Gadna, Pesach in Tel Aviv

I'm still playing catch-up as far as posts go, and I'm on two Fridays ago after Yad Vashem- around March 23?

In the morning, the entire Alexander Muss High School in Israel group, JDS, and Weber performed a flash mob dance on the boardwalk in Tel Aviv. A flash mob, in case you were wondering, occurs when a group of people randomly perform a pre-choreographed dance in the middle of a crowded public area, to the surprise of innocent bystanders. Here's a youtube of ours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qka3vxRzyaU. So funny. The dance was also intended to help raise awareness about Gilad Shalit.

After our performance we departed to our first open shabbat, which I spent with my friends Michal and Melanie at Michal's Safta's South African retirement home. Basically it was the cutest Shabbat dinner and lunch of my life, filled with lots of English tea and old people. On Saturday we met up with some friends, went to the beach, and walked around the Herzliyya mall, which was a nice little slice of American culture (they had the Gap?). It was relaxing and much-needed, and I returned on Sunday ready to go to Gadna.

Gadna is a program that all Israeli high school students complete. It's sort of like a week long taste of the army. Kids live on a base for five days, wear Tzahal uniforms, do boot camp, and learn to shoot a gun. We left on Sunday morning and I was not looking forward to it. I'd been working out before the trip mainly in anticipation for the boot camp part of the week (my friend I would do push-ups over the phone together); I basically thought I wouldn't make it. Getting off the bus to all-Hebrew shouts of scary, unsmiling uniformed soldiers wasn't that comforting either. All of us assembled in the "achshev" or "attetntion" position on the basketball court while we were randomly chosen by the commanders (Mephakdim; our female commander was a Mephakedet) to be in tzevets (units) of about 15 kids. We traveled as a unit to get our uniforms, mattresses, sleeping bags, and blankets, and we had to do everything while counting down the seconds in Hebrew. If we weren't in formation by the end of the counting- push-ups! Our mephakedet told us her name only once so we would be able to find her in case of an emergency, but after that she was just "Hamephakedet." Everything we did followed an order and a loud, united "Ken hamephakedet!" or "yes commander!" in response to it.There was no standing, sitting, moving in formation without one. It was intense. Every command was also completely in Hebrew, so I was basically confused all of the time, but thankfully we had kids in our tzevet who would rotate translating our mephakedet's orders. The rest of the first day passed in grumpiness, running after the mephakedet, and five million sets of counting down to thirty seconds and assembling in "chets"- a Hebrew letter that looks like a semi-circle.
The next day was our day in the field...the long dreaded boot camp. We woke up at 5:30 and left in buses to go to a big open field/plain thing in the desert. We learned how to crawl, camouflage ourselves, build hidden shelters, and run from "rimonim," which literally means pomegranates but is the term the Tzahal uses for grenades. It ended up being fun, because we learned everything through games. I worried and worked out for nothing, but I did do 28 push-up sin a row at one point, so I guess that was a plus. Our tzevet made up cheers, snuck up on other tzevets to practice our rimonim-dodging, and covered our faces (and teeth!) in dirt. The fact that all of these things that we were learning and taking so lightly were actually vital to the survival of soldiers really disturbed me at many points during the day though. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn't that serious, but the whole thing felt strange. After our "training," our group finished the day with a "masa," or journey. We walked up hill to a water tower that overlooked the desert with the slogan "In the desert, the people of Israel will be tested" written on it, and discussed what the quote meant. Sde Boker, which is where the base is located, is actually beautiful. There are just huge sand dunes and rock cliffs everywhere, and we were high up enough to get an amazing view of the city, base, and nature surrounding it. All soldiers complete a masa at the end of their basic training, but theirs is a little different than what we did- they have three months of boot camp and their masas can be 35 miles long. Insane. If I lived in Israel, that would be in less than half a year, not to mention all 90 of the people I am with on this trip. It made me think-would we be ready to do that? Because here, it's not a question of readiness, or of wanting to go. It's the law.
After our first day of boot camp we had to start taking classes on how to shoot the guns. Guns are pretty uninteresting to me. The combination of the totally Hebrew classes occurring outside in the hot sun while I was in my long sleeved uniform lulled me to sleep time and time again, and this was pretty much the peak of my dislike for Gadna; time had never moved so slowly. Later that night, though, our mephakedet brought us to a spot outside with another incredible view of the desert while the sun was setting. She asked us to make a map of Israel out of stones, and then we discussed what Israel meant to us. It was a great conversation, and it was really nice to hear her open up about her perspective on Israel and the army, because she was only a few years older than us.
On the way back from the pleasant spot to dinner, I got sick. Miraculously (and thankfully) I woke up fine the next morning, because I would be darned if I didn't have the experience of shooting the gun after all of those classes. I wasn't exactly excited about firing the gun, but I felt like I needed to do it. After all, the point of Gadna is to see what it's like to be a soldier, and soldiers use guns. We went to the shooting range in the morning and took turns shooting. I was the first one done in my group because I just wanted to get it over with; it wasn't that bad, but I jumped with every shot. Thankfully, I didn't pee my pants. I was worried about that.
The afternoon was really interesting though. We met with our mephakedet to discuss how using the guns, which is the culmination of the week, went. The discussion was completely different than I thought it would be. It focused on what she called the "purity of the weapon." She emphasized that shooting shouldn't be fun but serious and that this is t aught to all soldiers, that the Tzahal was a defensive army and that Israel only uses guns because it needs to in order to survive, and that what makes the weapon "pure" is the intention and thought that goes into using it. Our group also went through many different scenarios that real soldiers have been put in and discussed what the ethical thing to do would be in these situations. Here's an example: you are a male soldier at a checkpoint with no one else around you. A pregnant Palestinian woman needs to get through because she is about to give birth. You need to check her, but you can't because you are a man and this is both a violation of her beliefs and army rules. What do you do? Well, this actually happened in real life, and it turns out that the soldier checked the woman and found that her pregnant belly was really a bomb. We argued and argued about this and other "hypothetical" scenes, but the scary thing is that again, if we lived in Israel, we would be the ones making those decisions in less than half a year. Despite the intensity of the discussion, I felt relieved and glad that we were talking about this kind of stuff. My weird feelings about the fake-war boot camp passed as I realized that Gadna is really about changng people's perspectives about the army, not propagating militarism or making a joke out of it. My positive view on the program was strengthened later that night as we had a talk with the head commander about Tzahal- she talked about how joining Tzahal is not as much about joining an army but about defending an idea- that of having a Jewish state and home.
The next day was our last, and after a closing ceremony at Ben Gurion's grave and giving back all of our army gear we met with our mephakedim one last time before leaving. It was so funny- our mephakedet miraculously became human, laughing with us, telling us her story, taking pictures with us- she even hugged us and gave us her email address! Again, it showed us another view of soldiers. I'm really glad we had the experience of Gadna; it sounds cheesy, but I really appreciate soldiers, and especially Tzahal, so much more now- it was an eye-opening couple of days.

As much as I gained from Gadna, I was more than happy to get back to a campus and relax for a few days before leaving for spring break. I spent Pesach with a friend's cousin in Tel Aviv, and it was so nice to be a part of a family temporarily for Seder. Other cool things about Pesach in Israel:
1. You know that part of the seder where they say "next year in Jerusalem?" Well, I wasn't in Jerusalem, but I was in Israel, so I think it counts!
2. So my friend Melanie and I were walking to Seder (we stayed with the grandparents of the cousins, and they live on the same street, which is adorable) and we were looking into everyone's windows and observing their family gatherings when Mel made an interesting observation. The Jews in Egypt had to put blood over their doors so that the plague of the first born would pass over them and so that their houses would be distinguished from those of the Egyptians. But here, everyone was Jewish, and everyone was having a Seder- literally. Pretty neat.
3. Israel has kosher for Passover bread. Even neater!
Anyways, after Pesach and hanging out for a day we went with my friend's family to the North. We met his cousins for a picnic on the beach at a boarding school that gives therapy to kids and tramautized soldiers. It sounds weird but the campus (and Northern Israel in general) is amazingly beautiful; it's green, flower-filled, and there's an ocean view. The school has horses that they also use for therapeutic purposes, and we were able to go for a horseback ride on the beach. So yeah, that was incredible. Later that night we went to an amazing Israeli barbecue with about 30 members of my friend's Israeli family- very warm, entertaining, and fun. The next day we went for an ATV tour of the countryside, which was just awesome. We passed through a national park as well and saw a lot of random wildlife in addition to the usual Israeli wildflowers. We also went to this really cool spice and tea market in the afternoon where most of the stuff is grown locally, and we went to lunch at a place famous for "hummus im basar," or hummus with meat. Best hummus I've ever had, and yeah...the restaurant was in a gas station. In Israel, that's acceptable, apparently. I love it.
We returned to Ramat Efal to the grandparent's house (their names are Yorem and Shoshi, and I can't say enough nice things about them- I felt like they were my actual family) which is right outside Tel Aviv, and that's where I spent the rest of the break. Tel Aviv is such a cool city. I really got to know it because we literally walked everywhere to avoid paying for cabs. Melanie and I walked for over 5 hours one night, just exploring, and we ended up seeing Yentl in Hebrew because we randomly stumbled upon a theatre while we were trying to find the Tel Aviv art museum. I couldn't understand that much, but I enjoyed the music and it was still a nice cultural experience. Other than that, we beached, we shopped, we shuk-ed, we ate. Basic vacation requirements, fulfilled.