Eretz Yisrael Sheli Yafa

These past two weeks were ones filled with lots of nation-wide celebrated events! The first of these was Yom HaShoa, a day in remembrance of the Holocaust. On the eve of Yom HaShoa, Max, Julia, and I went with our chanichim in Tveria to represent Hanoar HaOved V'HaOved at a city tekes (ceremony). The following day, all of Workshop participated in a Yom Schichva, where both kvutzot from Karmiel (Kvutzat T'kuma) and from Rishon (Kvutzat Rakefet) engaged in peulot together at the ken in Kiryat Chaim to evaluate our relations with each one another as kvutzot here in Israel, and discuss our presence in the movement post-Workshop.

Later that evening, we all went to Kibbutz Lochemei HaGettatot (The Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz) for an enormous tekes. Many speakers addressed the crowd, including Chavka, one of the ghetto fighters who was part of the Dror movement. The tekes also included a Hanoar HaOved singing group, representatives from various youth movements expressing their throughts, and an actress performing a dramatic monologue of one of the ghetto fighters--one that happened to be sitting in the audience, in fact.

The following Tuesday was Yom HaZikaron, Israel's memorial day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Workshop attended a tekes in Nahariya, and joined Hanoar HaOved in its mission to hand out free flowers to those entering cemeteries. Flower prices rise for Yom HaZikaron, and the purpose of this mission is to ensure that everybody can afford a flower in order to pay respects to fallen loved ones.

Tuesday night marked the beginning of Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day)! Those of us who decided not to travel spent the night celebrating with all of Karmiel! We saw The Idan Raichel Project (for the second time on Workshop!) play outside of the Iriya (City Hall), and then spent the night exploring the crowded street and attending a city-wide silent rave! The next day was a rainy and windy one, and we spent the afternoon barbequing against the wind and enjoying our day off taking pleasure in each other's company. We finished the night by moving the couches aside in our salon (living room) and doing Rikkudei Am (Israeli Folk Dancing)!

These past two weeks also included the Birthdays of Workshoppers Joel and Julia! To celebrate, members of both Kvutzat T'kuma and Kvutzat Rakefet spent last Friday hanging-out at the beach in Akko! It was a very fun, beautiful afternoon, and was a great opportunity for the kvutzot to spend some quality time together!

This past Thursday, Kvutzat T'kuma spent our Yom Kaveret on a siyur (tour) of Haifa with a focus on kiyum mishutaf (shared existence), between Jews and Arabs within Israel's largest mixed city. The siyur was an interesting one, visiting various sections of the city and interviewing random passerby. Some residents we interviewed expressed loving Haifa and elaborated on their satisfaction by saying that Jewish and Arabs live and interact with each other peacefully. Other residents said otherwise, explaining that Jews and Arabs don't really interact much, and keep to their own groups for the most part. After discussing how we envision kiyum mishutaf throughout all of Israel and whether or not Haifa is a commendable example of it, the day ended with a small group of us visiting members of World Hashomer Hatza'ir living in Haifa on their gap year program. It was nice to meet more people taking part in a similar experience, but visiting the commune also made me very happy to be on Workshop.

This past weekend, us North Americans joined the Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans at Kibbutz Ravid for May Day Seminar! Similarly to Rabin Seminar, we split into small groups of people from different countries for peulot. Aside from getting to know each other and playing lots of fun games, together we discussed the history of May Day and its purpose as a holiday whose significance changes each year, exploitation of workers in the world today, and capitalism's presence throughout the wide spectrum of exploitation. One particularly heated sicha (discussion) was one following a peula about sweatshop labor and other employees working in almost unbearable conditions, and a movie about the benefits (such as laundry service, free food, and a fully equipped gym) to workers at Google working happily for 12-hour days. The discussion questioned whether employees at google are exploited, as their benefits are given in order for advantage of the company to gain better profit, even though they're happy while working there.

It was fascinating to learn about a day concerning unity and human rights that is rarely recognized in the North American community, and also important to have this seminar before going to the large rally in Tel-Aviv on May Day. Additionally, this seminar was meaningful to me as a compliment to my messima. On one Yom Tzevet, Orr (my tzevet's melaveh) took Julia, Max, and I to a shuk in Tveria to interview youth that we saw working about how long they've been working, how much they're paid, and if they enjoy their jobs. We've also been temporarily running the BAMA inside of Tveria's Snif, a center for working teens. Looking at the posters in the Snif explaining the proper rights and wages of youth workers really resonated with me throughout May Day Seminar, particularly with an article describing Hanoar HaOved's recent mission in creating a union for the youth who work at BurgerRanch within a couple of hours. Indeed, labor rights are human rights, and are rights that I want to encourage others to think about, as well as their role in a society that mistreats it's members through many levels of exploitation.