Going on Week Two at Rotem

First entire week of Earthbag house building complete!

In my first week I worked mainly on building a mud floor and a swimming pool. My average work week is Mon-Thurs, 7:00 until 3:and change with a half an hour break for breakfast...and then usually am finished for the day after lunch and dishwashing by 5:00. Luckily I'm enjoying myself, or this would border on exploitation!

We eat wonderfully. No meat (they, as should be the norm in the world, eat meat or fish about 3 times a week,) lots of vegetables, grains, and an abundance of tahini/ hummus.

I took a Moroccan basket weaving class from a neighbor who learned in Morocco to make almost anything from fig branches, which perhaps I will continue this week.


On Thursday evening I went to Tel Aviv for a lovely weekend and returned Sunday with my host Yotam, who is studying Tai Chi at Tel Aviv University. I stayed with a wonderful couch surfer who provided great conversation and a fabulous insider tour of the city, including the best:
- ice cream (Pistacchio and Havla, or a seseme seed dessert
- Yemenite food (Jachnun and Malawach, both doughy, heavy, and delicious!)
- A hole in the wall restaurant with one cook/owner and a daily changing menu
- A live drum circle on the beach
and probably covering at least 10 miles by foot over the course of the weekend. He's Russian and moved to Israel in about '91, during which time large numbers of highly educated Russians moved to Israel, some finding university jobs...and others working as taxi drivers.

I spent ALL DAY outside Saturday, getting a few jellyfish stings and worse, horrible sunburn on my chin. And by horrible I mean big red blistering by Sunday. Upon returning to Rotem, I put honey on it as per a recommendation, and put extra in a cup covered in plastic to use in the morning. When lifted the plastic cover in the morning to reapply, I was greated by a giant cockroach belly-up who must have died a very bittersweet death. I assume he had been the one I saw scurrying across my floor before I turned off the light. Or perhaps the one who I usually see hanging out by the dishes in our kitchen. Either way, I decided to forgo picking around him and got fresh honey to redress my wound.

Today I continued building the pool, which looks wonderful, and am now practicing my Hebrew with renewed enthusiasm. Tomorrow I begin teaching myself the Hebrew alphabet!

First WWOOF Experience 6/21/2010

Brief first description: I do not have so much time. Or much finger patience.

Not because of the rearranged keyboard as is often the case while abroad, no no: but because my hands are absolutely worked raw. Today was my first day of hard manual labor.

After my ADL Campus Leaders Program ended, I spend three days in Tel Aviv staying with a couch surfer. I did not get to experience the city much because he lived outside of Tel Aviv, but I will definitely make it back to dance tango with my Argentina tango partner (an Israeli who happened to be in Buenos Aires at the same time I was;) to see my close high school friend Ruben Rehr from Germany who was an exchange student in Port Clinton the same year my dear sister Julia lived with us; or to meet my new South African friend Siyalo (who I literally just met there)! Sunday morning I left Tel Aviv with Yotem--in a vehicle that had to be older than the first Honda I can remember my mom owning from my childhood and in significantly worse shape--to come to his house in Rotem, outside of Bet She'an. It is a tiny settlement of about 20-30 families in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. Quite literally we drove through an hour of desert to arrive, and there is little other life to be seen from where we are, other than Jordan as we look out at the beautiful view to the East. I am staying here to help them build their earthbag house. http://picasaweb.google.com/alisonlebovic7/Israel2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrlrK3j4prkDw&feat=content_notification# (here are old pictures; the house is now almost completely constructed and we are working on the inside.)

This week we will be working on the floor, a backbreaking proceedure. I started the morning at 7:00 sifting rocks with a shovel, and continued by laying down a floor of a thick mix of clay, sand, earth, and straw in just one of the numerous rooms. At 10:30 we took a break for breakfast, and after 15:00 we called it a day. You do not realize how pruned your hands become working with wet clay until you wash them, and you do not wash them often. By the end, my hands had been so soft from the water that when I washed them I found at least a dozen cuts and open sores. I am using neosporin like lotion and taking the pain like a soldier. You remember those work gloves I had you help me search for the night before I left, mom? Now I am reminded why, only a day too late. Sometimes my forethought is even better than I am prepared to know how to use!
I think that I will sleep outside tonight; this family also built an earthen community space that is fairly open with a roof and numerous sofas and chairs underneath. I am here with Yotem and Tami, the parents, and four children of about 6, 4, 3, and 1. Moshe and Joshua are also working with us, Moshe from a nearby village and Joshua from Conneticut (but quite uncommunicative, so I may not have much more luck with him than I do with the Hebrew speaking rest of the community.)

Wish me luck on Day 2 of work; hopefully the gloves help!

Some Stats on Israel

Geography
- At most, Israel is 65 mi wide
- LA to Las Vegas equals Tel Aviv to Iraq
- 10 hours of driving (800 miles, or about the time it takes to travel from home in Ohio to Hofstra in New York) would take one from Tel Aviv to the Iranian border
- The Mediterranian sits to the West, Lebannon sits to the north, Syria and Jordan to the East, and Egypt to the South. Israelis cannot travel to any of these countries, so they are confined within their own borders, about the area of New Jersey.
*Point: Israel is very small!
There is a benefit to this, however. Currently, Better Place is building its first electric car network in Israel. What is the typical problem with electric vehicles? Their charge runs out, and even if you equipted the world with recharge stations, you cannot refill in just ten minutes like at a gas station but must wait to recharge. In the system of Better Place, there is a battery rather than a fuel tank, recharged by mainly wind and solar, and you do not own your own battery but rather rent it in a sense, paying as you recharge like paying for gas. At each refill station, your battery is lifted out and a new, recharged battery replaces it before you are sent on your merry way. Before these cars are deployed, the entire country must be equipted with these battery refill stations, no easy feat. But in a country the size of Jersey where residents cannot practically travel beyond the country's borders, it is the perfect place to implement this program.

Immigrant countries of world:
1. US
2. Canada
3. Australia
4. Israel

Population
- 7.5 million Israelis

- 75% Jewish
- 20% Arab Muslim
- 5% Other (Christian, Druze, Bedoine)

- 50% of Jewish Israelis have Mid Eastern Heritage

Religious Demographics of Jewish Population

- 80% Traditional Non-practicing
This means they do not practice religion regularly on the spiritual side, but still know tradition, holidays, and Bible from studying in school.

- 10% Modern Orthodox
Keep daily laws, food laws, but overall are modern, productive members of society

- Very small percentage Traditional Orthodox
Men and Women still sit apart, slightly more traditional than Modern Orthodox

- Very small percentage Ultra Orthodox
Just as much a minority and outsider as the Muslim population. They live in self-isolating communities, have their own school system and only study religious studies. They do not participate in Israel's required military service and are not productive in regular society. There is a good deal of conflict in this country over Jewish Israelis over this group, as they do not "pay their dues" of mandatory military service, yet they often live off of the country's social benefits.

ADL Campus Leadership Mission to Israel 2010

Purpose: ADL's Campus Leadership Study Mission provides future leaders with a first-hand perspective of Israel by meeting with the culturally diverse population, engaging with its vibrant society, learning about the strategic and social challenges facing Israel today, and touring the historically and geographically significant land.

In Israel: Mission participants will meet with decision-makers, government and military officials, diplomats, journalists, students, and ordinary Israelis, Arab and Jewish, from diverse communities, cultures and backgrounds. Participants will visit key places of historical,religious and contemporary interest.

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Woohoo! I, along with 13 other US university students, was selected for this mission. This means that, as accurately stated above, I was lucky enough to be provided an impeccably organized Israeli experience, coupling educational lectures with one-on-one experience with average Israelis, and coupling politics with day-to-day life.

I will hopefully find our general itinerary to attach to give a good overview of the program.

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Was this program worthwhile?
Absolutely! I expected a fairly straight-forward, politically motivated and politically centered experience. While politics does pervade the life here and thus often finds its way into many situations, we also experienced much that had little to do with the greater Israeli-Middle East conflict. We also:
- learned and participated in Israeli culture, both Jewish and Druze
- learned about the geography of the country and its borders
- learned about resource use, shortages, and environmental solutions being used and created to address these shortages
- Learned of the diversity of Jews in Israel, far beyond the obvious Russian, Polish, and Western European Jews (that we tend to see in the States.) There is a large population of Ethiopian Jews, and about half of the Jews in Israel are from the Middle East.
- Learned of Israel's booming start up economy and tech-savvy industries
- Learned that Israel's Jews are more secular than Jews in the United States (surprising for someone that is used to seeing the Ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn and the fully Jewish miracle system that is B&H Photo in Manhattan)
- A wonderful tour of the Holocaust museum by a South African Jew
- Learned more about the Kibbutz movement in Israel, its unfortunate fall, and the ways that many Kibbutz have changed in order to stay alive
- Saw the borders between Israel and neighboring Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
- Learned about the security fence between Israel and the West Bank: what it is and what it is NOT
- Experienced a typical market on Friday afternoon, booming as people prepare for Shabbat
- Saw how typical Israelis our age view their mandatory service in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)
- Learned where areas of contention are in society, not solely between Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis, but even between different sectors of the Jewish population
- Experienced how informal Israel society is: even in situations where we had to "dress up" it was still extremely dressed down from as we would be in the States (which if you know me, is a huge plus 1 for Israel!)

Overall, I owe a HUGE thanks to the my boss Jessica Havery for forwarding me this ADL application, and my wonderful professors Neil Donahue and Cindy Bogard for their stellar letters of recommendation. And then of course the ADL for bringing me to Israel to teach me so much for free!