Until we meet again

Well I’ve gathered all my things and have packed them up, but am having a much harder time gathering all my thoughts. I leave for the airport in just a mere couple of hours, and while I’m quite excited to see all my friends and family, have potential jobs that I’m excited about ahead of me, and eat some Mexican food and sushi (the 2 food categories I’ve missed out on the most, despite all the delicious middle eastern food), I can’t help but be sad to leave what I’ve come to know over the past several months behind. While I still can’t see myself actually settling down permanently in Israel for a variety of reasons, I still have learned what a special place it really is. I mean, where else in the world do you watch the Olympics and (on a Saturday) the announcers continually say, “Shabbat Shalom.”

My last week on the farm was wonderful. I did quite a lot of dishes, helping with the hospitality portion of the farm, as well as got to know some really nice Israelis who were staying there for a conference nearby that weekend. I also did a little more painting, and continued helping around the farm. I finally felt confident in making the most basic cheese all by myself, which was fun. And also the farm grandpa, Avi, took me on an awesome tour of the Golan Heights. It’s a beautiful area, but also a place that has seen many recent wars- there are quite a lot of abandoned bunkers around and minefields with fences surrounding them warning you to not go in to them because of the mines. Apparently the mines were put there by the Syrians, so it’s not really worth Israel’s time and effort at the moment to try to dismantle them right now without having a map of where they are (which would have to be given to Israel from Syria). Another day when the 2 new volunteers showed up, he took us all to Nazareth for the afternoon. It was quite interesting with lots of Christian history. We also ate knafe in many different forms at an amazing Arab bakery. Nazareth is apparently one of a handful of cities in Israel known for Arabs and Jews living side by side in relative peace.

Sitting on a Syrian tank from the Yom Kippur war for 1973

Mount Tabor behind me- our stop right before Nazareth

One type of the knafe

The last bit of excitement on the farm for the week was that the family found a viper in the yard. Quite poisonous- glad it didn’t find me first. They said in the 30 years they’ve lived there that they’ve only seen 3. I have a photo of it with its head chopped off, but I’ll save that for viewing off the blog for those interested. Volunteering on an organic farm through WWOOF has been something I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while. I couldn’t be happier with my experience. I feel like it was a wonderful way to see a side of Israel that wasn’t a large populated city as well as to meet the locals. It may have only been 2 weeks out of the 6.5 months that I was here, but it was definitely a major highlight to this trip.

Having fun cleaning out the kids' pen 

After the farm I have been spending my time hanging out with friends and embracing being a tourist. I went to the graduating Bezalel student’s final show and was totally blown away. The ceramic work was phenomenal and a huge inspiration to keep pushing myself. I also went and checked out all of the other departments, and while I enjoyed a lot of it, I was still the most impressed by the ceramic department (I may be biased). The industrial design department was quite impressive, and really fun to wander around and see the products they invented or reinvented the design of. I also toured the City of David (including the tunnel where you wade through water), the tunnels under the Western Wall, and walked around the Mount of Olives.

View of The Old City Jerusalem from Mount of Olives

I can’t say it enough how much of a wonderful experience this has been. I may do one more post once I get home, but if not, thanks everyone for reading my posts! And I’ll see most of you in the very near future J.

Jessica the Goat Whisperer... Not Quite

Up in the Northern part of Israel in the Lower Gallilee, is a magical place called Yarok Az. When I last said I was departing to this farm I was both excited, and thought it had lots of potential, but I was also nervous- mostly about getting off the bus at the right stop and navigating my way to the farm. Luckily both things went more or less as smoothly as I could have hoped, and I have settled in to my temporary home very nicely. The farm is in a village called Moshav Ilaniya, which is fairly close to Tiberias/Nazareth/The Kinneret (The Gallilee). A moshav is different than a kibbutz in that on a kibbutz everything is communal (or it at least used to be that way). But on a moshav everybody owns their own land and does their own work and makes their own money.


My first day I didn't do a whole lot, but I met the family who owns the farm- a husband and wife (Shahar and Hadar) and their 3 little girls, and the wife's father and mother (Avi and Esti, who used to own the farm) also live on the property and the husband, Avi, runs a good portion of the day-to-day operations. I also met 3 other wonderful people who were also volunteering and had gotten here a few days before me. They helped show me the ropes and helped make me feel comfortable here. They are all leaving before me on their own times, so I will possibly be the sole volunteer here for the remainder of my time on the farm. The family is all extremely warm and welcoming also. Not only did they have all us volunteers to their house for Shabbat dinner, but Avi likes to take the volunteers on field trips around the region. When I first got here he took us all for a swim in the Kineret which was very fun and refreshing.

The food that the farm grows is not for profit, so while it's quite large by most people's definition of a garden, it's not a large scale agricultural production. The food is mostly to feed the family, the volunteers, guests that may stay here, and their friends and neighbors. They also have 2 milking goats and 5 kid goats. The goats also produce a fair amount of milk, but again it's not sold. They used to sell their dairy products, but their main source of income right now is the hospitality section of their farm. They have 2 "eco-domes" which people can rent for the night to sleep in. The property is along the way of a popular trail that people hike called, "The Jesus Trail." Basically it's about a 4-day hike people can do that goes to various sites that had significance in Jesus's life. Many hikers will stop here for the night if they are hiking that trail.

The domes and part or the fruit and vegetable garden

The hut I've been living in

Let's get to the magical part though, it goes something like this: want a salad? Go pick it. Want some tea? Go pick some leaves (spearmint, lemon basil, something pepperminty called white micromeria). Want some milk for your cereal? Go milk the goats and boil it. Want some eggs? Go say please and thank you to the chickens. I find it to be a very special thing to be able to sustain ourselves predominantly from the food right outside our back/front doors.

Ready for tea

The past several days I have been working on a mural/border on a wall that they want visitors who hike the Jesus Trail to be able to sign. I can't say it hasn't been awesome to sit around and paint all day. Other things that I do around the farm include weeding, picking the produce to make sure it doesn't get too huge or overripe, stain some wooden boxes, and clean out the extra straw from the goat cages. And honestly the last one could be a little gross, but I found it quite fun. The kids are in their own pen and it's quite hilarious trying to clean up with them in there because they're more or less like little puppies. They're so eager to not only see what you're up to that they stand exactly on what you're trying to clean up, but they are also constantly trying to nibble and lick you.

The border I was painting

Detail shot

The cheesemaking has also been a dream come true for me. Remember way back when I got to Jerusalem many moons ago that I said I had discovered labneh (as I described, a mix between Greek yogurt and cream cheese)? Well I got to learn how to make it, and it is delicious! And I've made milk, yogurt, and a cheese called tsfatit, which I find to be very similar to fresh mozzarella. It's all fairly easy, mostly it's just a process of bringing the milk up to a certain temperature, then bringing it back down to another temperature, and then adding bacteria and possibly some enzymes, depending on what you're making. I haven't had to do any of the measurements, so I don't know exact recipes, but I'm hoping I can replicate some of these at home, now having the basic idea in my head of how it should go.

It's a good thing I already have a ticket home booked, because otherwise I may never have been able to leave this farm.

The yogurt in bottles- similar to kiefer

Making the tsfatit

The tsfatit- 3 of the 5 cheeses from this batch

Sayin hey

Mr. Cock-a-Doodle-Doo running quickly away in fear because he needs a better internal clock
since he cock a doodle doos all the live long day and night

June has already come and gone

Well, as I suspected, time flew by and my program is done, I've had to say goodbye to many of the wonderful new friends I met while here, and I am out of my apartment. I’m not living on the streets, so don’t worry. My friends Rachel and Ben from camp (when I worked there in 2008) have graciously allowed me to use their incredibly beautiful apartment (that overlooks the Israel Museum and the Knesset) as a home base for the rest of my travels here.

Fun fact: because their apartment is near the Knesset (and the President's house), you often hear a motorcade passing with the sirens blaring. Which then means you can effectively say that the Prime Minister and/or President gave you your wake up call for the morning.

Before heading out to their HUC Shabbat dinner

Here’s a look at one of the projects I worked on this semester. The basic explanation is it’s based on the idea of souvenirs and what sort of memories I would want to take home with me from these past months. So I designed “personal souvenirs” that were each based off internal or external body parts to remind me of different aspects of my travels here. For example, the ear has a whistle attached to it to remind me of the Hebrew I heard while here, that while I enjoyed it, sometimes it just sounded like noise.

My personal souvenirs 

There are a few things left on my list of things I’m trying to do before I leave Israel, and one of them was to go to the Hadassah hospital in Ein Kerem and see the [Marc] Chagall Windows. I took the bus there, and they were absolutely gorgeous. Chagall uses a style to make the stained glass have a beautiful watercolor look to it, which is different than most stained glass.

The Chagall Windows at Hadassah Hospital

And now I'm off to Tel Aviv for a couple days to enjoy the beach, and then I'm heading off to the Lower Galilee to participate in WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms but through the WWOOFing Israel section) to volunteer on a farm- Yarok Az. I am both excited and nervous. I hope to see another side of Israel, as well as to learn a bit about organic farming, and most importantly I hope to learn to make goat cheese.

Maybe I'll even get my own photo with a goat