Happy Hanukkah!

Since Hanukkah started (on the first) my group has been busy with fun Hanukkah activities, including lighting candles and giving gifts.


On Wednesday night we were all invited to the kibbutz wide Hanukkah party, and were also asked to sing a song for the celebration. A few of the more talented singers in my group performed "Light One Candle," which I must say, was a hit. During the night we saw a series of performances, including teenage girls who danced and a singing group from the kibbutz. During the festivities, a woman asked the crowd to light their candles (which people had brought and were at the tables) and hold them up high while singing together. Hundreds of candles swayed in unison to the voices of Ein Dor. The moment was intense and touching, and for the first time I understood why people wanted to live on a kibbutz. With the loss of ideology (in the form of privatization) I've come to see kibbutzim as just a gated community and nothing more. But I understood during that Hanukkah party that the kibbutz is something more; everybody still knows one another and looks out for each other. People really care about others on the kibbutz, and that is something invaluable.

kids surrounding fireworks

Last night we lit candles and had singing for the holiday. Everybody started up their favorite songs and we all united in joyous celebration.


Tonight we gave gifts. They weren't gifts that we bought, but instead everybody submitted a wish and someone else was responsible for granting that wish. Some of them were reasonable, but most of them were just ridiculous, so a bit of creativity was required to fulfill people's desires. Someone asked for "my name in pancakes" so "my name" was written out on cardboard using drawn pancakes. Someone else asked for a miracle, which resulted in a boy pretending to give birth to a baby. My favorite wish was the request of snow, which was fulfilled by someone dressing up like it was freezing out and covering all the windows with white sheets so it looked like there was snow outside. The whole thing was extremely fun and silly.


While this Hanukkah we (on Ein Dor) are having fun and enjoying ourselves, many people in Israel are not. So perhaps we should focus our hopes for a miracle on the people suffering from the forest fire here and pray that no more harm will be caused from that disaster.

The Golan Heights

Last week we went to the Golan Heights to look at some beautiful scenery and explore the history behind Israel's conflicts with Syria. Some photos from our trip:

Howie and me at a scenic overlook

looking out over the Sea of Galilee (Tiberias is on the right edge of the photo)

The border between Israel and Syria (most of this is the demilitarized zone between the two countries)

Looking at Syria from an old Israeli bunker

Thanksgiving

During the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving the kuvtzah (group) had many conversations about what we wanted to do for the holiday and at a certain point established that we were going to go all out and have a huge Thanksgiving dinner for all 27 of us, plus our madrichim (leaders who help guide our process).

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving we saved money, established a menu, and submitted lists of ingredients including quantities of each recipe. Given that our resources here were slightly limited, we had to spend a considerable amount of time finding substitutes for popular thanksgiving foods, hence the use of yams instead of sweet potatoes (which were still delicious). A lot of preparation was put in by everyone, as some people organized how cleaning would work, while others volunteered to cook, and still more made the decorations. I decided to help cook, though I did mostly preparation work and made some oreo truffles (thanks to my sister-in-law Elizabeth who once made them for us).

the truffles

The weekend of Thanksgiving was hectic! On Thursday night we had a fun party planned for the group, but not before we did some cooking and baking. My friend Jordan and I baked two apple pies which were delicious and decorative.

The rest of the weekend was spent cooking, cooking, and more cooking. In the end we prepared two turkeys (which were spit roasted), four quiches, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, guacamole, corn salad, garden salad, stir fry, deviled eggs, acorn squash dip, potato leek soup, cranberry sauce, and gravy. For dessert we had lemon fluff, oreo truffles, apple pie, apple tarts, carrot cake, and fruit salad. The meal was delicious and fortunately we had tons of leftovers!

Afterwards we all tiredly wandered off to bed, our stomachs full with food and fulfillment. We had spent weeks invested in creating a wonderful experience, and through extensive work, we made our our ideas materialize. Every single person took part in helping realize our goal, which was an amazing feeling.