Israel – Yalla!

6/19/19 to 7/1/19 – Tel Aviv/Jerusalem/Golan Heights/Dead Sea/West Bank – Israel

Crew – Birthright (Taglit) Israel!

Picture Above (Left to Right): Gal, Yair, Or, me, Bar

Watching fifty Jewish kids of varying degrees of drunkenness at midnight in Tel Aviv try and fail to do a name off, a role call involving everyone yelling another person’s name, was John Mulaney worthy comedy. Watching our guide, Yahel, scream “You are all fucking fruitcakes” while laughing his ass off I genuinely believe could be made into an SNL skit. Welcome to Birthright Israel also known as Taglit!

My birthright group combined 43 Americans flying out of LAX, seven Israeli defense soldiers, two American volunteer guides named Kyla and Zac who had completed birthright, one paid Israeli tour guide (Yahel) and a legendary security guard for a crash course in everything Israeli over ten days. We had 30 hours of travel to Israel including layovers and saw nearly every part of the country on a bus that continually blasted whatever music someone yelled out to play off the aux. Get ready for a lot of names and people I wish I could talk about more.

The seven Israeli soldiers were required to wear their uniform at the holocaust museum and the military cemetery but besides that were simply tourists alongside us. Israeli has mandatory military service for every citizen and we had a wide variety of skills. Noa and Gal were non-combat army soldiers. Yair was a physics major who builds missiles because he went to college first and has the rank of lieutenant. The first Eden was an army engineer (they get the fun job of blowing stuff up). The other Eden was a paramedic. Gal was a naval communications soldier and Or was the only full combat soldier in the group. They were also all bros.

We spent the first few nights in the North exploring of Israel exploring the Golan Heights, orthodox jews (probably offending them knowing our group) and doing a water hike. That involved us getting up to our chest in water and doing the equivalent of creek stomping. Memorable for the sole reason of Yahel asking who wants to be baptized and when I raised my hand promptly getting shoved underneath the water. This inevitably led to some statements Christians might find questionable and those of us already soaking sharing the love. In contrast, the Golan heights viewpoint was an army base and there are trenches lying around to dive into the worst case. Turns out Syria right now cannot be counted on to be politically stable.

Next up were the major cities of the trip. Jerusalem’s old city was truly an archeological wonder which makes sense considering that Jerusalem could be the third oldest continually habited city in the world being over 6,000 years old. The old city contains three incredibly holy sites for the three largest monotheistic religions. The Western Wall seems unreal with the tens of thousands of wishes put into the wall and the number of pilgrims alongside our group visiting the wall.

In contrast to Jerusalem’s holiness, Tel Aviv was the hipster cool city of Israel. We’re talking a thriving start-up scene and amazing nightlife. With it of course comes the expensive… well, everything but that wasn’t our problem! Exploring the old port of Jafta and the entire city was a dream in tourism where I even felt safe at the same time. The open markets of Tel Aviv although so hot and cramped was a peek into the chaos of a classic Arab market. Would’ve been better if every member of our group hadn’t been dying of heatstroke by that point.

So far, I’ve described the entire trip with the atmosphere of being enjoyable at best and physically demanding at worst. Birthright attempts to give you the happiest possible version of your trip to Israel and….. oh crap we’re visiting the holocaust museum on day six. Now I’ve spent a lot of time studying holocaust, genocide and generally depressing museums but traveling with an all Jewish group with a tour guide whose parents were in the holocaust leads to an atmosphere. People were crying and rightfully so throughout the entire tour. The museum does a fantastic job of bringing home the personal stories that make the holocaust such a hard period of history to stomach and the personal stories of immigration do provide an argument to Israel that I can’t argue with (a feat). What does a person do when they don’t want to return to Europe and the US refused them in their hour of need? As I mentioned in Japan and Germany, sometimes you just to have to visit the exhibit on your own and experience it.

The largest culture shock of the trip was when we piled into our bus to head into the middle of the desert and stay in a Bedouin encampment. The Bedouin’s are an incredibly spread out group of nomadic Arabs who roam multiple countries in the middle east. Whenever you imagine the stereotypical camel rider in the desert you are imagining a Bedouin. I can also now say I’ve ridden a camel with Or. I was almost thrown off my feet twice because of how camels sit up and they piss on their legs to keep them cool which gives off a memorable aura. I have mixed opinions on the matter of riding the camel because it’s hard to truly tell if the animals are being treated humanely. I did search up the company online and while they claim to be humane and the government agrees they don’t commit animal abuse that leaves a lot of questionable grey area on if the animals are treated well. I work for an animal shelter; would you expect me not to fact check?

After the tents, we continued into the desert towards the dead sea and Masada, a UNESCO site. History lesson: Masada was an ancient Israeli fortress used during their revolt against the Romans in 100 AD. Second History Lesson: the Israeli lost and before the Romans could storm the fort 960 Israeli men woman and children committed ritualistic suicide. There were three survivors to tell the tale.

UNESCO sites do not have the reputation of being resorts. Rather they are often physically demanding and crumbling ruins. Masada takes this to a whole new level. 1,000 ft of elevation gain over 1.7 kilometers while tough was around the difficulty of many hikes I did in boy scout and on backpacking trips. The kicker was that to catch the sunrise, you had to make it to the top before 5:20 at the latest and the fortress gets so hot that it’s illegal to hike it after 8 am. So 3:30 am I’m in the hotel lobby drinking coffee with Corrina and Davvy (most others didn’t want to get up that early) while grumbling until we headed out at 4:30. A classic cross country lesson was that finding and matching the fastest and most aggressive member of your group will always be the best way to make good time. With that solid advice in mind I was a complete idiot and decided to try and hold pace with Yahel who was at the front of the group. Catch me and the tour guide booking up the mountain screaming curse words at the top of our lungs on why in gods name we decided to go at this pace. Unforgettable and definitely recommend yelling “I’M GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK” when you get tired while hiking. Very cathartic.

We weren’t only hiking ancient ruins: Birthright kids know how to party. Our guides sincerely gave us time to go buy alcohol and people were throwing parties nearly every night of the trip. The legal age of entry in 90% of Israeli bars are 18 and the night fifty of us piled into one bar was memorable. Normally not my style but how often do you get a chance to party in a foreign nightclub?

The dead sea directly followed Masada and can best be described as uncomfortable in the same way that Scuba Diving for the time can be uncomfortable. Besides being creepily warm to the point of burning any cuts, it was truly near impossible to go underneath the water. The salinity content bounces you instantly to the surface. Humor was provided when someone shouted, “does anything live in the Dead Sea?” Also, pro-tip, don’t piss in the dead sea. I heard enough screaming to teach me the results of that experiment.

Food was the only part of the trip that we were expected to pay for, and once a day we were sent out on our own to find a meal. Yair bless his soul agreed to be my food guide alongside Sade, Corinna, Jessie, and Renee most days. The places he took us for mouthwatering and always had a great vegetarian option. At one hole in the wall in Jerusalem, the staff yelled “yooo Taglit!” and gave me vegetables in pita that was deep fried with salsa that even I will admit was astonishing. The meal was made even better when three 6’ 4” individuals sporting Red Berets, full army uniform, sunglasses and rifles on back walked out of the restaurant and were so hot that I thought it could only exist in photoshop. These commandos didn’t even say anything, they just smoldered into the distance. Renee bless her soul sputtered out a few comments I’m not sure I can write on this blog.

Um. With that aside, I never did get to eat Shawarma and the hotel breakfasts were always fine and nothing special. Of entertaining note was in the Bedouin tents they quarantine all the vegetarians for dinner. I imagine they do so to make serving the meals easier, but I appreciate the theory that they’re worried our ideas are contagious and want to make sure they don’t spread. However, the four vegetarians: Meital, Nicole, Kyla and I at the very least had something great to bond over.

It also turns out half of Piedmont was in Israel at the same time. The first shock came when I walked into the Israeli Entrepreneurship Center and nearly said hello to Danny DeBare without even recognizing him. The center was the equivalent of a summary of the Silicon Valley of Israel and the chance encounter was even better because Danny although far more Jewish than me, really despises Birthright. Birthright remains controversial for a multitude of reasons and while I personally found the trip not too whitewashed or pro-Israel and recommend it, I’m a cynic and I encourage anyone to look up the controversy. Back to Danny though we got to catch up (he’s STEM now?) and even got a photo.

The most insane coincidence of the trip came when we were eating lunch in a mall, so damn Jewish, and I was eating bad Chinese food. Kyla over her acai bowl (she had a psychic sense for those things) beckoned to me that someone was behind me and Jacob Prager and Adam Porter are standing behind me! I’ve known both since elementary school and not only are they on another birthright trip, Max Beacus and Daniel Alderman are behind them. Daniel lived on my street during elementary school and we would hang out seven days a week sometime. We got out of touch in High School and I haven’t seen him since he went to Tufts last year but it was amazing to be able to catch up with him and he even stayed in the same hostel as our group the last two nights.

This all brings us to our final night in a hostel after ten days of travel and multiple Shabbat. I wish I had time to talk about my roommate Kevin getting stuck in security, losing Backgammon to Corinna and Gal, Nathan and Ben as my other roommates and definitely the endless arguments Renee and I had over University of Michigan vs. Michigan State.

Go Green! Go White! Can’t Read! Can’t Write!

I’m not a nice human.

But the final night was a sobering experience for many people in the group for despite only knowing each other for little over a week, I had the honor to meet some truly amazing humans through our little birthright group. We had individuals from all over the country who represented a wide variety of interests such as Jessie teaching elementary school, Julian also hoping to study engineering, and Davvy was even engaged. I love a good affirmation circle but the one we had was special. I really do hope to see members of my group in the future if they ever come to the better part of California known as NorCal. “Yalla” in Israeli slang means “Lets go!” or “You coming?” and represents our little group’s view towards exploration and the future quite well. Knowing how small the world seems, I’m sure I’ll run into some of them in my travels soon enough.

Sam’s Sermon Scales:

West Oakland BART similarities? – 4/10. I hate to say it but many parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem smell even worse than West Oakland and litter was everywhere. On the sides of freeways you can see shantytowns and the heat really just adds an extra spice of sweat and grumpiness that truly does remind me of Monday morning on BART. The people were nice the majority of the time but the number of scammers in the tourist areas quadrupled since we all screamed birthright and even with me haggling a necklace to 1/3 of its original price, I’m sure I got ripped off.

“I could make this better!” – 9/10. While the instant coffee of the hotels was god awful the Israeli make the best-iced drinks I’ve ever tasted. Even their equivalent of Peets called Aroma, aka a chain brand, served an iced coffee that was far more like a Frappuccino/Javiva than iced coffee but was also more addictive than crack. One of my friends named Ethan went out of his way to buy the iced coffee wherever it was sold. As a bonus, Taglit gave us coupons for free coffee from Aroma at times and the specialty coffee shops made fantastic iced lattes.

Folks of Culture? – 11/10. Jerusalem remains one of the oldest continuous cities in human history and has been controlled chronologically by the Jews, Persians, Romans, Ottomans, Christians, Ottomans, Mongols, Ottomans, British, and then the Jews again. That’s just one city and the country has a fascinating blend of ethnicities, lifestyles such as the nomadic Arabs of the south, and history that makes the country an archeological haven. The catch being that this fascinating blend of ethnicities comes with constant ethnic tensions and the Palestinian Israeli debates are only the surface.

Golden Hour Opportunities? – 9/10. The desert provides an awe-inspiring backdrop for many sunsets in the case of the Bedouin tents or sunrises in the case of Masada (which I think should be a must-see). Even in broad daylight the sight when you enter Jerusalem, the Western Wall and the Syrian border are majestic to witness and our group took a metric ton of photos at these sites.

Did the vegetarian starve? – 9/10. Besides the ubiquitous shawarma of the Middle East, there was plenty of food porn that also happened to be vegetarian. Yair became my food guide for most of the trip and brought us to endless amazing food. Of special note was a high-end dinner that I only ordered coffee at but the other members of my table ordered food that came with unlimited refills of veggies, salad, and warm pita bread. I got an unforgettable meal for $5 including tip.

“Hey boss, can I work more hours?” – 11/10. Birthright pays for approximately $3,500 of the trip and required me to pay for one meal a day, coffee sometimes and souvenirs. So thank you rich donors in Israel and America who believe I should be able to go on this trip. The amount of money I spent on a 10-day excursion across the globe which didn’t require me to work came out to $400. Let that sink in.

Cooler than Middle Earth? – 7/10 while Israel has its moments and the religious symbolism of the country alongside ancient sites are breathtaking, the country itself lacks the magic that shows up in some countries. Israel feels very similar to the EU in the major cities and we only spent one night in the desert and a few in the North which felt like nothing special. The exception to this blunt review was the final night of Birthright which was unique to the program but magical.

At the end of the many hugs that signified the end of the trip, I headed to a hostel for the night in Tel Aviv and the next morning caught a bus at 3 am to Jordan to explore another unique country. Funny how fast everything changes.

A final note: Israeli cannot be called a safe country. While writing this a member of my birthright group ran away from an ethnic riot. But assuming you don’t act like a complete idiot I loved seeing the many sites of Israel and the entire country was so tiny that you can see a dozen breathtaking sites and eat a pile of delicious food in a week if you move fast enough.

Photos are attached below. Credit goes myself (somehow) and Sade.

Best,

Sam