Tali Burger is a madricha on Yama. Originally from Miami, Florida, Tali participated on Year Course in 2010-2011 and recently graduated from the University of Vermont.

When I think of Thanksgiving, I certainly don’t think of living in Bat Yam, Israel — I think of blue skies, 70 degree weather, the Macy’s Day parade, the Miami Dolphins football game, incredible food, and of course, my family. Until I went on Young Judaea Year Course four years ago, this kind of Thanksgiving was traditional for me. It was not until this year, a few months after graduating from the University of Vermont and moving to Israel, that I realized I had to create Thanksgiving traditions of my own in order to feel a part of this holiday which means so much to me. When I was a participant on Young Judaea Year Course in 2010, I had a festive Thanksgiving dinner with British and American girls. It was far from my traditional meal, which dampened the mood and reminded me how far away from home I was. Forget turkey, there wasn’t even chicken on the table! At that time, a time of transition out of high school and into college, I did not realize that this would be the first of many non-traditional traditional meals for me.

A new chapter of my life has begun since graduating university and accepting a job offer as a madricha on Year Course. I knew that this was not going to be an easy year, especially being away from my friends and family at home. Although it has been emotionally challenging, I have been able to celebrate the Jewish holidays the way I want to with people I enjoy. Celebrating Thanksgiving in this new chapter of my life is just as exciting for me, knowing that I can now be a part of new chanichims’ Thanksgiving experiences. As a madricha on this program, I do all that I can to help the participants feel comfortable and excited to live in this country. For Thanksgiving, I get to help create their first non-traditional holiday away from home. I get to be apart of their new community, new friends, and new family.

This Thursday night in Bat Yam, there will be a little room filled with at least 40 Americans, a few Canadians, and many Israelis, dining together away from their families and friends, but celebrating what they are thankful for. The other madrichot and I will create an environment that helps everyone feel a sense of togetherness and home. This Thanksgiving will hopefully never be forgotten by the chanichim. I know that I won’t forget it — it is the first Thanksgiving where I get to help create these young adults’ first untraditional traditional holiday in Israel. I feel very grateful to be in this position, and to be a part of such a special time in their lives. I am so excited that I still get to see blue skies, feel 60 degree Bat Yam weather, watch the Macy’s Day parade and the Miami Dolphins football game online, and eat incredible food, while sitting amongst my new Year Course family.

Rachel Weinstock, originally from Houston, TX, made Aliyah and joined the I.D.F after participating on Year Course in 2010. She is now beginning her first year at Tel Aviv University.

 

The word “Israel” has a unique meaning to every Jew. For me, my relationship with Israel has shaped who I am as an American-Israeli woman, and has aided me in forming my identity as a Zionist. Before I came on Year Course in 2010, I had always felt a connection to Israel and thought I understood its purpose as the Jewish homeland. But, that merely meant that I saw it as a place that Jews could live safely, especially Jews who had nowhere else to turn to.

Today, Israel represents so much more than religious acceptance and pluralism. Although in the United States I always struggled with identifying with Jewish life, I’ve become very connected to my Jewish roots here. In Israel, my new home, Judaism nourishes me to its fullest capacity. It offers me a feeling of belonging and purpose. This feeling becomes apparent in the little things I observe, and the small, insignificant interactions I have. As I walk down the street past Hebrew storefronts, and am greeted with a warm “shalom” from my neighbors, I am reminded of how welcomed I am here. It is a place where my friends have become my family, and even their families treat me like one of their own. It is a place where I do not have to hide being Jewish, and can express my identity in its entirety.

After serving as a medic in the I.D.F. after Year Course, it has become clear that my relationship to this country has inevitably changed. Israel is no longer a place I would turn to if I had nowhere else to go, but the only place I would now want to live.

After Year Course, I pictured my life going in two potential directions. The first was to go back to the United States and start college, which was expected of me as a 19-year-old American. I knew that if I chose that path, however, I would have felt as if part of me were missing. I felt as though going back to America would force me to stifle the Zionist Jew that had become such a big part of my identity. If I stayed in Israel, however, I would be taking my life into my own hands. I would be living my own life, not the one that had been set out for me by American societal standards. Here in Israel, I knew I would gain a unique, meaningful experience that would otherwise be lost.

Before living here, I didn’t truly understand that Israel’s existence was constantly being threatened. I learned during my year on Year Course that Israel’s enemies are not only trying to destroy the Jewish state, but the Jewish people. Joining the army was my way of preventing that from happening. Of course I was afraid of taking this leap of faith, but that was not important. I knew what I had to do.

I do not look at Israel as a utopia, and I do realize its challenges, especially after serving as a medic in the army. However, these challenges only drive me more to contribute to Israeli society. I never felt needed as a citizen of America, but I know that I am needed here. The land needs me, the army needed me, and the people need me to help this country flourish.

I realize that my decision to make Aliyah has its setbacks. It has been and will continue to be very challenging, and I am aware of the sacrifices I have made in order to make my life here. However, I have spent so much time reflecting on my Israeli life, and I truly believe that the sacrifices are outweighed by the rewards. I have a dream that I can build something positive, create a new life for myself, and help build and protect a country that I love. I am 22 years old, just got out of the army, and just started university here in Israel. I am constantly in search of answers to my thousands of questions in a new environment, and I am confident I will find them here.

Kislev is a month of miracles. Hannukah, the festival of lights, has always brought me hope in a time that would otherwise be darker and colder. I am about to celebrate my fourth Hannukah in Israel, my first as a university student, and the first anniversary of my release from the army. When I was 18 and on Year Course, I never thought I was capable of being so brave to have built my life here. I think it is important, especially in the face of conflict, for us to take this time to look towards the light and not allow ourselves to be swallowed by darkness and fear. We need to remember that hope comes from within, and as long as we preserve it, it is there.

 

By Dafna Meller, WUJS Coordinator

Not long ago, after six long years in my apartment (a record for a Tel Avivi), I needed to pack everything I owned and move to a new place. In the course of packing I was forced to open all of the drawers in all of my closets and inspect all of my, well, junk. Of course I knew that I owned junk, I see it every day – but still, only when I needed to pack did I really realize how many things I owned that I never used.

This closet of mine – that I was so used to, and was full of things that I didn’t even remember – somehow got me thinking that maybe I had other things in my life that I’m used to – but whose contents have become a mystery. Sometimes mystery is lying among the most common parts of our everyday life.

Take my name for example. My full name is Dafna Sarah Meller. While I know that Sarah, my middle name, honors my father’s grandmother, I rarely use it and could certainly question its utility. My great-grandmother Sarah lived in Bonn, Germany until she was sent thousands of kilometers by train from her house to a field in modern-day Russia, in order to be gassed in a truck by the Nazis. Last April I went with my family to see Bonn, my great-grandmother’s hometown. While I was there, I kept thinking about this long voyage that was forced on my family. Why send them so far just to have them killed? Wouldn’t it have been easier to murder them there in Bonn? I believe that the reason was to hide it from the citizens of Germany at the time. Their neighbors saw them leaving, but in an orderly way, not with overwhelming force. They disappeared, never to return. Do we know our own neighbors? Will we notice if one day they’re gone?

These types of questions and connections to the Holocaust can seem like a burden at times, and mostly to the children of survivors and victims. But on the other hand, I can’t ignore my connection to Sarah and to her story. Her story has shaped my identity has brought relevant questions and meaning into my life that should never be taken for granted.

There are many ways to look at the Holocaust. The lens through which one approaches this subject. In our People’s story is inevitably personal, much like the way we each relate to the proverbial junk in each of our own proverbial closets. Some see the Holocaust as a warning towards trusting outsiders, others as a justification for the merits of Zionism. I choose to see it as a call for a personal humanism in my daily life.

This perspective forces one to look at oneself in the mirror and ask some important questions. “How much do I know about the persecutions that take place in my backyard? Am I fully aware of what happens to others around me, perhaps to those without the power to cry out? What kind of neighbor am I? Am I the neighbor that looks the other way when I see injustice, or the one that fights so that these things will never happen again?”

For me, this is a beneficial way to better ourselves through tragedy. We have a problem in Holocaust education – admittedly a relatively good problem – that modern young adults hear about the Holocaust too much, to the point where the loss of six million Jews and five million others has become banal to some. As I see it, we have a big closet in our house called Hashoah, the Holocaust. We are used to its presence, its look, and its uses. As a stand-alone object, it is old and tired, and we’ve heard about it so much that our possessions have become stale junk. Or, in other words, the personal stories of millions have become mere numbers. But when we look deeply into it we find the humanity of the victims, the righteous among the nations, the by-standers, and even to some extent, the perpetrators. We remember why we’ve kept all of this baggage around.

On the last Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, I decided to go hear a Survivor’s story through a project called “zohrim basalon“(remembering in the living room.) It was incredible to still have the chance to listen to a real survivor telling her life story, but above all, what I liked about it was that she was so different from all that you would expect. She was a funny chain-smoker who hated Ben Gurion, and was still in love with her ex-husband. The fact that she was so different from the stereotypical survivor reinforced how personally one must approach Holocaust education. This is why Young Judaea’s Year Course held a Holocaust seminar this past week. They bring speakers, including survivors, to put a face on tragedy and to show that the Holocaust affected millions of people, like my great-grandmother Sarah. It is to show that these are individuals with hopes, dreams, and lives of their own. I sincerely believe that these two questions: A) Am I a good neighbor? And B) Can I see beyond the stereotypes? Are a good start to a personal learning of this important issue

 

In memory of :

• Yaacov Meller
• Sarah Meller
• Herta Meller
• Musia Muskat
• Ben-Zion Muskat
• Sonia Muskat
• Shlomit Muskat
• Shmuel Muskat

 

RIP

Ariana Jones is a participant on WUJS, Young Judaea’s 5-month internship program.  She has been interviewing prominent Olim (new immigrants) and will be writing a series of posts about them for a coffee table book she is working on.  Since its inception in 1968, WUJS has led hundreds, if not thousands of Jewish adults towards Aliyah.  In the past year, more than 15 of our participants have decided to stay in Israel.

Born in Manchester, Jonathan Stark is an Oleh Chadash, a new immigrant, who moved to Israel five years ago. Upon his arrival, he decided to create a way for his friends to experience some of his favorite things in Tel Aviv. Thus Secret Tel Aviv was founded.

He often browsed Facebook and noticed his friends joining various pages: Tel Aviv this and Tel Aviv that. He saw that none of these pages were concise or encompassed all the wondrous places and points of interest Tel Aviv has to offer.

From the start Jonathan saw steady progress. Everyone who joined reveled in the wealth of information available to them, and as the years passed, the community expanded rapidly, from a few hundred friends in 2009 to more than 50,000 members by 2014.

Even though Secret Tel Aviv started out as just a hobby, Stark has taken on the project as a full time commitment. In the last 6 months, he has branched out by creating an interactive website full of features to assist new Olim.

What has your motivation been while moderating this page and its members?

JS: When I first started doing it, it was just something for friends. As time went on it just changed bit by bit, it morphed bit by bit. Now I have three goals I’m trying to accomplish. The first being, I would like a place where internationals can settle in. The second would be to help the new Olim businesses here in Israel. The third goal is to help the Olim integrate with native Israelis. With the creation of this group, a lot of people have met new friends, found apartments, events, and even jobs. It basically helps a lot of people. That’s what really keeps me going. This drives me to keep creating better services for users.

Did you imagine the same success back then as you have now?

JS: I definitely had to adjust my expectations as time went on. The community just kept growing. Now I believe Secret Tel Aviv is the largest active English speaking community in Israel. I believe this is because people really want to be a part of the community. They want to live here and stay here. They just need a bit of help.

You’ve just recently launched a website, what are your favorite features?

JS: Well one of my favorites is the magazine edition. A while ago, colleagues suggested that I put more content on my website to make it more engaging and interactive. I think I’ve found a really good way to do that by utilizing the magazine feature. I choose Tel Aviv based blogs that discuss events, food, DIY initiatives, and other sorts of things. Right now the blog pools from about 20 different blogs. As I find them, I incorporate them into the magazine. I think this is a good way to expose some of the goodness that is located here. I take an excerpt, maybe the first 30 words or so from the blogs to pique interest then link the articles back to the blog. This way I help drive traffic to these Tel Aviv based blogs as well as build up the community.

The next feature that is my favorite has to be the dating feature. Everyone knows how hard it is to date in the city! A lot of people come to Israel looking for a fresh start and new relationships. I think some of the dating sites and apps out here have lost what it means to date. They offer a picture and that’s it. People want meaningful relationships so this feature gives them that. There are 350 matchmakers sifting through profiles matching participants based off of their needs and wants. There have been 23 mutually approved matches, or dates, in less than a month. Nearly one date a night can be attributed from Secret Tel Aviv dating.

What’s one of the biggest challenges you are facing with Secret Tel Aviv?

JS: This reverts back to my third goal, “integration.” This is a sufficient problem because 60-70% of new Olim move out of Israel within three years. The reasons go on but mainly because they are having trouble finding a partner or finding a stable career, maybe even both. Due to several barriers, Olim tend to stay in their bubbles and never really interact with the native Israeli population. I believe Secret Tel Aviv is opening new doorways for people. About 60% of the Secret Tel Aviv community is comprised of internationals and the rest natives. This is especially true of the dating feature. I find the majority of women are Israeli women looking for something more.

What is the next big event for “Secret Tel Aviv?”

JS: The next big event is the Olim Expo on Nov 27^th and 28^th. Located at the Dizengoff Center, 23 new Olim businesses will be premiering and generating demand within the market. Even though last year was a success we have identified more ways to make this year’s expo better. There will be professional stands and exhibits by many businesses. Right now I am in the midst of marketing heavily to people within the group as well as to people from the national community!

 

For anyone interested in discovering more about the various events and happenings around Tel Aviv, don’t hesitate to visit the Secret Tel Aviv website: https://www.secrettelaviv.com/