By Sammy Two weeks in a tiny room, shared with three other people. Feel free to leave the room, as long as you are okay with losing $30,000 and being kicked off the program, deported, and banned from coming back to Israel for the next ten years. Someone from another program left the room to […]
Israel
Silver Linings in Jerusalem
By Sami On this quiet Shabbat evening I sit alone on the couch while my new roommates nap. There’s not much else to do at the moment. Jerusalem has restrictions in place requiring American students to quarantine for two weeks, and at times, without proper motivation (and with 108-degree weather), we find ourselves struggling to […]
Three Weeks, Two Different Worlds
By Abby A lot of people say the secret to happiness is living with low expectations, but I disagree; how can you possibly be happy if you maintain a pessimistic outlook? Instead, I have adopted the no expectations approach. In my last blog, I had grumbled about the lack of information given to me about […]
From Within
By Maia I’ve probably spent more time in my apartment in the last two weeks than I will spend in the next few months. Two weeks ago, I boarded a flight to Israel with a folder full of immigration documents and an agreement that I would spend my first two weeks in quarantine without leaving […]
Far From Home
By Maia Ever since Friday March 13th, the last day I stepped into a classroom, traveling to Israel to begin my gap year has seemed like my ticket out of the pandemic. I planned my gap year before the pandemic and luckily I have not had to change my plans. Knowing my next steps during […]
The Transition
By Sammy Our lives move so fast, we don’t even get to enjoy a transition. Without this pandemic, I would have gone straight from graduating to being an 8-week camp counselor to possible going straight to Duke. I would be jumping from one experience to another, without even realizing that I’m heading into the biggest […]
Pre-Israel Jitters
By Abby I love making lists, whether it’s a post-it note to-do list or a messily scrawled grocery list. There is simply nothing more satisfying than a document that clearly conveys information. Unfortunately, that is not the Israeli way; my program has not communicated what I should pack or what I should expect. In fact, […]
On flexibility and planning a gap year
By Amichai When I first planned my gap year last spring, I thought that, having gone to SAR High School, a Modern Orthodox Yeshiva, I wanted to step out of the Yeshiva world and experience new things. So I picked Hartman, a pluralistic, co-ed, Israeli and American program, believing that going there for the year […]
Jonah – First Month in Jerusalem
It’s been a month since I first arrived in Israel, and the experience so far has been unbelievable. For the first week, I stayed in the small desert town of Sde Boker, which is probably best described as a desert oasis. For someone who hasn’t been to Israel before, let me set the scene for […]