to meet up with Rachelle (who was with other friends of hers on Birthright, yes, seriously, every Birthright bus in the country must have been there), I bumped into none other than Rabbi Jason Klein from the University of Maryland Baltimore County Hillel, who was in my rakaz/group of buses when I first staffed a trip, with Bus 601. SNAP!

Whew! What a weekend! What an experience! From the shuk to Ben Yehuda and all in between. And with all the pictures I took all weekend, I don't have a single one with Lisa. How'd that happen?