Onward Israel's Impact: Interview with Stef Part III

To conclude, Stef talked about her experience joining and working with Onward Israel, the program where I met her.

Mariya: Jumping back in time a little bit, when you were in Onward Israel, what made you decide to join that team? 

Stef: Before I made aliyah, I was a high school teacher.

M: What subject did you teach?

S: I used to teach Jewish Studies at a Jewish high school in Chicago, and I loved working with teens. The next step after teens is college students. So when I came here and this opportunity came up, I was like, "OK, that's a population of people I enjoy working with, the young adult population." And the truth is that a number of my students that I worked with in Chicago came on the Onward trips when I worked there. It was really fun to see them in their next stage of life.

Another aspect was that I love when people come to experience Israel. I think Birthright is a great program, but I think the biggest barrier after Birthright is experiencing Israel beyond the tourist bus. I think it's great that people come here and have a wonderful 10-day experience, and see all the sites, and interact a little bit with some native Israelis, and it's all fun, and maybe there's some learning content. But when that trip's over, it was a vacation, and a lot of people say, "Oh, I'm going to come back to Israel," and then they don't because life happens. You go back to school, you get a job.

Onward is this really unique opportunity to come back to Israel to have a job, to live in an apartment, to not always be on a tourist bus. Yes, we did some trips and we tried to get out there, but the bulk of the program was to give people a taste of what it's like to live here. It's not exciting every day because you're going on a trip and you're going to the Dead Sea, and you're going to Masada, and you're going to Tel Aviv to a nightclub. You lived in an apartment, you had to go to the grocery store, cook your dinner, wake up in the morning, take a bus, go to work, meet locals who were working in a field you might be interested in working in some day, come home, be tired, make dinner, go to sleep. You know, that's what normal life is. I think people often have this expectation of living in a foreign country that it's going to be fun, fun, fun all the time. I think a really important piece is that if you really want to experience what a culture is like you have to immerse yourself and see how the average person spends their time.

Onward was a unique experience in that it was able to give, even if it was just for two months, people who had been here before and had already experienced the travelling side of things, to then experience the living side of Israel.

M: Yeah, that's one of the things I loved about the program. And still in interviews for jobs that I've had since then, that is one of those formative experiences that I always come back to that kind of shaped part of the career that I went into. Is there anything you remember most fondly from the year of my trip (2013)? You were just pregnant with your twins.

S: [Laughs] I remember being on the bus, and I don't think I had told anyone that I was pregnant, right? I don't think you guys knew yet.

M: Not right away, no.

S: I remember we were on the bus on one of our trips, and I got so nauseous, I threw up. And I remember some people who were sitting in the front of the bus started whispering, "Did she just throw up? Is she ok? Is she pregnant?" And I was dying laughing in my head. I figured at some point over the summer I'm going to have to tell them because at some point I'm going to have a belly.

That was actually my first summer with Onward was your group. What was exciting for me was that the program hadn't existed in Haifa prior to that summer. That's one of the jobs that I got upon accepting the position with Onward. They had had programs in other cities in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in other summers, but not in Haifa. So I was given this blank slate. They were like, "Here are these students coming. Find them jobs." And I was like, "OK!" I really spent a lot of that year researching what are the jobs in Haifa, what do these students want to be doing, and making those connections. By doing so, I really got to know my city so well. To know what kind of industry is in Haifa, to know what kinds of organizations, non-profits, schools, to get to know the neighborhoods, where everything is located, especially because I was also new to the city at the time.

I had only been there for the year leading up to that summer. So it was an amazing opportunity for me, it was very personal, that I got to know all of these places. People who grew up in Haifa their whole life don't know these places exist there. Why would they? I don't know. I don't necessarily know all of the industry where I grew up. It really gave me this amazing opportunity to delve deep into Haifa and get to know the city so well. It also gave me an opportunity to learn what students in America want to be doing here since it was the first summer, and in that way, sort of guinea pigs. From the company's side, what they're hoping to get out of the experience, from the students' side, what they're hoping to get out of the experience, and making that connection -- that's what stands out for me.

And I don't think everything went smoothly. I think there were issues and all different things, and that's the problem solving piece of the job too -- helping people figure out how to make the best of a situation, how to make things work.

M: Yeah, that trip was really, really special. Something I've said, too, to people from the trip who I still kept in touch with is part of that was because of you just being such a great guide through the whole process even when things didn't go smoothly.

S: Thank you.

M: Now that you’ve moved on from Onward Israel, have you maintained your connection with participants on the trips (other than me, or course) or the members of your former team?  

S: Yeah, Facebook is an amazing tool in that it allows you to keep in touch with so many people even if not actively, but somewhat passively. I am Facebook friends with many, many, many of the participants that came through the program. There have been a number of participants who have come back. While that may not be the main goal of the Onward program, but one of the underlying goals of it is that they build a deep connection with Israel and they want to come back whether it's for visits (which is great), for a sabbatical, for a time period of some point. Some students have come back and they call me up! It's great to hear what people are doing with their lives.

There are participants who have gotten married already. There are participants who have gotten careers in the fields that they had their internship in. There are participants from Onward that have made aliyah. It's fun for me to see my babies growing up. It's fun to see where people have taken the experience from when we were together and moved forward. If you ever come back, call me up! I love grabbing coffee with people and just catching up, seeing what people have been up to. I think that's been, for me, a big piece of the Onward puzzle, is that through Facebook and other social media where we keep in touch passively, but when people come back here.

Not just me, but I know people who have come back for a family trip and they get in touch with their old boss and they go out for drinks with their old boss. I think that's such a great thing also because it means that you have a deeper connection with the people, with the culture, with the community whose here. And not just say, "OK, I'll go to a hotel, I'll go to a museum, I'll go on this hike." No, "I'll go meet up with a former colleague, a former boss, we're going to catch up."

M: Alright, well, thank you so much Stef!

Life as an Israeli: Interview with Stef Part II

While Part I of my interview with Stef dealt with her immigration to Israel, this second part concerns Stef's experience living in Israel in terms of day to day life. Whether you are a frequent visitor to Israel or you've never stepped foot in it, her insights are informative of what it can be like for someone there, especially, but not exclusively, as a Jewish person.

Mariya: I know you lived in Haifa before and now you're in Jerusalem. What would you say are your favorite things about either one of those cities?

Stef: I think one of the best things about making aliyah and going straight to Haifa is that there isn't a big English-speaking-olim (immigrant) population. So it sort of threw us into the midst of becoming Israeli fast and hard. We didn't have a choice. We had to learn Hebrew if we wanted to socialize, we wanted to have friends, we wanted to get by. There are many places to make aliyah in Israel: Jerusalem is one of them, Tel Aviv, other cities like Ra'anana, Modi'in where there are huge English-speaking populations, where it's an easier landing, definitely. There you can have large social circles, where most services are in English, and most people choose to go that route because of the easy landing.

For us, we went to Haifa for Matt's school. He was doing a doctorate at the University of Haifa, but it was great. It was exactly what we wanted, exactly what we needed. We learned Hebrew fast, we integrated culturally, and we felt that Haifa was a really great place for that. Not to mention, there's the beach, which now that we live in Jerusalem we really miss the beach in Haifa since Jerusalem is landlocked. Haifa in the north is just so beautiful. It's green, and there are hills; we used to always go hiking on trips around the north; we loved being out in nature. There were hiking trails inside the city of Haifa, which was so fun. You can just walk off a main street and you're in the woods. It was great. We really loved living up north.

We came to Jerusalem for work and school. I always say one of the greatest things about Jerusalem is the weather. It's hot and dry in the day, but it cools down at night, whereas in Haifa it was hot, then hot, and more hot. And super humid, but in Jerusalem it's not so much. So we joke that that's best part, but there are other really great things. Obviously, historically, we love taking the kids to the Old City, and to the shuk (outdoor marketplace), and there's so many fun things to do here. While we still maintain a lot of friendships with Israelis, we also made a lot of friends with English speakers here, for better or for worse. We don't know where our future will be -- if we'll stick around here, or if we'll head back north, or if we'll be in a totally different part of the country. I think that for us, obviously, being in Israel is the goal, and it's great to experience different parts of the country and see what they have to offer.

M: Some people who have never set foot in Israel and only read about it in the news have this perception that life there is perpetually dangerous because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are bombs flying everywhere, and you have to watch every step you take. I'd love to hear from your perspective, having lived there for eight years now, how has this conflict affected your life?

S: There have been times in Israel with wars and conflicts and it is dangerous. But there are times when I feel safer here than in the US. There have been shootings in synagogues and in schools, in public places. If you're a person of color in the US, it's a scary time. I look at the news in the US, and I feel the same way here as I'm sure a lot of people in the States feel looking here. Like, "Wow, I can't believe people are living there. Every day must be so scary." I have the same thoughts across the ocean looking in the other direction. I think what we see the news often amplifies what's going on at the extreme ends of society. Even in the midst of the most intense times, day to day life here in Israel continues. People don't think about that because why would that be in the news? People don't report it.

Since we've lived in Israel, we've been here for military operations. I have 6-year-old twins and when they were babies and we lived in Haifa, there was threats of rockets. I remember one night, in the middle of the night, I heard the Tzeva Adom, the Red Siren, went off, and then you have less than a minute to get to a bomb shelter. We had these infant twins and we were in our pajamas, all of a sudden there's this blaring siren, and we have to grab the twins and run into the hallway, and there are all of our neighbors in their pajamas and their babies. It was such a crazy moment, and it made me think, "Wow, this is our life. This is what we're doing." So there have been moments like that, but on a day to day basis, I wake my kids up, make them breakfast, take them to school, I go grocery shopping, and all of the boring things in life that everybody does everywhere. It feels like a very safe place in that way.

M: I appreciate that you mentioned both sides of it because it's true that the news wouldn't report a story that said "Mother wakes her children up and takes them to school." Have you done anything or know of any organizations that are trying to bridge this religious and cultural gap between Palestinians or Israeli-Arabs and the Jewish community?

S: I think that as student in university right now I'm in an interesting position because I think it's one of the most integrated areas of Israeli society where you have religious Jews, non-religious Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, people from all different backgrounds, international students, all in the same place -- in university. While it's not an organization that is actively doing anything, I do spend every day with a wide, wide, wide range of Israelis from all backgrounds who are all together studying.

I think from that place, it reminds me of what someone once told me that in order to make peace, we have to humanize the other. I think that a big problem here is Israel is that there is a lot of segregation. There are Jewish towns and Arab towns. Even within a city like Haifa which is a very integrated city, one of the most integrated cities in all of Israel, there are predominantly Jewish neighborhoods, predominantly Arab neighborhoods. While there is a lot of integration in the workplace and in public transportation, in terms of where people live there is still a lot of segregation.

Here in Jerusalem you feel it even more because it is a much more politicized city than Haifa. But for me, in my academic bubble, we're all kind of there learning art. Politics does play a big piece because I think people use art as a way of political expression, so politics does come up a lot in my program. It's coming from a place of opening up and speaking about our experiences and getting to know one another on a deeper level, which doesn't necessarily happen in other parts of society. So I feel lucky right now where I am. I have friends who live in Ramallah, I have friends who grew up in small Arab villages, and I have friends who are completely secular Jews who grew up in Tel Aviv.

Even sometimes in the religious and secular divide in Israel, people don't know the other. If you are Dati, if you are religious, you only really know religious people. If you are secular, you only know secular people. It's a great benefit of being in my program -- getting to know people -- and we have a common core, which brings us all together, which is art, which is what we're there to learn. It really does bring different aspects of Israeli society together.

THIS CONCLUDES PART II. YOU CAN FIND PART I IN THE PREVIOUS POST. STAY TUNED FOR PART III.

From American to Israeli: Interview with Stef Part I

When I interned in Haifa, Israel for two months the summer after my junior year of college, I got to know our leader, Stef. She was responsible for facilitating our experience in the program. Now, seven years later, we reconnected, and Stef shared a bit about her experience making the transition to Israel later in life. She is a mother of four kids: two 6-year-olds, a 4-year-old, and a 1-year-old. She is also currently an arts student at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, which is her third time attending university. She is married to Matt who is an archaeologist, and they have been living here in Israel for eight years. Read on to learn more about her!

Mariya: What’s your aliyah (immigration to Israel) story? What prompted you to make this change in your life?

Stef: So I think the first time I actually thought about making aliyah was probably when I was 12 years old. My mom had a good friend, an Israeli woman, who worked as an ulpan teacher. She invited us to come spend one of our summers in Israel when I was 12 years old, and I actually lived at this old ulpan. Ulpan is where you learn Hebrew when you come here. It's sort of like an intensive immersion Hebrew program. We did it for a summer. It was us and a whole bunch of other families and people who had made aliyah. We didn't. We were just here to learn Hebrew and spend time with this family friend. So I think that was the first time it popped into my head as a possibility since we were surrounded by all of these other people who had made aliyah.

By the time I was 17 years old, I was really involved in youth group and Jewish summer camps. Israel was always a prominent event in my teen years. So the idea of living in Israel was always spoken about, and I did an Israel trip in high school. I really fell in love with the people and the country, and thought that this could be a place I would want to spend my adult years. I planned to come on a gap year program between high school and college, but it was in the midst of the intifada, the Second Intifada and my parents pulled me out of the program just before it started. So I went off to university. Y'know, my plan had been that I would do a gap year program, make sure it was what I wanted to do, stay, join the army, spend the rest of my life here. But that didn't happen.

So I went to university in Canada, and decided that I would try again for my junior year abroad. So I came for my junior year abroad for a semester, loved it, decided right then and there that I wanted to give it a shot living here, whatever that meant. I came back after I graduated and did my master's degree in Jerusalem, and I gave myself three years (it was a three-year-long degree) to decide if this is really what I wanted to do. If I really wanted to spend my life here and live here. It was kind of this dream that always was, but I didn't know in practical terms what it meant. So I gave those three years as my trial period. I decided that it was definitely what I wanted to do. I felt at home here, I felt that my future was here for so many reasons.

I went back to the US, worked for a few years, came back with my husband (we made aliyah together). So it was sort of a dream that was building for a long, long time until all the pieces fell into place.

M: Wow that's amazing that you already knew from age 12 that this is what you wanted to do. Did you feel, when you were dipping your toes into the possibility of living in Israel, that there was any element of culture shock?

S: I think for me the culture shock was more of a comfort. I grew up in Buffalo, NY, in a place where for my whole life my Jewish identity was something that made me different from everybody else. I was one of one, or possibly two, Jewish kids in my class. I went to a Hebrew school that had five or six kids in it. It was a very small Jewish community, where I was. Always the places growing up where I felt most comfortable was at Jewish summer camp, Jewish summer trips, youth group. Also, when I came to Israel, it felt like that environment of being in a Jewish country and all of the things that made me stand out as being different where I came from, culturally were normal here. And I think the culture shock was a comfort in the sense that: "Wow! I can go out to eat at all of these different places. I don't have to check labels at the supermarket. People are speaking Hebrew." Everything was just so amazing that all of the things that I struggled with my Jewish identity growing up were all of a sudden easier here. That's what stands out for me when it comes to the culture shock that it wasn't shocking, but rather this is where I'm meant to be. This is where I feel comfortable.

M: How does it feel almost a decade later to call yourself Israeli? Do you think you would ever go back to live in the United States?

S: I definitely feel Israeli, and I think the times when I feel most Israeli is when I go back to the US to visit. Then all of a sudden all of the things that have become normal for me here stand out when I go back there. Here, we are "Americans" in that we have accents and there are still certain cultural things that will always stand out. But I see us spending our lives here. My kids were all born here. My husband wants to spend his life here also. This is our home. This is where we want to be. You know, we'll always go back to the US to visit family and friends, but to live -- not.

THIS CONCLUDES PART I. STAY TUNED FOR PARTS II AND III OF THE INTERVIEW.

On Israel, Internships, and Relationships: Interview with Alex

One of the friends I made on my work abroad trip to Israel was Alex, a leadership consultant and author. She works with leaders, mentors, and coaches who are working on building their purpose-driven team of clients and employees. She helps them learn how to make a large social impact, mentor and develop a group of people, whoever that is in their niche, while also generating income. Since December Alex has been running her own business. It's definitely looked a little different with COVID, but it's allowed her to be totally virtual and work anywhere, which she appreciates. If you'd like to to join a community of leaders looking to improve their leadership skills, check out Alex's group We Build Killer Teams here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/webuildkillerteams/

Read on to learn about how our trip impacted her life both professionally and privately.

Click this link if you'd like to watch/listen to the interview: https://youtu.be/VA_fh4_vFYg

Mariya: What made you decide to join the Onward Israel internship program that fateful summer of 2013?

Alex: It kind of just attached to my Birthright trip. So I went to Northeastern University for school, and one of the summer trips that they were doing was the Northeastern trip to Israel with Birthright, and I really didn't want to stay for just two weeks. I was like, "Why don't I take advantage of the free ticket?" Since they allow you to stay for free. So what I ended up doing was two weeks of Birthright, I travelled alone for over two weeks, and then I did Onward Israel for two months.

M: Nice! And that was your way of kind of continuing to connect with Israel?

A: Yeah, and I think I didn't want to go home either [laughs]. So it was my way of being like let me have this incredible experience. It's basically paid for by Onward Israel, by Birthright, it was such a good opportunity for me to get to explore and it was literally a once-in-lifetime experience. I don't know when I'm going to have three months to do that again.

M: What did you end up doing for your internship in Haifa?

A: I worked at the University of Haifa and I did an internship in their Psychology Research Department. It was actually kind of interesting. They were were doing a study on acculturation with people who were immigrating to Israel from the US, Russia, and there was one more country, I think it was Spain. They did tons of interviews on what kids went through when they moved from those countries to Israel, so they did all of these recordings. So I was the one to watch all of the recordings, transcribe everything from Spanish, Hebrew, and English into this one transcript for them and help them analyze that. And it was sort of interesting because I was going through my own acculturation process and I got to hear about these kids who were adjusting as well. So some of it was boring like literally sitting there for hours transcribing, but a lot of it was really interesting.

M: That must have been a lot of work to transcribe all of those interviews. Were you transcribing from all of those different languages? How did that work?

A: At the time, since I had just finished my freshman year of college and I was coming from a modern Orthodox Jewish school where I was literally taught Hebrew for 16 years, so I could read, write, and understand it. If there was something I didn't understand, then I could look it up. I also minored in Spanish so I could understand a lot of it. And I speak English. So it was a good fit in that it was all of the languages I was decently proficient at in one study.

M: Did you find that it helped inform the career decisions you’ve made since then?

A: Yes, because I'm nerdy. I like to read, I'm very science-oriented, result-oriented, and I do like learning about research. The actual doing of the research was really boring for me. Like sitting there and assessing the results for hours, staring at a computer screen for hours - I could not get into it. So that did actually change my direction. I started to realize for the classes I took at Northeastern plus that experience that I'm not sure I want to go the research route. I want more of the human connection as well.

M: It sounds like you did get some of that with learning about the acculturation experiences. It's similar to what you're doing now with building teams.

A: Yeah, it's definitely similar in some ways.

M: What were your biggest takeaways about Israeli culture in life and work?

A: I think you were at this training they did about what are the differences between the Israeli workforce and the American workforce. I definitely found this to be true: they are very direct, very blunt, very to the point. Not just at work, but everywhere. So like I'd stand at the bus station and the old ladies would shove me to the side as they make their way onto the bus. I think how direct they are is very different from everyone here. And even in my experience building teams, everyone is terrified of having tough conversations, they tip-toe around issues - it's definitely not the same in that respect.

M: Yeah, I definitely saw the same thing. Even in a school culture where I saw teachers talking to kids they were very like, "I'm not sugarcoating anything for you just because you're younger! I'm telling it like it is!" which I kind of appreciated.

A: Yeah, I liked it.

M: Our leader, Stef, really tried to build that sense of community and appreciation for Israel. What are some of the most memorable moments or events for you that really deepened your sense of connection to Israel and other Jewish people?

A: I feel like she did a good job of letting us know what was available. We lived in Haifa, which is not a super touristy area, it's not like Tel Aviv. So there were a lot of people there who didn't speak English, it was definitely very different in that way. So she just did a good job of letting us know what was going on and helped us assimilate well.

One event that stood out to me was, and you were there for this, was the salsa events. The main square where we lived, they used to do these salsa nights. All the local people who lived there used to come and do that. I think it was free and you just showed up. It was so much fun!

I do feel connected [to Israel], my dad was born there, and I actually technically have Israeli citizenship too because he was born there. Besides that, I love the country and I love the people, and I love learning about the history, but I'm not sure I'm super passionate about it in general. Although I love going and I love everything about it. But it's really just like my family history. I got to go places where my dad grew up, there were things he pointed out that I got to go and see. That was sort of special too.

At the time that I was there, also, one of my cousins had her Bat Mitzvah. They came to Israel and I happened to be there at the time, so I got to take part in that. They did an incredible, special service on top of the largest mountain you can climb. I'm blanking on the name.

M: One of my cousins had his Bar Mitzvah while I was there, so I got to go to that too. That was a very different experience because they were Orthodox. And all of the women in the synagogue were behind this divider that had these small spaces that you could poke your eye through to see what was happening on the men's side. So I was watching the whole thing through these little cutouts, which made me think, "I don't know how I feel about this, but alright." But still it was cool to have that experience there.

M: Have you done anything specific in the past 7 years to sustain your connection to Israel or parts of Israeli culture?

A: I think the biggest reminder was that I bought a lot of things to put around my apartment. So I have different posters and different things I bought from the shuks, the markets, that I still have hanging up that remind me of it.

I think the biggest thing that the trip did for me was...I had travelled to vacation-y type spots, touristy spots with my family, but this was the first trip where I went not just to go on a vacation to relax, but to genuinely try to learn and understand a different environment, a different lifestyle, a different place. I mean I just loved that so much that I've just taken so many more trips that, again, aren't just vacation-y and relaxing, but really allow me learn and experience other cultures. So I think it empowered me in that way too. I was like, "Oh, I can do this!"

M: Yeah! What other trips have you gone on?

A: My boyfriend and I went to Iceland for two weeks and we travelled all over there, which was really really amazing! We went to England, we went to France. I feel like I'm missing a country too. There's definitely another place that we went to recently that I can't remember. We started to actually do research on where do people actually hang out. We wanted to get a sense of what this place is really about.

M: Awesome! So you and I developed our friendship over the course of the trip and sort of stayed connected when we got back for a while, but then because our lives got busy we became a bit more distant. Then we re-kindled our connection this year around January just before COVID-19. What prompted you to reach out again and what advice do you have to those who are looking to revisit or sustain those kinds of relationships?

A: Well number one, for the last four to five years my life was, chaos is the wrong word but, non-stop work. So I was literally working from 5am to 9pm six days a week. So it was less that it was a purposeful loss of connection and more that it was just me and I didn't have space for anyone with the point that I was at in my life. That was part of why I wanted to get control back of my time, I want to get control back of my lifestyle. Like I didn't even have time for my boyfriend. I was only seeing him nights and part of the weekends. So once I made the switch to starting my own business, which was end of December/January, I was like, "OK, who have I not talked to in years because I haven't even had the time to take care of myself? Now, who do I have time for?"

I guess I would say, one, it's important to make sure you can take care of yourself before you're reaching out to other people and trying to get set up. Anyone that you had a good connection with, they'll remember that and they'll remember those good memories. So I think like you remember the salsa lessons and you remember the fun we had together. There are definitely plenty of people that I reached out to in January that didn't get back to me or were offended that I didn't have time for them. But you win some, you lose some I think. The people who matter will get back to you and will take you up on it.

Israel: From Working Abroad to Connecting at Home

Israel. The very name of this country evokes a variety of feelings and opinions in many people, particularly in the United States. Even in its 72nd year as a country, its legitimacy still comes into question by people across the political spectrum. As with any country, it is important to separate a nation's government from its people. Unfortunately, they often do not work in conjunction with each other's values.

For those who are less acquainted with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the gist is that it is akin to a religious turf war. Diasporic Jewish people have sought after a home for generations due to the rampant anti-Semitism that has existed throughout history. The location for this home was chosen because of the archeological evidence of Jews living in that area eons ago. Christians and Muslims from surrounding regions settled there centuries after the Jews were forced out, but have not had much autonomy as a nation due to imperial rule by the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, and British. Both Jews and modern-day Palestinians claim ownership of the land, and neither wants to give it up completely to the other. Compromises have been attempted, but they have mostly failed. 

I grew up attending a Jewish school in which Israel was regarded as our holy land and rightful cultural home. As a result, I cannot be unbiased in my opinions on Israel. I have visited multiple times, I have family that lives there on opposite ends of the religious spectrum, and I generally feel a kinship toward the country. I fervently believe that Israel has a right to exist. Do I stand with every political decision that the Israeli government has made? Absolutely not. The same can be said for my thoughts on the US and Russian government seeing as I am a Russian-American. Regardless, I will never stop supporting the legitimacy of Israel as a Jew.

Now that the stage has been set, I'd like to return to the core of this blog's mission: connection. The summer after my junior year of college, I applied to an organization that was offering two-month internships to Jewish college students in Haifa and Jerusalem. There would be a guide to lead us through the program to familiarize us with the city, newly renovated housing provided, and a stipend. I recognized the privilege of this opportunity and saw it as a way to not only develop useful skills in my area of study, but also improve my Hebrew which I hadn't spoken for 7 years at that point, and see relatives that I rarely or never met in person. 

Each participant in the program was placed in a setting that most closely resembled their desired workplace. At the time, I was considering speech pathology as my profession, so I was placed in the Ofakim School for Special Education, which serves about 90 children and young adults with neurological and physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy. I shadowed the speech therapist in that setting and served as an assistant counselor during their summer camp session. Additionally, I worked at an after school program for students with intellectual disabilities such as Down's syndrome. 

I witnessed the more relaxed culture of school personnel compared to my experiences in the US and the much more forward way that teachers communicated with students. They never talked down to the children and young adults, and they showed them a great deal of respect. I also learned how vast the possibilities are for communication. Body language became crucial in understanding and supporting students. 

On the weekends, which stretch from Thursday night to Saturday as opposed to Friday night to Sunday due to the Jewish tradition of keeping Shabbat on Friday nights and Saturdays, our group leader took us on various field trips around the country. Part of the purpose of these kinds of trips was to see the vast and natural beauty of the country and to encourage us to one day make aliyah. For those who don't know, making aliyah means immigrating to Israel, which is also known as returning to the Jewish homeland. 

As a group, we connected strongly with our group leader and continued to keep in touch in various ways after returning home. For some time, we also kept in touch with members of the group with whom we had developed closer bonds. Many of us remained in Massachusetts, the location of our respective colleges and universities. Even though it has been years, the memories from that trip have continued to empower me in my role as an educator.

Stay tuned to learn about my connection with a friend in the program as well as our guide in future posts.  

Celebrating Shabbat

Travel and COVID: Interview with Rianne Part III

For the last segment of my interview with Rianne, we discussed travel and COVID measures. It was interesting to hear about what initiatives are in place to support local business and what it's like to travel independently. It became more conversational towards the end when we contemplated the travel possibilities in a future where COVID-19 doesn't threaten us the way it does today.

Note: If you'd like to listen to/watch the entire interview, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ-iJpXWprg

Mariya: I remember you were travelling mostly on your own last summer. What was that like? Did you find it easier or more difficult to do certain things because of it?

Rianne: I mostly travel by myself anyway just because a lot of my friends have already settled down, married, had kids, all my closest friends anyway. So normally, when I'm travelling with someone, it's with my mom or sister; otherwise, I would go by myself. I kind of prefer it, I think, because you get to do exactly what you want; you don't have to compromise at all. You can be completely selfish. You can go and do and see everything you want. And if you want to, you can always meet people along the way, which is why I stay in hostels because I do want to meet people. So when you do want company, you can have company, and when you want your own space, you can just go and do your own thing.

M: You would probably recommend it to others?

R: Absolutely! I think it's empowering to do at least once in your life!

M: My only experience with that was when I did a program in Israel. It was a work-abroad program over the summer. I took the flight over there on my own pretty much, but I was with other people in the program when I was there, but there were opportunities for day trips and things like that. So I went to Jerusalem, to the Old City. I walked there on my own, and that was an experience unlike anything I've ever had. It does not compare to when I went there with a group of people and we were all crowding to take a picture, and we were kind of rushed like, "OK, great, you got to see it, let's go!" I got to really take it in and take my time with it. That is a nice thing about being on your own is you set your own schedule.

R: Definitely. And I think you learn more about yourself! You discover who you really are. The only downside for me is that sometimes you might go places and people that you're in a hostel with might not want to know you [laughs]. Then it can get lonely, but if you choose to make the effort, there's at least one person who will talk to you.

M: And I'm really glad you made the effort with me!

R: Yeah! I just wish we got to spend more time together. But we'll just have to travel and meet up somewhere again.

M: Exactly! It'll happen someday again. So speaking of travel, since COVID has happened, it’s obviously been much more difficult to do that. I am also someone who is very much full of “wanderlust.” How has England, and your hometown specifically, been affected?

R: I just think we're so in shock that we just don't know what to do. We don't know if we're coming or going. Our prime minister just chops and changes the rules so much that we're all so confused on what we're actually allowed to do on any given day. We just don't know what to do with ourselves. It's been crazy, as I'm sure it has been for everyone. I just think it could have all been so different if we had had a sensible prime minister. I am very outspoken when it comes to him. 

We are gradually opening. Shops have been open for a long time as long as we have masks. We can now eat inside, but the measures are obviously very different from how they normally would be. You can only sit with your household, you have to sit very far apart from people, but I think that's been good. People are keeping to the rules for things like that because otherwise they're not allowed in. They would just refuse your entry. 

We've got something like an initiative in the country. I think it's called Help Out to Eat Out. To help the businesses, we are being encouraged, if we can, since obviously a lot of people have lost their jobs, so they probably wouldn't be able to, every Monday to Wednesday throughout all of August. So many chains of restaurants and take out food, loads and loads have signed up for this initiative, and the prices are drastically cut so that more people are going, but you have to book ahead. I don't know how it works. The government must be subsidizing it somehow so that they're not losing money. Obviously, it's only the first week of August so we've had one Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so I don't know how that's gone so far. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to. Those who aren't able to [space people out] are just staying closed, which is a shame, but some of them can't even have outside seating if they don't have [space] outside. Like if they're in the middle of a shopping center, they can't do that. 

M: That makes sense. What about for your job? How has that changed things at work? [Rianne works in a company that provides home equity loans to people.] 

R: It's totally fine for us all to work at home. It's been weird, it's been an adjustment. I don't like being away from the team because we're a close team. But we're getting bigger and bigger and bigger because the workload has been getting so crazy that we've needed 20 odd new people. But it's been fine other than the amount of work. It's been quite a smooth transition to working from home, so I think we won't be going back any time soon, not even January. We can work efficiently from home, so why not carry on until things are safer? 

M: What have you done (other than working) to keep busy, take care of yourself, and feel connected to people? 

R: For myself, I've been going on a lot of walks. I've noticed that I've been stress eating more than normal and baking, having lots of goodies. And I haven't really been working out like I normally would, so that's really kind of affected me. I didn't think it would, but I always feel better when I work out. So I'm like, "OK, now I need to not just walk, I do need to work out a bit more." So I've started doing that, but only recently. I just feel like I need to do that because I've gotten so lazy watching so much Disney+ [laughs]. I don't know if it's the same in America, but probably. I just heard on the news today that 12 million people, something like that, signed up to a streaming service they weren't signed up to before, which doesn't surprise me really because when we were completely locked down, there's only so much you can do at home.

M: Yeah, it really makes you value entertainment a lot more than you may have realized.

R: And to kind of keep sane before we were allowed to venture out and see people, I was having regular video calls with friends, even like groups of friends. So that we could have "girly nights" because me and my friends normally get together for a girls night, so we're just doing them virtually. It was nice because we kind of put in more effort because we needed each other. Everyone's going through the same thing, and we wanted to be there [for each other] as much as possible even if it's just over video. But now we are able to meet up with people again. We still have to be socially distant, but I think at the moment we only have to be 1 meter (3 feet) apart. So I have met up with a few groups of friends for picnics and walks and things like that.

M: Would you consider visiting the US again when it’s safe to do so? Where would you want to go and why?

R: I really want to go back to New York and Boston, so that I can meet up with you if that ever works out when you're around. There are so many places in America I haven't been. I feel like I've been on the West Coast, then New York, Boston, and Florida. That's probably the only other place I've been on the East Coast. I haven't done much of the middle or down South so much. I guess Florida is the South, but not really. I want to go to places like Alabama, Tennessee. Is Tennessee the South?

M: Yeah, it is.

R: Is it? Yeah, there are so many things I'd like to do in Tennessee.

M: Yeah, a lot of country stars come out of Tennessee.

R: Oh, yeah! And I love country music, but that's not popular here. My American friends got me into it. I have so many country songs on Spotify.

As soon as we can travel again, I don't think America will the the top of my list. Well, actually, the plan was to go to New York for my birthday in November, but that's probably out of the question. So then the next thing I wanted to do was a big three-month trip to Asia. And work said that I could maybe do a sabbatical for that, which is nice. But there are just too many places I want to go in the world! Like Antarctica I really want to go to, and Peru, the Caribbean. Where would you want to go?

M: That's so hard! I've never been to South America, so I'd want to go there. It would be cool to visit Argentina and Chile. Russia is also on my list only because that's where I was born, but it's kind of complicated with going back there right now, but maybe one day.

R: Have you never visited since you left?

M: No, my family left when I was nine months old.

R: Oh, so you really were a baby still!

M: Yeah, so most of what I know about it is through my parents and my family members who still live there. And I've gotten more in touch with some of my family members now than when I was younger. It's been nice to reconnect and feel like I have more of a connection to that place. But that challenge is that my parents have more of a nostalgic feel for it. They have things that the remember that they didn't like about it or liked about it. But it's changed so much since then. My grandfather always said, "I'm never going back. It's not the same Russia I left." And then for me it's just like, "I just want to be able to see something that resembles all of these memories!" One day, that would be nice. I also want to visit Ghana. I do have a couple of connections there with teachers I've collaborated with. So I feel like it would be cool to actually be there, and it's something so different from my experience here. South Africa would also be cool. And Asia too! I really want to go everywhere. It's hard to say what's at the top of my list because there are just so many cool places in the world.

R: And just not enough time or money, to me. If I could travel for a living, I sure would.

M: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being so honest and researching your answers. I learned a lot just from hearing you talk about your country and things like that, so thank you.

R: No problem!

See previous posts for Parts I and II of this interview.

Dispelling British Myths: Interview with Rianne Part II

To get to know Rianne better, I asked her to share some of the highlights of her home country. I think we both came out of this section learning a lot about the other's country, both present and historically. Read on to learn about a side of England you may not have known about.

M: Since we're talking about England, I’ve actually never been there. I really hope to go one day. What’s something about your country that might surprise or intrigue people?

R: Now, this I looked up quite a few things and I learned a lot about my own country. I will reel off a few things that I found. The first thing I want to point out, and this isn't a fact, it's just something I want people to know about England. It doesn't rain all the time. It really doesn't. We haven't had rain for a long time, so I kind of want it to rain. That's the number one myth. It does rain. We do have that kind of climate where if it does rain, it's going to be a bit nonstop, but it's not all day every single day.

This is another thing that lots of people maybe think and assume about England because we're so small. A lot people I've met have asked me, "Have you met the Queen?" And I'm like, "No..." or they'll ask, "Oh, I have relatives in England. Do you know them?" And I say, "No, no I don't. Why would I?" We're not that small! We're small in size, but with the amount of people packed in, there's no chance I'm going to know them. That would be the craziest small world story if I did happen to know them.

M: But you know what's funny, I have a colleague who's from Australia, and he told me that he once got to perform ballroom dance for Princess Diana. But he's not even from England, he's from Australia!

R: That's something else that people think we're obsessed with - the royals. We're not. I feel like other countries are more obsessed with our royal family than we are.

M: There are definitely a lot of Americans who are obsessed with the royal family.

R: Yeah, and I don't know why. I like the younger generation of royals like Harry and Meghan, William and Kate; I love all of them. But not the older ones, I'm not such a big fan.

M: I think part of it is just the appeal. In America, we've never had anyone with the title of king or queen. If you look back at colonialism and how America as we know it today got started, a lot of people who disagreed with the policies that the king presented decided, "We're going to go and start our own country."

R: You know they never taught us anything like that in England in history. So I didn't know why Independence Day [in the US] was Independence Day. I didn't know it was being independent from Britain. They kind of sweeped that under the carpet here. Maybe it's like the big shame.

M: I'm honestly kind of shocked! I mean, England has colonized so many countries. Do you know about the colonization of India?

R: I know that we had colonization. Do we still have colonization? I don't even know. I know that we still have a Commonwealth with lots of countries, but I thought we were losing lots of colonies that we had. But one thing that I did read was that the Queen supposedly owns, well not owns, I don't know if that's the right word, 1/6th of the earth that she still rules over or has had some kind of power over at one point or another, which is crazy!

M: Yeah, there was the expression, "The sun never sets on the British Empire, " because they had so many colonies all over the world at one point that no matter where you were in the world, it would have been daylight somewhere.

The territories that were at one time or another part of the British Empire. The United Kingdom and its accompanying British Overseas Territories are underlined in red.

R: Yeah! I've got some more cool things. I don't think people realize how many different accents we have in England. I think a lot of people assume that it's just like Posh or Cockney. They seem to be the main two that are shown in the media or on TV. So you can travel 25 miles down the road, and it would be a completely different accent. I can often meet someone, hear their accent, and be like, "You are from Birmingham." Whereas maybe in America, I know you have different accents, but maybe you wouldn't know specifically, "You are from this city."

M: I think it depends because there are regional accents and within those that are more specific accents. So I think if you live in a certain region, you get really good at recognizing accents in that region. I can recognize, with those who have heavier accents, what a Boston accent sounds like versus New York or Connecticut. But if you went down south, a lot of Northerners have this conception of what a Southern accent sounds like, but if you went to individual Southern states, and even some cities, you would see that there was a huge difference. So I get that feeling of not realizing just how many accents there are in one place. It's kind of cool!

R: Yeah! That's something I really do like. Oh, another cool thing I found out is that here, in England, you're never more than 75 miles from the sea anywhere in the country. We [also] have over 100 islands in England, which maybe people didn't know. I didn't know that! I could think of maybe 5. We have over 1,500 castles if you like that kind of thing. We have so many of those! The whole of the UK is smaller than the state of Oregon. We are tiny!

M: That's crazy! I didn't realize that it was quite that small. When you say England, do you just mean England or are you including all of the UK?

R: For size, I mean all of the UK. The UK is made up England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but Great Britain is just England, Wales, and Scotland. Oh, and the other thing that I think is interesting is our national dish. People would assume that it's fish and chips or a rice dinner, but it's actually curry.

M: Really? Curry? That probably stemmed from some Indian connections there.

M: Awesome, thanks for sharing that! I remember one of the things we chatted about was English slang. I think that many Americans’ understanding of British slang (especially that of millennials) comes from Harry Potter. Just for fun, what are some slang words and phrases you can share?

Rianne:

Cheeky - mischievous

Fit - hot, attractive

Minging - disgusting

Cheers - thanks

Taking the mick - making fun of someone

Mint - cool

Gutted - sad about something

Pants - rubbish

Bog - bathroom

Scrummy - yummy (scrumptious and yummy combined)

Nowt - nothing

Mug - gullible (You're a mug!)

Snog - make out

Skint - poor

Bagsy - calling dibs or shotgun

I know English has obviously originated here, but we just took the language and destroyed it ourselves [Laughs]. That's probably a bit harsh.

M: I don't think it's so much destroyed as it evolves. As with any language, as time goes on, new words develop, new ideas of how to communicate develop. There was English slang in the 1800s too, and it was pretty different but it was also slang! Slang has always existed as a way to make talking more fun, I think. That's a good list of words, thank you!

Map is composed from the following sources:

Stewart, John (1996) "Cyrenaica" The British Empire: an encyclopedia of the Crown's holdings, 1493 through 1995, McFarland & Co. ISBN: 0-7864-0177-X. 

Brown, Judith (1998) The Twentieth Century, The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume IV, Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199246793. 

Dalziel, Nigel (2006) The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire, Penguin ISBN: 0141018445.

STAY TUNED FOR PART III OF THE INTERVIEW.