What am I actually doing in Israel?

First day of school at Maale!

If you were to explain my program solely based on the pictures I upload to facebook, it might look like all I do is eat delicious food. This is only partially true. I am on a program called Kesher Hadash, the Davidson School of Jewish Education's semester in Israel program. The program aims to expose Jewish educators to a form of Israel education that teaches multiple narratives, and not just the stereotypical Jewish narrative.

There are 10 of us in the program, all with an interest in Israel Education. As a group, we take several classes at the Schocken Institute, a JTS owned building in Jerusalem. We take 2 main classes here:

*The State of Israel: Origins, Early History with Dr. Dave Mendelsson
*Contemporary Israel in Contemporary Jewish Education with Dr. Alex Sinclair

At the Maale Film School we are taking two classes:
*A class to learn about how to critique and analyze film
*A class to learn how to make a documentary film (our final project is a 5 minute documentary!)

At Ulpan Milah I am taking Hebrew (which is going surprisingly well).

There are also mini-courses built into our program focusing on Israel education through the arts, and a specific class on the conflict over the conflict.

A big part of our program is extended mifgashim "encounters" with Israelis. We do this in two ways. We meet bi-weekly with a group of students from Hebrew University to explore different topics about Israel and Judaism. On the alternating weeks, we meet in American-Israeli hevrutot (pairs) to learn together.

Once the Israeli Spring semester begins (March?) we have a second mifgash with a group of students from the David Yellin Academic College of Education. This brings together American Jewish, Israeli Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli students to explore issues of identity, religion and nationality.

We also have various trips and Shabbatonim around Israel. I'm most excited about a trip called Encounter, which happens next month.

To help us synthesize all of the moving parts of our Kesher Hadash experience, each of us is assigned a tutor, a professional in the field of Israel Education to meet with on a regular basis.

When people can't understand why I'm not out exploring Israel, it's because my program keeps me really busy. Thankfully, Kesher Hadash is allowing me to explore Israel through the lens of my program.