July 21 - From Kennes to Eilat - the journey continues!

Date: July 21st, 2015

By: Jonah Levitt

Today was such an eventful day! It started off with a 4:30 AM wake up at Sde Boker and a drive to Masada. After a bumpy drive on a windy road that resulted in multiple vomiting teenagers, we finally arrived at the base of the Roman Ramp path. We ate breakfast and then climbed to the top of Masada in 38 degree heat! While on top of Masada, we split into our colour groups with teenagers from other cohorts and participated in a program facilitated by the international Diller staff that analyzed the historical validity of the famous Jewish Zealot story. Afterwards, we rode the cable car down to the base of the mountain and as a cohort, we discussed Kennes and our final reflections from it. We then ate lunch and drove down to the Dead Sea, where we floated in the extremely salty water and covered ourselves in Dead Sea mud. As we prepared to leave to Eilat, our new bus broke down, forcing us to wait for almost an hour and a half at the Dead Sea until it got fixed. We finally got on our way and arrived at Yan's Beach in Eilat, where we participated in an opening ceremony and dinner that officially began what is sure to be an incredible Community Week. We are now settled in at our host homes with our Israeli partners and catching up on our sleep! We can't wait until tomorrow, when we will officially begin Community Week programming! Laila Tov!
PS, happy birthday Mummy!

July 20 - Kennes Day 2 - Ben Gurion's vision

Date: July 20th, 2015
By: Hannah Rosenberg


We started off the day, bright and early as usual, with a session inspired by David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. After an amusing presentation involving some fake hair made of cotton balls, we split off into colour groups to determine the future of the State of Israel, much the same as DBG did with his team 67 years ago. This included the name of the state, the official language of the state, the choice to include God in the Declaration of Independence, and the borders of the new state. As it must have been in real life, this was very challenging to agree upon, but at the end of the day each group was able to come to a consensus.
Our next activity got us into the mindset of thinking about our impact projects coming up in the fall. We had a presentation on a project done in a past year. This was followed by individual discussion groups on a topic of our choice. I chose to attend a discussion on the many problems that are facing the elderly in our communities. This is an issue that I feel connected to as I have volunteered at Baycrest since I was in grade nine. We conversed about the multitude of problems including high levels of poverty, the lack of infrastructure to support the aging population, and the prevalence of loneliness and depression among seniors. In the afternoon, we had a presentation that was essentially a crash course on how Jews became scattered across the globe. It was conducted by the President of Diller Teen Fellows International. Personally, I felt that iit was a lot of detail to go over in the short time. Although, I can understand how someone who has never studied Jewish history in the past could have found it useful. After this, we learned the stories of the first Jews to come to North America and South Africa. We were then tasked with trying to select the cities in North America with the largest Jewish populations and then order them by size. Interestingly, my colour group listed Toronto significantly higher on the list than its true position. We speculated that this could be because the Toronto Jewish community feels larger since its Jews tend to be more involved and more likely to identify as Jews than in most American communities. Our last session of the day involved listening to the song "Rak Po" (Only Here) by a famous Israeli band called Hadag Nahash. The theme of the song revolved around the positive and negative aspects that make Israel feel like home to them. After listening to the song, we each wrote a couple verses of our own about our home. It was very fascinating to hear the unique aspects of everyone's experiences that make them feel at home. In the evening, we were very lucky to get to hear from Molly Livingstone, an Israeli-American comedian. A good laugh was a really great way to end an overall interesting and meaningful day.

July 19th - Kennes begins!

Date: July 19th, 2015

By: Zoe Sherman

Today, July 19th, was our very own Jess Levett's BIRTHDAY!!!. She turned 17 today! We had sung her happy birthday on Ben Yehuda street last night, and to continue the celebratory feel, Jess wore the Birthday Girl button all day. We even managed to embarrass her a little bit at our first Kennes dinner by singing her Happy Birthday in front of 11 cohorts!

Sadly, we left Jerusalem today. We brought our bags down, ate breakfast, loaded the bus, and were off for the 3 hour ride to Kibbutz Sde Boker. On the bus ride, our guide Maor taught us about the lack of rain in Israel, military towns, and who Israel creates urban growth and new airports in the Negev. 

We finally arrived at Kennes, the meeting of all South African and North American Diller teens. There was, of course, much excitement over seeing so many teens! We had a walking tour of the facilities, we presented an amazing 90-second intro to launch our community in Kennes. I may be a little biased, but I promise ours was the best. After that, we split into our colour groups that included 2 people from each cohort, 2 JCs, and 1 coordinator. We had some fun ice breakers. To finish off our day, we heard from Neill Lazarus about the Arab-Israeli conflict and how North America fits into it. It was a very controversial discussion, and sparked a really great talk within our group. 

Today was filled with 200+ awesome, interesting people who were such a pleasure to meet and talk to.

Goodnight, Toronto!

Exploring History - Jerusalem and Me

Date: July 18th, 2015

By: Maya Rotstein

This morning when I woke up, there was a different feeling in the atomesphere. I looked out the window and everything was quiet. All the shops were closed, transit wasn't running and the streets were dead. I realized, it was shabbat! After a yummy breakfast we all got to choose from 4 different shabbat services to go to. Being unaffiliated with a synagogue, i decided to try something new, and went to the orthodox synagogue. It was a beautiful building, with stain glass and hundreds of seats. The service was short which i was surprised by, but very interesting and we had some peaceful resttime at the hotel when we got back. Our next activity was run by Ma'or, our tour guide and Raquel. We sat at a sunny park in a beautiful part of the city, not too far from our hotel where we were invited to ask any sort of questions we had about Israel, its history and its complicated politics. It was really interesting to hear some of the questions people asked and how we sort of turned it into a discussion. Hearing different people's opinions really made me think about how lucky we are to be a very diverse group of people, and probably the most diverse throughout all of Diller. From then, we made our way down to the Old City, where we had a walking tour run by Ma'or. We vistied different sites that were important to the Jewish people's history and how we came to have the part of Jerusalem we have today. Certain sites stood out to me like the monument for the 48 Jews killed defending their homes, and the Zion Gate, where you could actually see bullet holes across the giant wall during an attack. Knowing about how we got to where we are today is really important because it creates a sense of belonging and continuity, as if you're own family had been living in this holy city for thousands of years. On our way back home, we met up with some other Diller cities and had Seudah Shlishit with them which was very nice. Meeting some of the fellows before Kennes makes me even more excited and gets rid of some of that nervousness that i get when meeting a group of new people. 
We then had an amazing spiritual Havdallah in the courtyard near our hotel, where we performed the rituals and sang songs on the guitar. Then came the fun part! We had a couple hours on Ben Yehuda street where we grabbed a bite to eat with family and friends and did some shopping. Buskers and other kids our age filled the streets and it felt so right to be there with these people having similar, but totally different experiences as you. When i reflect on this day, i thought about all the history we talked and learnt about. Being both Jewish and Muslim, it is extremely important to me to know where your roots come from and the hardships we endured to get to where we are now, and this past day strengthened that feeling even more for me which i am very greatful for. I can't wait for tomorrow where we finally get to meet all the North American (and South African) cities and feel how it will be to become part of an International community of kids. Love, Maya

Day 3: Preserving the memory of the past, Protecting our future

Date: July 16th, 2015

By: Tamara Weiss

Back in Toronto, as I was reading the itinerary for today, I was very excited as I've been learning about Mount Hertzel since I was young. Seeing the graves of various critical Israeli political figures and soldiers was very emotional. After visiting Mount Hertzel, we arrived at Yad Vashem. This past year I went on the March of the Living, which, in contrast to previous visits, allowed to have a greater understanding of the museum. After our tour, we arrived at Machane Yehuda which was amazing! The food was great, I stocked up on different fruits, and loved being apart of the busy streets. 

Once we got back, we prepared to go to the Western Wall (The Kotel) to welcome the Shabbat. As we arrived it was beautiful to see so many people gathered to celebrate such an important part of our lives as Jews. We later went to dinner and were surprised to see kids from Diller who are from different parts of the world! It was so cool to speak to kids from South Africa, Montreal, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh all gathered together in Israel. Tomorrow is the start of the North America & South Africa conference, and it's great to have already met some kids!

We had an amazing day, and I'm super exited for tomorrow!

Day 2: From the Heights of the Golan to the Heart of Jerusalem

Date: July 16th, 2015

By: Jessica Levitt

Today we started off our day bright and early with a 6:45 wake up. Then we went on a beautiful hike on the Jilibun trail. We trekked in the forest, tried not to slip in the streams, made sure we didn't fall off the cliffs, and avoid getting stung by swarms of bees. We made it to a gorgeous waterfall and went for a refreshing dip in the water. It was amazing and not only because we got to cool off. After that we had our final expedition up the stoney steps of the mountain. The theme of our day today was awareness and I know that I certainly kept this in mind while doing the hike. It was extremely refreshing to be able to take in all of the incredible scenery and not have to worry about anything else. As a reward for all of our hard work we ate a delicious pizza lunch and then hopped back on the bus for a 3 hour drive to Jerusalem. The drive certainly wasn't boring and it was very useful for catching up on sleep. Once arriving in Jerusalem we went to the OneFamily Fund headquarters where we watched a couple of videos about the different projects that the organization carries out and heard from a victim of a terror attack. OneFamily Fund is an organization that helps victims of terror attacks cope with their traumatic experiences. It was fascinating to the see the impact that they have on so many people. I personally felt connected to this organization because when I went on The March of the Living in April we were visited by three families who were all affected by the same terror attack and are now working with OneFamily. Since I was already slightly familiar with the organization I feel like I had a unique experience today. The day concluded with a trip to Ben Yehudah street. Day 2 complete, can't wait for day 3!

Day 1: Travel and Golan Heights

Date: July 15th, 2015

By: Sivan Piatigorsky-Roth

We arrived yesterday at the airport, no later than 3:30 pm. Following rigorous ElAl interrogation and a wonderful twelve hour plane ride, we arrived at last in Israel. We were very tired but we managed to proceed with hats and sunscreen to the bus, where we were greeted by Maor, our lovely tour guide. We drove around the beautiful Golan heights and then down past the Kinneret, which was 200 meters below sea level. From there we got into four jeeps and drive around the Golan heights, which was breathtakingly beautiful. Among the many sights were fruits such as mangoes, figs, watermelons, and pomelo; the lovely scent of chicken coop; many cows; and gorgeous hills and trees. Then we drove to the kibbutz where we had dinner and a meeting before going to bed early, as most of us hadn't slept in hours. Despite being exhausted, our first day (or half day) in Israel was more beautiful than we could have imagined, and the Golan Heights was the perfect introduction to Israel.