Official Army Draft Date

Ever since I had my Tsav Rishon (first call up to the army for initial testing) about a month and a half ago I've been checking the army website everyday for updates on the status of my draft. And after a real test to my patience I've finally received my draft date!

December 20.

A week and a half ago I completed the last part of the Tsav Rishon and subsequently received the last of the three scores through which the army assesses recruits. The highest score you can receive is a 97, the next highest is an 82. They gave me an 82. I later discovered the reason as to why I didn't get a 97: the vision in my left eye is just barely bad enough that it knocked me down a full score (my contact prescription in my left eye is -4.0). This 82 is great news for me! It doesn't disqualify me from any of the roles in which I am interested. 

Other than my actual draft date I have not an ounce of information. I haven't been invited to any tryouts. I don't know if I will have to do the army ulpan. I haven't received anything in the mail. 

This is literally all the information I have regarding my army draft. A date. תאריך גיוס = draft date = tah-ah-reech ge-yoos

Until December 20 all I really can do is try my best to get in better shape, keep working on my Hebrew and enjoy having free time. My ulpan finishes this coming week. Later in the month I'm spending two weeks in Italy with my parents and then going home to the U.S. to visit for a few weeks. One of my oldest and dearest friends, Ashley Lessans, is getting married so I'm thrilled that I will get to be there for her wedding in Baltimore!

I'll be back in Israel at the end of October and maybe will try getting a job at a hotel to earn a few sheks (bucks) to offset my almost one year of "funemployment" ;-)

For now I'm quite happy though. It's a relief that I have officially been accepted into the army. A lot of people (especially those who are volunteers like me) have to harass the army repeatedly in order to get the process moving. I really don't feel as if I've had to be that much of a nagger.

The process pretty much went like this (I pretty much began doing these things in May/ June):

1) Become Israeli citizen

2) Call IDF to officially request to volunteer and be added to the army's database

3) Send letter to IDF in Hebrew telling why you want to serve and how you can be an asset

4) Call to follow up

5) Get Tsav Rishon date

6) Go to Tsav Rishon

7) Call to follow up

8) Get army draft date

I'm half considering trying to push for an earlier draft date but the other half of me says to let it be. Until then, Italian adventures, among other, await me!

Blood Test Results - 3 Years Vegan

A week ago I was ordered by the Israeli army to get a blood test at my health insurance provider... so I did.  Here I am publishing the results for the whole world to see (if you click on them they will get bigger, some of it is in Hebrew but the important stuff is in English).

Why am I doing this?

Well... for three years now I have practiced a plant-based/ vegan diet (and vegan lifestyle in general). All the time people ask me: Where do you get your protein? What about Vitamin B12? 

You can see here that both my Vitamin B12 and protein are within the normal value ranges. If my diet was ever going to cause me a deficiency, it would have already happened. 

Sometimes I will be talking to someone I met on the street or at a get-together and he or she will tell me, "Yeah, I was vegan for a few months but my hair started falling out," or "... but I felt really low in energy all the time," or "... but I could never feel full," or "... but I became anemic."

I have no way of knowing whether these statements are founded upon truth but what I can say is that these people probably did not invest the proper time to really research and plan out what they should be eating to make up for the calorie/ nutrient hole that forms as a result of removing animal products from one's diet. 

So you may no be wondering what exactly it is that I eat... 

Most of my calorie intake comes from yummy ripe fresh fruit!

I ate all of this in about two-three days :)

Bananas, mangoes, peaches, nectarines, dates, persimmons, oranges, figs, apples, pears, watermelon, cherries, etc... (except for papaya which I really don't like...)

I usually eat about 2,000 calories a day, sometimes more. If I'm hungry... I eat :) 

I'm always happy to share about my lifestyle so if you have any questions let me know. Perhaps at a later date I will post about being vegan in Israel... bye for now!

Why I'm Joining the IDF

Not too long from now I will be a woman in uniform!

It’s incredible how much my life has changed in the last year. One year ago I had a car, a full-time job and snow boots. Today I have a bus pass, a babysitting gig and hiking boots. 

I feel freer than ever and more in touch with what I want out of life. For the time being what I want is this:

I have decided to devote the next (approximately) two years of my life to service in the Israeli army. This is not a decision I arrived to overnight. I’ve been thinking about committing myself to Israeli military service for the past year and now that I’m an Israeli citizen I’ve decided to turn thought into action.

Before I go into my reasons for volunteering myself to serve I’ll give you the basics on military service requirements in Israel.

All citizens of Israel, with the exception of Arab Israelis but not excluding Druze Israelis, are required to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Men are required to serve for three years and women for two. **Women can however opt of of military service and instead volunteer in a branch of national service.

The rules change a bit for immigrants (and for religious Jews, but I won’t get into that).

Men who arrive to Israel and immigrate after the age of 26 are not required to serve in the IDF. The same goes for women over the age of 21.

I am 24. When I arrived to Israel I was 23 - this means that I am not at all required to serve. But I want to; I feel compelled. 

There are a lot of people who are not going to agree with what I am about to say, or they will feel some sort of internal dissonance because they do agree but have decided not to act upon whatever feelings arise within them to serve. In any case, I will share with you my reasons for deciding to enlist…

It’s ridiculous that young immigrants in this country receive so much support from the government even when, in most cases, they do not serve in this country’s military, when had they been born here, they would have been required. During the first six months of citizenship in Israel new immigrants who are single receive about $650 each month - and that is from a government whose country is constantly fighting in wars of defense. On top of this direct monetary support new immigrants are also entitled to discounts on import taxes, rental tax and free health insurance for one year. And if that’s not enough, they also receive five free months of modern Hebrew class free from the government. 

Is it really fair for immigrants who don’t serve in the IDF to receive these benefits?

On the one hand, it’s not - in the history of this country thousands of Israeli soldiers have died who served not because they volunteered to, but because it was the status quo; they had to.

But on the other hand, the government doesn’t require military service of new immigrants beyond the already stated ages. This leads me to the question, if all citizens are required to serve, why aren’t all new citizens also required, regardless of age? I almost want to call it discrimination on the basis of age, but I’m afraid discrimination isn’t quite the right word.

Israel would not be able to exist without its military. It is my opinion that the State of Israel needs to exist; I point now to the slaughter of six million European Jews just 70 years ago. I can’t help but think that if the Jewish nation would have had an army, it would have been able to defend itself. By no means do I assert that Israel has done everything correct in regards to the people that have become refugees as a result of the State’s creation, but I do think it’s possible to still stand by the country and its military as a whole without taking a particular position in the matter.

All of these feelings aside… what’s in it for me, other than a uniform and gun?

I am happy in Israel. For the time being I want to live here. The best way for me to acclimate into Israeli society and to immerse myself in the Hebrew language is to join the army. However army service will not only be a Hebrew-learning tool, it will also provide me with a sense of self-fulfillment that cannot be found elsewhere.

I can’t feel right living here if I feel like a freeloader. I feel as though it is my duty to serve. If there had been required military service in the US I would have done it there - there wouldn’t have been a choice. Here in Israel, I feel as though it shouldn’t be a choice and for myself, I have decided it’s not a choice. I am committing myself.

My official Israeli Army process has already begun. On July 7 I went to the Israeli Army’s draft office in Haifa to have my Tsav Rishon (first call up). 

From this day I am supposed to receive three different scores: one is IQ related (Psychotechni), one corresponds to level of education and psychologic standing (Kaba), and the last is a physical assessment score (Profile). Based on my composite score I will be able to classify for various different units in the army. So far I have only received the first two scores; a 90/90 and a 56/56, respectively. Hopefully I will receive the physical score soon. It seems like there will be a lot of possibilities available, I just hope the language barrier won’t be a problem. An officer at the Tsav Rishon administered a Hebrew test to me but it wasn’t clear whether I passed or if I would be required to enroll in the army’s three-month Hebrew class. We shall see…

I will probably have more information to share about my draft date within the next week or two. And for those who are wondering… my current preference is to serve in the Search and Rescue unit. However, truth be told, I am not really that knowledgeable of the IDF and all of its units, so it is possible that my preference will waiver.

That’s all for now! Now that you’re all in on my big secret, I’ll keep you updated :)

A Slice of "Suburban" Tel Aviv Life

It has been a pretty packed week and a half! We will discuss only my most recent Tel Aviv trip in this post and leave the rest of my shenanigans for tomorrow :)

Last weekend I jetted off to Tel Aviv just for a change of scenery; the previous weekend I visited Jerusalem.

I stayed not in Tel Aviv but instead in nearby Giv'at Shmuel. (Side note: If Israel had "suburbs," Giv'at Shmuel would be its prime example.) Envision frolicking children, plenty of parks and people walking their dogs every 10 feet. A friend of my cousin set me up with her former college roommate, Paula.

Sometimes it pays to put a wire out on Facebook ;-)

Paula moved to Israel about 20-or-so years ago and now has four Israeli kids of her own and an Israeli husband and cat to match! I felt so grateful to them for welcoming me into their home <3 Thank you Paula and Avi!!!

Paula even prepared for me some special vegan food!

In Tel Aviv I met up with a few friends- a friend from college who moved to Israel within the last couple of years, a friend I made at the Masa Israel Leadership Summit I attended a couple months ago, and also with my Birthright tour guide. It was good to see some familiar faces in a not-so-familiar place :)

The highlight of my trip, believe it or not, was the few hours I spent babysitting for the family I stayed with, and then my walk to the bus station to set me Eilat-bound.

Left to right: Lahav and his friends- twins Gabrielle and Dotan (hopefully I got everyone's name correct!).

I've realized the best way to get a slice of life in a foreign place is to interact with the children. Let me preface what I am about to say next by saying this: I have done A LOT of babysitting. A LOT. I've been babysitting for more than 10 years. Looking back though I'm not sure why parents trusted me to look after their kids back then when I, myself, was a kid at age 13...

Anyway, I've noticed that Israeli children aren't as shy and awkward as American children and, physically speaking, they're a heck of a lot more active. And don't you worry, I've come up with potential causes of these variations.

Theory number one: social disposition. Perhaps because people in Israel live in much smaller quarters than in the U.S., the children are forced to interact more with other people and hence they gain the social skills that most American children (including myself back in the day) lack. The individual family size in Israel is larger as well. More siblings = more social interaction.

Theory number two: activity level. Perhaps because Israel is a military country, (everyone [both men and women], with circumstantial exceptions, is conscripted at age 18) its population in general is more physically fit. After graduating from the army the practices of exercise stay with the former soldiers and when they go on to have children, they continue these practices. Since kids take after their parents- they see the exercise behavior and they then copy it. 

The three children I babysat--I think they were around age 8 (whoops I forgot the exact age!)--couldn't have been cuter. They played soccer, walked a neighbor's two dogs and ran around the playground like little monkeys :)

Monkey Lahav the bilingual bouncing boy! 

After our playdate at the park I began my voyage back to Eilat.

The day was a Saturday. Saturday in Israel is just called "Shabbat." In order to catch my plane (yep, that's right, I sprung for a flight) in time back to the Land of Sunshine, I had to take the earliest bus after the busses began operating again following the Shabbat day of rest. The bus I had to catch was in the ultra-orthodox neighborhood B'nei Barak bordering Ramat Gan. Paula drove me just to the periphery of the neighborhood since cars are not allowed inside of B'nei Barak during Shabbat. 

The streets were literally blocked off with gates.

No cars are gettin' in to here!

Or here!

Walking through B'nei Barak I discovered a whole different world that I never really realized existed. I've heard about these religious communities before, but I've never seen them with my own naked eyes. I was the only woman in sight waking around in pants. (In more religious sects of Judaism women are required to wear long skirts.) I felt like I was in a parallel universe.

It is needless to say that I felt a bit out of place. Though I was raised Jewish, my family's Jewish was a very different kind of Jewish, where the religious aspect of our lives did not govern everyday life. I must say though that I do respect those who choose to live their lives following such specific standards. It is difficult and requires a lot of discipline. 

Also, I just remembered as I was writing this and am unsure of where to add it in, I went to Shabbat dinner at the house of some cousins in Modiin, a "suburb" of Jerusalem. This was the real highlight of the trip! It was so nice to be with family, even though I only just met some of them that night. One of the daughters who is a few years younger than me made for me vegan challah (it normally has egg), vegan cookies, vegan chocolate cake and vegan sachlav, a milk-based traditional Arab dessert drink that usually is accompanied with coconut and cinnamon.

I wish I took pictures with the cousins and of the food but I was so in the moment that I neglected even to think of this blog.. eek.

On that note... not to end too abruptly or anything... here is a picture of some cool statues carved out of bushes in Giv'at Shmuel:

**Cue ending credits here.**

Time to Re-Lod!

Did I mean to say “re-load” instead of "Re-Lod?" No, I did not! Lod (pronounced “load”) is a city in Israel and Re-Lod is the name of a project whose mission is to revitalize the city through the power of the people.

Yesterday with the conference I am currently attending I and about 30 others visited Lod as part of a guided service-learning tour. Our tour guide was Yuval Bdolach, CEO of the Re-Lod Project. The Re-Lod project facilitates student villages in Lod where university students can have a more unique student community experience, dedicating part of their time to servicing their community.

First stop on our tour: some really old ruins in Lod! Circa 1000 years ago I think?

Bdolach told us that Lod is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, having been resided in, to this day, for 8,000 years. Lod is one of the only cities in the world where the same building houses Jewish religious services and Islamic religious services. It serves as a working model for coexistence. (Side note: this theme of coexistence in Lod reminds me of the same in Haifa. Remember this?)

Thirty minutes southeast of Tel-Aviv and about one hour northwest of Jerusalem, you would think that because of its central location in Israel, Lod would be full of young professionals and middle-to-upper class families. This is not the case.

In Israel Lod is known for being a more run-down area and is comprised approximately of 70% Jewish Israelis and of 30% Arab Israelis. 

Anthropologists and sociologists often theorize that a city will prosper when a strong population moves in. This theory is the basis for the Re-Lod project and for an organized network of orthodox religious families who believe that just by living in Lod they are helping to strengthen the community and the city. The families think that just by demanding more out of their everyday services and schools they can make a tangible difference in the quality of life in Lod. 

They claim it’s working. One woman told us that in the last three years the cost of housing in Lod has increased by 300 percent. (Wow! Right?)

This orthodox woman has a well-paying job as a scientist. She and her husband can afford to live in a "better" area but they would rather be the change they wish to see in Lod. She told us that by calling to complain when the trash removal crew is late, and by demanding for better education for her children in public schools she can help make Lod better for everyone.

Rather than a trickle-down system that focuses first on getting more government funding to revamp the city’s infrastructure, the individuals we met practice a trickle-up system that starts with Lod’s residents and its youth.

Bdolach chose four sites in the city that he wanted to show us. He didn’t ask for our money. All he asked is that we tell people about Lod.

We visited two community centers, the site of an excavated building and the first and only Cafe Cafe (like an Israeli Panera) in Lod.

The Chicago Community Center is one site where Re-Lod houses its student volunteers. The students are comprised 70% of Jewish Israelis and 30% of Arab Israelis in order to proportionately represent the city’s demographics. The students host events for school children in the neighborhood, they watch movies and play games - it’s really up to the kids to decide what they want to do. 

About to enter the Chicago Community Center in Lod!

A few years ago (I’m not exactly sure of the exact year) when the project first opened its doors there was not an immediate success. Five students came at first, and then those five brought another five and so on, until eventually the project was well known around town.

But there have been bumps in the road. One of the participants in my group asked Bdolach: How did the Summer 2014 Operation Protective Edge affect the Re-Lod project?

Bdolach’s answer: Initially it raised tensions between the two factions. Many of the Arab residents have family living in Gaza, and many of the Jewish residents have friends and/ or family serving in the IDF. During the operation, Re-Lod did not cease its programming. Instead it kept its doors open, a symbol of hope that there is a chance for the community to stay united even in challenging times. 

The last stop on our tour (and the yummiest) was the Cafe Cafe in Lod. This particular Cafe Cafe isn’t just a Cafe Cafe. It’s the red ribbon symbol of what is yet to come in Lod as a result of the blood, sweat and tears contributed by Re-Lod and the Lod community.

The only coffeeshop in Lod.

I am excited to visit Lod in five or 10 years (probably sooner though…) and see how the city has changed. After meeting such committed and invested community members, I believe in Lod. 

The Iron Dome is in My Backyard!

Having a stress fracture of the foot in Eilat has been quite challenging considering I have to use public transportation to get anywhere (my dear car, how I miss you!), BUT I would say I am now 85% of the way to being fully recovered from my injury with just a two to three weeks to go until I can kick back into running and hiking.

Speaking of hiking... this week my group went on an organized hike of one of Eilat's tallest mountains, which just so happens to be directly behind my apartment building. I had to sit out :( However, rest assured that I made sure to find some sort of adventure. I waited for the group at the base of the mountain. And this mountain wasn't just any old mountain. This mountain houses the IRON DOME!!! That's right, the Iron Dome is in my backyard!

That small brown square on the bottom left base of the mountain is the Iron Dome. There are about 12 of them spread all over Israel. Eilat has two.

So while my group climbed, I sat about 100 feet away from one of Israel's most famous defense devices. Is this real life?

The soldiers who guard this particular Iron Dome battery told us we could not take any pictures of the machinery from up close, otherwise I would have posted a much better picture! Up close it looks SO COOL! For the hour or so that my group hiked I sat and conversed with one of the soldiers in Hebrish/Engbrew about what life is like for him now that he is in the army. He has been in the army for about a year, so I would guess he is 19 years old. Let's call him "Shmuel."

Shmuel's diet while on base consists mainly of bread, cheese and boxed tuna. Shmuel stands guard for four hours, and then has eight hours off, and then repeats this schedule again and again. Shmuel has never left Israel despite having family in a a couple other countries. Shmuel gets bored quite often because his post is not frequented at all, with the exception of occasional hikers. Shmuel and his fellow soldiers like to give the hikers a small scare, [harmlessly] questioning them and their motives, when they get close to the guarded area, since he said it is so boring to stand guard all day. I laughed but told him I wouldn't find it very funny if I was on the other side of the joke... Shmuel couldn't remember the word in Hebrew for "cable car" despite being a native Israeli - I knew it though! It's: Ra-kev-el :)

There they go!

They are as small as ants up there!

Some cool facts about the Iron Dome here.

You can now all rest assured knowing I am neighbors with the Iron Dome and that my neighbor is protecting my friends and I 24/7 from any and all airborne threats that could potentially be posed. Because that's the reality of the situation...

Goodnight from Israel 8-)