Goodbye Holon...Hello Jerusalem!

Sunday morning I said goodbye to the city of Holon. It was time to change sections and move to Jerusalem.

This is the room I slept in for the last 3 months.

Here are a couple of panoramics of the old apartment.
I left this for the next group of guys. Hope they like it.

Look at all the extra money I got from the stipend!

Bye Aviel! Hope to see you in Jerusalem, or when I visit Holon. Good luck with the new roommates.

Jared and Daniel <3 style="text-align: left;">I'm gonna miss the city of Holon. In particular I am going to miss my volunteering. The last day I was the I took a few pictures. Also on my last day I spent an extra hour or two cleaning the over hangings in the playground. They were full of dead leafs and branches from the trees above, all of which was rotting and weighing down the over hangings. The people of the community center were very impressed. It felt good to leave something small for them. On Sunday I was talking to Ines, the volunteer coordinator, while waiting for the bus to take us to Jerusalem. She said told me that I had done a great job working at the community center and Kol Ha'kavod (good job) for staying in the same place the whole time because they needed the help. It felt really good to hear that.

After shuffling my stuff out of Holon, I made it to Jerusalem. I am one of the forty or so YCers selected to live in an apartment instead of in the Judaean Youth Hostel. All of the apartments are on a common stairwell, so people are walking in and out of each others apartments a lot. Similar to a college dorm. The location is prime. Check it out!

View Larger Map

I'm not sure if the map is all that great, but if you turn it to satellite view you might be able to see that we are in the center of Jerusalem. My apartment is about a twenty minute walk from downtown. It sits on the border of Talpiot and Bakah, for those of you who know Jerusalem neighborhoods. There are a few downsides to living in the apartments. For one the commute is at least half an hour each direction. I also have to fix myself two meals a day instead of just waiting in line at the hostel. Also, all of the YC events take place at the hostel, so I might have to crash there every now and then. No big deal.

I am excited to discover all that Jerusalem has to offer and all the education I will receive while attending classes here in Jerusalem.

Coolooloosh!

Thursday night. THE night to go out. Last Thursday night living in Holon/Tel Aviv. Options: 1) Go to a YC party at a rented out club with drama and other not so fun things.....or...2) go to a sweet concert at a sweet location.

I took the second choice. With great pleasure. I was joined by Aaron and our friend Noa who staffed camp this last summer with us. The concert was for a band called Coolooloosh. I had heard of these guys from A-ron and had few tracks on my computer that I really like. The concert was AWESOME! I took some picutures with my new camera! They also featured some really cool artist such as, Asaf Avidan, Mira Awad, and some comedian who's name has slipped my mind.

Tel Aviv Siyur

A tour around a city that I have spent a lot of time in, but never got an educational guide.

We started the siyur in the neighborhood the Tel Aviv started in: Nevet Tzedek.
Nevet Tzedek was the first neighborhood in Tel Aviv. I had not realized it until I got there, but I had been there with my cousins over Rosh Hashana. The siyur was very interesting. There is so much history in such a small area. Most of the streets in that neighborhood are named after influential people who started the city of Tel Aviv. People like Aharon Shulsh. The funnest part was the guides were running around dressed up and acting as if they were those famous people. It was a way of educating similar to the wax museum peulot of YJ, but much much funnier.


The neighborhood is still occupied. Matter of fact, its one of the most favorable places to live in Tel Aviv. This area of the city is very artsy, relaxed, and beautiful. It is also the cultural center of Tel Aviv with many art galleries, book stores, museums, and the Israeli Dance Center. A small house in Nevet Tsedek cost at least a million dollars, not shekel.

From the old neighborhood we walked up to Herzl street. To get there we walked on bridge that passes over what used to be the only rail line from Yafo(the main port at the time) to Jerusalem. Once at the beginning of Herzl we stopped inside of the large building called the Shalom Tower. Inside, the whole ground floor has walls cover in mosaic. The mosaic was made by Nahum Gutman. The mosaic visually describes the founding and development of Tel Aviv. Grandpa, you would be in heaven if you saw this.

From the Shalom town we took a good 20-30 minute walk to Rabin Square. We talked a brief bit about who he was and why the location was so important, but that is for the next post. This day was actually the anniversary of Rabin's murder. To see how Israelis think about it, we were given a few questions to go ask people we saw walking on the street. Questions like "Where were you when it happened?" and "Did you agree with his actions?". It was really interesting to talk to people. A few people we talked to were actually right there when the assassination took place. This Saturday is the national memorial service, I plan on attending.

Ride for Fighters

I was joined by thousands of people in an event called Ride for Fighters. The event was sponsored by the JNF and took place in the Golan. The program's purpose was to ride bicycles along the area of Israel's soldiers have fought for for so long and to ride in memory of them. Read more about it.

The first stop we made was at an old battle post. The bunkers were still intact and everything. It was a very controversial place, its too bad I can't remember the name. From there we were bussed to nature reserve/hiking area. There waiting for us was a stage and several speakers. These included: the chairman of the JNF and Gilad Schalit's father. At the end of this opening ceremony each participant released a balloon. Just about every Year Courser and Masa participant was there. It was great to see people I haven't gotten a chance to see yet. I saw my friend Sara who I met at Sde Boker in 2006.

From the opening ceremony we got on bikes and rode the designated course. It was about 5 kilometers on a rough dirt road. Not long enough at all.

At the closing ceremony there were a "carnival" of many of the different units in the IDF. It was really cool to see things close up and to see so many soldiers in one place.

The closing ceremony was great. It was very patriotic and brought everyone to their feet. This ceremony included a live demonstration of the tank unit. We are talking live ammo! It was so loud and you could feel the percussions.

The whole experience was a great insight into the IDF and showed some of the nation's pride.