Aug. 21st
Hey guys,
So like I told you, I made a listserv where I could give quick updates about my life here in Israel. If you want to add people or leave the listserv, feel free to do so.
Well I am here! It is absurd how quickly one becomes a citizen in Israel (at least if they are Jewish). I now possess my Teudat Zehut (the Israeli version of a social security number) and a bunch of other documents to help me navigate the horrendous Israel bureaucracy. After dealing with the Ministry of Absorption and Ministry of Interior and others I can say that the Israeli bureaucracy is horrible, but if you take things in stride, all it came down to was waiting in a few lines. The program I am on is called Garin Tzabar and they have a lot of pull with the army and government which also helped with us in skipping lines and getting preferential treatment.
After I landed, I met friends from Israel and friends from Providence who have made aliyah and they greeted me at the airport. It was an incredibly moving moment for me, especially because on the flight over I didn't feel anything after waiting for this moment for 5 years so it was great to see my friends and sing Hatikvah with them.
After spending the first night in my second cousin' apartment in Holon, I went to a ceremony in Tel Aviv for my program Garin Tzabar (which helps lone soldiers get into and navigate the army) and then went to the kibbutz. The kibbutz itself is incredibly beautiful. There are professionals here, as well as farmers who grow avocados, tomatoes and especially carrots. The food is great and I really like my group. The kibbutznikim themselves are not so friendly, but that is more of a function of their culture than any feelings against us, it is just very hard to connect with such a closely knit group of people when you are the "outsiders".
After a boring first week of bureaucracy and icebreakers, we as a group along with our staff from a. garin tzabar, b. the army (two "Mashkiot tash", basically two girls who are here to help us recognize the army from top to bottom), and c. t he kibbutz are finally doing activities preparing us for the army. On my free time, I have been reading and working out and working on my Hebrew language skills.
Thats it for now. You can reach me on a local American number if you want to call. Its 1-914-775-5245, just remember the time zone differences (i.e if you live on the East Coast dont call past 5 pm etc)
Thanks,
Nate
Sept. 8th
Hey everyone,
Today I had my Tzav Rishon. The Tzav Rishon translates to the first callup. I arrived at the army induction center in Beer Sheva. After registering my name, I had an interview with a soldier (almost all of the soldiers at the center were female) to check my contacts and education. It felt weird to give them my transcript and diploma as most of the time they are dealing with 18/19 year olds out of high school. After this I did an Hebrew test that tested my speaking, reading and writing skills. I am sure that I aced the speaking part but wasn't so confident with the reading and writing skills. Nevertheless on the whole, I think that I did okay on the test and was impressed with myself that I spoke the entire day in Hebrew without stumbling too much.
After this I took an intelligence test. The test was on a computer and gave us geometric patterns and figures to match and figure out the missing piece to patterns or a matching figure. The test was timed and the last few questions were extremely difficult, so I wasn't able to answer the last three questions. I felt confident up until that point, however, so I am not too worried about it. I receive my Hebrew and intelligence scores in a few days. The scores are extremely important as they determine which tasks I can and cannot do in the army (such as the ability to become an officer or other advanced roles).
The final steps were a medical checkup (after a slight hiccup) in which I received a clean bill of health (97, the classic Israeli joke is that the reason it isn't 100 is because jewish boys get circumsized) and had a conversation about my status as an lone soldier. As a lone soldier, I get more vacation days and a higher salary, so it is important to know my rights.
In other news, I have been working out hard to get into top fitness. I am integrating more and more into the kibbutz and I am having a very pleasant time here. It is beautiful, I love the group I am with and the food is fine.
The final thing of interest to happen to me was yesterday when I met my adoptive family on the kibbutz. They are an older couple (the husband is a Sabra, the wife an Australian immigrant) with seven children (all grown up). They are extremely nice and supportive so I am very excited to get to know them.
I want to wish you all an happy, healthy, successful and safe Rosh HaShana!
Love,
Nathan
October 6th
Hello everyone,
It has been a very long time since I sent my last update and there are quite a few things to fill you in on. I will start off where I left off in the last update. After our Tzav Rishon where I got my profile as a soldier, we had some time off for the holidays.
I went to Beer Sheva to visit family friends for Rosh HaShana. They are Sephardi so it was very interesting to go to services that were completely different from what I recognized. It was very pleasant to get out of the kibbutz because by that point the group had all been feeling cabin fever.
After Rosh HaShana, ulpan started. Ulpan is the Hebrew word for the classes offered to new immigrants to learn Hebrew. The way our ulpan works is very interesting. The classes are taught by teachers from the Israeli ministry of education specifically for my program, Garin Tzabar. Our classes are taught in Kibbutz Magen, a kibbutz in the South. All the garinim (in Hebrew, "seeds") that live in the South (there are four of us: עלומים, מגן, כיסופים, חולית) go to Magen in the morning. There are four levels of Hebrew classes based off Hebrew tests that we took when we got to Israel. Thankfully due to both luck and my work in teaching myself Hebrew, I was placed into the highest level which is perfect. What I found when I started my classes in my level, was that aside from myself and another guy from my garin, every single student is the child of an Israeli family (who moved abroad) and grew up with Hebrew in the house. So while I received the highest level of classes, I am probably the "weakest" student in terms of speaking Hebrew. Every class for me is incredible therefore as I learn a ton of new vocabulary. Another benefit of the ulpan is that it gives structure to our day. Every day from 9 AM- 1 PM we are studying with our teacher- strictly in Hebrew and a very high level at that- and in the afternoon we have activities/breaks as opposed to the beginning days which were weren't well organized or filled with seemingly useless activities.
I spent Yom Kippur in the yeshiva in Jerusalem that I studied in after high school, Eretz HaTzvi. It was wonderful to speak with the Rabbis I studied with after high school again and I had a very meaningful time which is exactly what I was looking for.
At about this time, I found out that I was eligible to go to יום סיירות. Yom Sayarot literally translates to "A day of cruises/exploration", but its practical meaning is a day of tryouts for the elite units of the IDF. Any potential recruit with a 97 health profile and a high intelligence score can be invited to this day of intense physical tryouts. If the recruit does well, he can then be invited to further tryouts for the top units in the army which are Sayeret Matkal (the unit that famously rescued the Israelis in Entebbe), Navy Seals 13 (the rough equivalent of US Navy Seals), Shaldag (the special forces unit of the air force, the ones who point lasers on targets for the air force to bomb), and 669 which is the search and rescue unit. One can also get invited to the tryout to be a captain of a ship or submarine in the navy.
As opposed to American society, where one's education is an indicator of social standing (ie. Ivy Leagues vs first tier colleges etc); in Israeli society, where one serves in the army is the biggest indicator. The advantage to this as opposed to the US is that in Israel, the army is the great equalizer. The poor Ethiopian from a depressed development town in the Negev is placed in the same unit as a rich ashkenazi from north Tel Aviv and the only way to distinguish between the two is their behavior and abilities.
The downside to the army being the social indicator is that usually the way to advance in Israel is to use your army connections (as Israelis say "Protect"izia) and those who serve in the elite combat units make up the political and economic upper echelon of Israeli society and they help out their own. Those Israelis who don't serve (such as new immigrants who don't serve, or Haredim, or those with medical conditions) are at a huge disadvantage which is of course unfair. All things considered, to be invited to Yom Sayarot, pass it and advance is considered very prestigious in Israeli society. Since I only have to do two years of service, I am not considering these super elite units which all require at least 3-4 years of service. However, I wanted to go to the day since I wished to see my capabilities and put it on my resume.
A few weeks after arriving, the group as a whole had been doing two separate workout activities. One activity was and is run by a member of our kibbutz staff and basically consists of running a few kilometers and pushups/situps. Another activity was and is run by a group called Acharai (אחרי) and they basically have us play games and also do pushups/situps. On top of this, guys in my garin including myself, have been working out with running and chinups/pullups of our own. I write all of this as a preface to the actual day which I will explain in a little bit.
I spent the first days of Sukkot in the Golan with family friends. The food was incredible and the views were breathtaking. The family I stayed at lives in a town/moshav (or settlement depending on your politics) called Avnei Eitan overlooking the Kinneret and the lifestyle there is very agricultural just like on my kibbutz. My hosts even raise a few goats in their backyard! I returned to the kibbutz for a relaxing Shabbat and then on Sunday I headed off to Yom Sayarot!
I went with three other guys from my garin (the reason that so few went is that some people had medical problems such as glasses or breathing problems and others' Hebrew level wasn't high enough). We were all required to wear white t-shirts, shorts, running shoes and hats. We arrived to the train station in Rishon LeTzion to find hundreds of 18 year old Israelis waiting in the station. After showing our paperwork to the soldiers waiting for us in the station, we boarded buses to an army base on the beach. There we filled out more paperwork, had a medical checkup, received numbers (I was 279) that we had to write in magic marker on our t-shirts and then we were all herded to shade structures to await further instructions. There were about 500 guys there, all very motivated and pumped-up. It turned out that due to the heat, we wouldn't run on Sunday. Normally, they make the tryouts run 2000 meters and based on their results split the groups into smaller groups of about 20 people. All the running we trained for in activities went to waste as we didn't even run the 2K. Instead of running, we went a field surrounded by sand dunes and literally picked weeds and rocks. The official explanation was that because we were going to run in this field, they wanted us to pick up the roots and rocks to prevent injuries but I think it was because they wanted to play mind games with us. It must have made for a hysterical sight for the commanders to watch 500 guys running around picking up weeds and rocks.
After more useless bureaucracy (i.e. giving us 15 minutes to eat dinner and then after the 15 minutes were up, asking if people were still hungry, and giving those who answered yes another 30 minutes to eat while the rest of the tryouts had to wait in the sand- so they could have just given everyone 30 minutes to eat and everyone would have been fine), we went to bed (sleeping bags on the sand). We were woken up at 4 am and had breakfast which consisted on white bread sandwiches with chocolate spread. The 500 guys were then randomly split into groups of about 20 people each and assigned to a specific commander.
Our commander must have been at least in his mid 30s and had not an ounce of fat or softness to him. He instructed us to pick up equipment that had been assembled overnight. It consisted of 4-5 jerrycans full of water, each of which weighed around 30 pounds or so, a stretcher, 20 small iron shovels, and a beach chair for him to sit on. We set up the equipment on the top of a very tall, steep sand dune and were counted one last time before the day began. The first activity consisted him telling us to dowind sprints from the top of the sand dune to a certain point and back. I have to admit that I was in complete shock. It was 5 AM in the morning, my body felt sluggish and after two sprints, I was completely spent. The sand pulls at your feet and fills your shoes. The incline of the sand dune is incredibly steep and makes your muscles seize up and all you can think in your head is why the hell I am here? The day is absolutely voluntarily and you can drop out at any time. After the third or fourth sprint, about 4-5 guys gave up and I thought to myself, that is it, I will give up also because there is no need for me to do this. Thankfully, due to my stubborn nature, I kept on doing the sprints even though by this point I was consistently last or second to last. This was bad news because the commander writes down who finishes in which order and can even tell people they have to stop. Somehow I made it to the first break after about a half-hour to forty-five minutes of the sprints, and at that point I said if I can make it this far I can do the rest.
The second activity consisted of the same sprints but with a twist. The first 4 people to make it back to the top of the dune receive the privilege of carrying the stretcher filled with seven sandbags (around 180 pounds I estimate). The next two people get the privilege of carrying a jerrycan of water. The point is to see the motivation of the recruits. Those who push to be first even though they know they will have to carry the heavy equipment are given higher points. By this point, I had caught my breath and was acclimated to the day and I did better on this activity. I carried the stretcher twice and the jerrycans 2-3 times (going up the sand dune with the equipment was quite possibly the most intense physical workout I ever did. If you want to get in shape- come tryout for Israeli special forces!). By this point another hour had gone by. The third activity was the easiest for me and the most fun. They gave us the shovels and told our group that each person had 15 minutes to dig a hole a meter long, a meter wide and a meter deep. I think I did quite well on this activity. The final activity consisted of running to a point and back to the commander, picking up a sandbag and going up the sand dune and back down to the commander, then crawling on elbows and legs to the same point we had ran to previously and back to the commander and all of this was considered one rotation. We were told to do as many as we could. I did 7 before being told to stop and was happy with myself as 7 was a good number in our group. By the point we finished the physical portion of the day. All told it was 3 and half to 4 hours of non-stop brutal physical workout and I was extremely happy just to finish. Of the 18-20 people who started in our group, only 12 lasted to the end of the day. I would say of the 500 total I would guess-estimate that 375 finished the day. The best recruits got invited to Matkal, next best to Navy Seals 13, the next to the captain of ships/submarines tryouts, and the last group was the group that finished the day but didn't show enough to be invited to anything. I was invited to the tryout for the captain of ships/submarines which is a 7-8 year service. I won't do it, of course, but it was gratifying to hear that I got invited to something.
After the day was over, I and the other guys rejoined our Garin which had been doing an seminar in the hills surrounding Jerusalem titled "Connecting Israeli Society" where Israelis from all sectors of society, religious, secular, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian all hike to Har Herzl in Jerusalem. We got there in time to listen to a concert by my favorite Israeli artist Mosh ben Ari and others and do the final section of the hike today to the military cemetery. As you can imagine, I was sore all over but it was still fun to hike with my garin and enjoy the views of Jerusalem.
I am on the kibbutz for the final days of sukkot and will be here doing ulpan until I get drafted. I will update you all soon.
מועדים לשמחה
Nathan
Oct. 22nd
Hey guys, here is the latest update. (I added a bunch of people, if you want the previous updates, I can e-mail the thread to you separately.)
I left off the last one with me getting accepted to do a testing day to be a naval officer in ship/submarine in the Israeli navy on a Sunday. I spent the Shabbat before this day in Raanana, which is a city with a lot of Anglo immigrants. I had Friday night dinner with immigrants who have really made it big in Israel. The host works for an multi-national renewable energy company and his wife is the head of the Go North program of Nefesh B Nefesh, another is the head of customer service for El Al etc. It was very interesting to be there because the prevailing narrative of making aliyah is that you will eke out an existence in Israel and their experience was the opposite, which shows that with the correct combination of luck, skill, and hard work, people still have the ability to live well in Israel.
On Sunday, I showed up to Tel HaShomer which is a giant army base located in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. I was sent to the navy section of the base. I would estimate that there were about 75-100 people there. Names were called, and then we were given a test where we had to fill in the blanks of a lot of sentences in Hebrew in a short amount of time; the test was designed to see if recruits could think on their feet to finish the task at hand within the allotted time frame. We were then given a 20 page booklet where we listed practically everything we had ever done in our life...education, work, sports teams, volunteering etc as well as wrote a personal essay.
Then groups of people were called into a computer testing room to take tests (in Hebrew) for about 3-4 hours. Our first test was information about ships. Since the test was in advanced Hebrew on a subject I didn't know anything about, I had to guess on a ton of questions since I simply did not understand either the question, answers, or both. The next test was on general information and it was the same story...the Hebrew was simply out of my league. Complicating matters, some of the questions were hard English words, in Hebrew, such as Q. "What was Cubism?" A. An artistic movement (but try doing that all in Hebrew!)
The next tests were mathematical such as how to get ships from point A to B while factoring in wind, current, and direction of the ship and graphs/physics. I did really well on these tests, I think. At the end of the day, I was not invited back, probably because of my Hebrew, so there ends the chance of me being a naval officer, but the process was fun while it lasted.
Aside from that, everything is going pretty well. Working out hard with guys in my Garin and aside from some tension with the staff, we are getting more say in what activities we do on a daily basis so I think our last month before the army will be awesome. Our Garin is supposed to get an official name, and my roommate and I were chosen to lead the process in naming our Garin. Being a religious Garin, I am looking for suggestions from the Tanach that relate to immigrants to Israel/adapting to a new situation, so all suggestions are valued, thanks.
The final big news update is that up until yesterday or so, I was led to believe that the army would send me an envelope listing all the available options for me in the army, I would choose my top ones and then the army would then have the final decision on where I am sent. It turns out however, that all males above age 22 are given an envelope of ONLY non-combat options, but if they so request, they can receive an envelope of ONLY combat options.
We have girls from the army whose job is to help us draft into the army. Based on previous conversations with them where I told them that I either wanted to use my degree for something biological/technical or combat; the girls told the army to send me an envelope of combat options. Now I am checking to see if I can choose both combat and non-combat roles, but if I can't, I have to decide whether I want the combat or non-combat envelope. That decision is a huge one, obviously, and I will let everyone know what I decide, but this decision is one that I have to make based off myself, not others.
That is it for now, this Shabbat I am on the kibbutz and next Shabbat being parshat Chayei Sarah which of course mentions the burial of the Biblical matriarch Sarah in the Cave of Machpela in Chevron, thousands of Israelis head to Chevron to the site and I am planning on heading there myself to experience the weekend.
Shabbat Shalom,
Nate
No comments:
Post a Comment