Purim is an extremely festive holiday here in Israel, so we took the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the chag on Workshop! Throughout Karmiel, families paraded around in costume--including the babies--and even employees at our local shops here in town dressed in costume! A few kvutzamates stayed in Rishon during the weekend and joined the other North American kvutza in attending a street festival featuring HaDag Nachash, a popular Israeli band. Here in Karmiel, Meital went to work making delicious hamentaschen, and packaged them as mishloach manot (food presents) to give to our neighbors!
On Saturday night, a group of us went to the local Masorti shul near our house to hear the annual reading of Megillat Esther (the scroll of Esther). Everyone at the shul dressed in costume, and games were run by the Rabbi's wife between Megillah chapters. After the reading, we stayed to shmooze with the members of the shul, and of course to eat lots of hamentaschen!
Back at the Karmiel house, Jonah and Shahar ran a Purim-themed chevrati for the kvutza. First, everyone dressed in costume and split into pairs. Then, pairs competed against one another to create the most aesthetically pleasing hamentaschen, but each pair had to have one person in back with his eyes closed making the hamentaschen, and one person in front directing his teammate. The chevrati was very silly, and in the end we all just baked hamentaschen together as a kvutza!
At our messima in Tveria, Julia, Max, and I joined the madrichot at the BAMA in running stations at a Purim festival run jointly by Hanoar HaOved and HaTzophim (the scouts). The two youth movements built creative stands to run for chanichim, and lots of kids from throughout Tveria came to be part of the fun! Max helped out at the Lucky Machine Station (a station where chanichim could win candy), and Julia and I got artsy at the Face-Painting Station! A few chanichim from the BAMA came to help the madrichim run their stations, and it was wonderful to see the kids that we work with each week wear the chultzat tnua (movement shirt) and act as madrichim for younger kids. A bit into the festival, Hanoar HaOved madrichim spontaneously began dancing together at the center of the stations!
Now, hamentaschen have left the store shelves and packages of Kosher for Pesach (Passover) food have have taken their place. Messima Tzvatim have been running Pasechot for their chanichim, essentially special days revolving around the theme of Pesach. Instead of running a Pasechet in Tveria, my tzevet is instead helping to renovate the new building for the BAMA. After it's former space was condemned, the BAMA has temporarily been located in a bomb shelter in the Ort School where we run our morning peulot. While the room is nice, it is only one room and the school atmosphere is still present. The new building is large with many rooms including a kitchen, and is located in Shikun Daled (the Daled Neighborhood) where many of our chanichim live. We've spent the week organizing supplies, chipping paint off the walls, caulking and painting the walls, and weeding and cleaning the space around the building. It's been fun getting to know the BAMA madrichot, the chanichim, and other madrichim coming to help out through doing physical labor with them, and I'm looking forward to finally running peulot in the BAMA's new space!
Our house has been becoming more and more beautiful as we continue to live in it. The walls downstairs are now covered in homemade artwork, maps, photographs of the kvutza, a Hanoar HaOved flag, and other miscellaneous creations! This week, we added a new painting to our home, a painting bearing our new name: "Kvutzat T'Kuma." The name means "rebirth" and "rebellion"--words that we feel have been very present in our kvutza process. Knowing T'Kuma's meaning, it's very fitting that our painting includes a phoenix, rising with the sun to meet the sky and spread its light to the rest of the world
