Shawarma Drama: Highlights of Israel

Hello dear readers, old and (probably) new! I am freshly returned from the infamous duty-free 10 day Israeli adventure generously bestowed upon anyone who can convince a few officials that they have ties to Judaism. To give you short answers to the typical questions: Yes, it was amazing. No, we didn't sleep. Yes, we met Israeli soldiers, and they were smokin hot. No, I have not become a fanatic Zionist. And yes, I did indeed ride a camel.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Birthright/Taglit franchise, it is a trip mysteriously funded by old Jews who schemed up a way to force young, energetic members of the tribe into intensely intimate quarters for 10 straight days in the hopes that A: they will experience the homeland, donate to help their military, and perhaps move there one day to B: marry someone else from the trip and make lots of Jewish babies. There are many different companies that plan these trips with more or less emphasis on factors like religion, outdoor activities, education, members from the same city, and so on.
For years, I have heard tall tales of these strange trips, and decided to wait until my little sis was old enough to go with me (age range is 18-26), mostly so I knew I'd have someone to sit with on the bus if everyone else was a spoiled douche nozzle. Since this was my last year to go, I did some serious research and settled on Israel Outdoors, which seemed to have a good mix of sentimental and exploratory activities, and less of a religious but more of a spiritual angle. Erin and I had our interviews, set the dates, packed not nearly enough underwear, and after 4 days in NYC, we took off for the motherland.

First of all, I am EXTREMELY glad that I waited until I was older to do this trip. There is an option where you can go into a group that is 22-26 rather than be lumped in with hyperactive 18 year olds, mostly to reduce the risk of in-group homicide. Our gang definitely brushed past a few younger groups during our adventures, and I think we were all in agreement that a trip like this is best experienced with a few more years of Life 101 under your belt. Not only does it allow you to see the country and the struggles within from a different perspective, but when you've left school and are in the workforce, you realize how hard it can be to make friends in the real world. Friendship is most easily fostered when people spend a lot of time together, and spending 10 days on a bus together is almost like a crash remedial course in going back to dorm life. Also, once you've grown and traveled a bit on your own without Mom and Dad to schedule your trips, it's a nice change to hand over all the planning headaches, and have your biggest responsibility be to show up at a bus on time wearing appropriate clothing.
The best feeling I had on this trip was an immense sense of gratitude, and while I don't think that's outside of the capabilities of someone who is 18, I do think it may not be experienced in a such a full and overwhelming way.

Our trip was abounding with hikes, heat, and history (wonderfully brought to life for us by our brilliant and patient tour guide Veronika Lacktman). The very first day in Israel, we landed, got on the bus, and went directly to a "mild" hike which ended up leading the group down the side of a mountain assisted by metal staples driven into the rockface.

Awesome!

While Erin and I, long familiar with the adrenaline rush of heights thanks to years on Mom's ropes course, loved every minute, there were a few members of our group that had some difficulty with it. BUT, dear readers, this simply provided an opportunity for the first of the notable members of our trip to step up. Doug, AKA Boujie, saw the difficulty some people were having, and took it upon himself to guide them, step by handhold, down the mountain. With his help, and the cheering of the masses below, everyone made it down safely, and for the rest of the day we scampered in and out of long-abandoned caves carved into the mountainside, and lunched next to the noisiest herd of cows I've ever heard in my life.

Our first couple of nights we stayed in a Kibbutz, where we were quickly made to get used to the idea that Israelis have salad for breakfast and don't think twice about it. Erin and I were lucky enough to be roomed with rockstar twerker and dimple-sporting badass Jody, and without further ado our room had the perfect trifecta of bangin Jew booties.

I mean, seriously.

In fact, getting to come 'home' to those girls every night has made me want to room with people again, which I never thought would happen. Don't get me wrong, I love having my own space, and if I don't have my own bedroom I may cut someone, but having people to hash out the day with in such an easy and casual way felt very home-like, and I kind of miss that.

I'm not going to recount every day, but highlights of the trip include:

Rafting down the Jordan River. Besides the fact that I had the Michael Jackson Free Willy song stuck in my head, it was peaceful, beautiful, and I ended up not even minding the 12 year old Israeli boys who totally pwned us in a water fight.

Ascending a huge hill at the end of a long hike, to find that a genius entrepreneur had set up his ice cream truck right at the top. Chocolate truly is the great equalizer.

Drifting into an artist's gallery/porchfront in Haifa on a beautiful day to talk to some of the residents about their life in the town. This may not seem like a standout moment at first, but WAIT THERE'S MORE.
I guess someone spotted a guitar, and asked pretty boy Scott to give us a tune. Although not everyone knew it at the time, he is the head of a band called the Shadowboxers, and what followed was nothing short of a seduction of the entire group. Listening to him sing first The Weight and then a song of his own composition, we sat on a porch surrounded by trees and flowers, with a gently blowing breeze, and one by one, fell under the spell of the strumming of the guitar and a voice reminiscent of Sir Timberlake. As you can imagine, his vocal stylings were in high demand for the rest of the trip, and the Shadowboxers now have 40 more loyal fans. Check them out!

The cover that got them retweeted by JT himself.

Relaxing on blankets behind our hotel rooms on the grass with every forbidden bottle of spirits our group could muster up.

The stinging water of the Dead Sea. Yeah, floating that high in the super salty water was fun for a few minutes, but between the water temperature clocking in higher than the air, the weird oily sensation on my skin, and feeling the need to keep my legs closed tighter than a Victorian corset lest the salt slip into some, er, unsavory places, the novelty wore off rather quickly. I did enjoy the salt scrub and the mudbath, though. I'm still marveling at the softness of my skin.

Playing charades on the roof of our hotel with the entire group. Even better, having the game derailed by Mathias waltzing in to read a Pablo Neruda poem... in the voice of Liam Neeson. Yet another panty-dropping performance from one of our boys.

Getting into a discussion with Sharon, one of our Israeli companions, about his feelings on life in Israel and the military. There are only so many blogs you can read about other people's opinion before it seems rote, but hearing it from a real person made me want to research more about the politics and conflicts there.

Walking back to the hotel, a pound of baklava in hand, singing every Broadway duet I could think up with fellow actor Jordan. It started with Love is an Open Door and sort of just... spun out of control. Thank goodness at least one other person on the trip understood my need to express my emotions through musical theatre.

Having a huge sleepover in the Bedouin tents in the middle of the desert. We got to listen to a Bedouin man talk for a bit about how things have changed for his people because of new technologies, and in his opinion, clearly not for the better. I actually agreed with him on a number of points, but drew the line when he advocated hitting your kids if they step out of line.
The dinner we had that night was, without contest, the best meal of the trip. We huddled on the floor around huge trays of rice, chicken, hummus, tahini, pickles, and mounds of flatbread, and everyone dug in. We used utensils at first, but the group agreed to abandon them within minutes. That was followed by everyone huddling around a fire, skipping outside the fence to go stargazing, and then passing out in sleeping bags on the floor of a huge tent together.

Visiting Yad Vashem (Holocaust History Museum) with our wonderful museum guide who somehow managed to balance amazing energy and hope for life with proper gravitas and quiet anger at the horrible events that transpired. There were not many facts about that time that were new to me, if only because I developed a bit of an obsession with the Holocaust when I was in middle school, but the sense of personalization she brought made the stories strike unusually close to home.

Running around a farm in the middle of the desert getting to pick every tiny tomato variety you could dream of off the vine and feasting upon my spoils. I used to hoover up boxes of grape tomatoes if Mom dared to bring them home, and I literally could have stripped every vine in that massive greenhouse, given half the chance.

Pure happiness.

We also got to pick our own carrots and some herbs, not to mention being informed of the ingenious Waterworld-esque technique the farm used to keep the plants well-hydrated and happy.

And man oh man, climbing Masada. Our group was supposed to leave the hostel at 3:30 am to make the hike in time to catch the sunrise at the top. Well, being distracted by cookies and that heavy molasses feeling you get in your body when you wake up so godforsaken early, we were running almost a half hour late. The sky was beginning to lighten by the time we got to the base of the mountain, and about 10 people in the group started setting a pretty fast pace, much to Veronika's chagrin.
After our first group stop, we came to the first of the stairs. Those. Fucking. Stairs. Erin took it upon herself to count them on the way back down, and (give or take 20, she reports) there were 924. 924 steps between us and seeing the sunrise the way we had heard about, with the clock ticking. Basically, we had about a half hour to do a 45-50 minute hike if we were going to watch the sunrise, so the stupidly determined among us took off at a high clip.
Zach, who all throughout the trip, entertained us with his wonderful, spur-of-the-moment jokes, his insane ability to climb just about anything, and his constant concern that everyone in the group was participating and getting an equal piece of the experience, zoomed ahead. However, Mathias' long legs (along with the spirit of Liam Neeson, which he was clearly channeling) pulled him into first place as he charged up like the ibexes we had seen so many of. I set off after Becca, with Nick behind me, and started climbing those stones slick with thousands of previous footseps one by one.
Most of my close friends know that I have a small personal challenge when it comes to cardiovascular exercise. When my heart rate gets above a certain point, I have a pretty strong emotional reaction, and start crying. I'm not going to go into the details, just suffice to say that my emotional state is very susceptible to influence from the physical world. (If you've ever seen me eat an oyster, you know what I'm talking about.)
So, after maybe step 200, I had a pretty intense inner struggle to deal with.
In my typically overdramatic fashion, this mountain started to represent all the struggles I had been dealing with in the month before I came to Israel. Trying to forge into a completely new career basically from scratch coupled with a heart-wrenching breakup had been taking its toll on me, and while Israel had been a wonderful respite from dealing with all of that, if the Lion King has taught me anything, it's that you can never run from your problems indefinitely. I started to feel that seeing the sunrise from the top would be the sign from God that I needed to find out if I was headed in the right direction, if I would make it.
Eventually, Becca dropped behind me, and as Zach ran ahead, I was faced with nothing but step after step that never seemed to end. My heart was pounding out of my chest, my legs were burning, and my emotions were getting a good frothing. I wanted almost nothing more than to take a break and try it at a more reasonable pace.
Almost nothing.
Every time I felt like stopping, I looked over to the ever-lightening spot in the sky where the sun would peek over the mountains. I thought about all the other times I've stopped myself short of my full capabilities, and simply said to myself "Not again. Not this time."
In a wonderful coincidence, Nick somehow managed to spew out an occasional "Let's do this!" or "You've got this!" whenever I felt my will wavering, and at some point I no longer felt that I was climbing the mountain, but that I was pushing the mountain further below me with every step I took. When I started to feel almost detached from reality, I finally pushed away the last step, found a stone wall, sat myself down on it, and focused on the horizon. Within 5 seconds, the sun's first brilliant rays blasted through the sky.
And yep, you guessed it folks. I cried. I cried the unbridled, hiccuping tears of a small child, overcome with gratitude and the feeling that yes, I was headed in the right direction and yes, I was strong enough to push through.

I BEAT THE SUN, BITCHES!

I could go on and on about the different things we saw on the trip, but I'd like to take a moment and acknowledge how lucky we all were to be a part of the most openhearted and decent group of Jews I've ever met. Erin in particular was worried that we would be stuck together the whole time because of typical JAP-ness (Jewish American Princess, not Japanese, to be clear) or arrogant douchbaggery, but that was not the case. Everyone in our group was always willing to help out someone who needed it, was always cooperative if not always enthusiastic about our outdoor adventures, and clearly was open to learning and respecting the history behind every site we visited.
I believe the trip was enriched for every one of us merely by the presence of the other members of the group. Talia with her outrageous and effortless sense of humor, Brittanie and Meaghan with their abounding radius of sunshine and positivity, Lacey with her resounding laugh (and the only eyebrows and smile I've seen that could compete with Emilia Clarke), Aviv with his quiet, comforting presence, Lily with her quick sass, impressive knowledge of the topography, as well as being one of the few people who could actually answer Veronika's questions, Ben with his trusty Google glass who, between his budding bromance with our security detail Shak and actual romance with Disney princess-looking Israeli soldier Haran, somehow managed to land a place in both Cutest Real Couple and Cutest Couple That Wasn't A Couple, Jared with his ridiculous propensity for public speaking, Samuel constantly donating his thoughts to our reflective group talks, Arielle's amazing earrings and willingness to guide some of us through a couple of yoga poses... I could go on and on about these smart, sweet, fun, and talented people.
Who knew that people with grown-up jobs could be fun too? I'm so used to spending my time with freelancing artists at this point, but I clearly need to expand my social circles.

And of course, my personal experience was enriched by choosing to go with my sister. Yet another reason why I'm glad we waited this long to go together, having Erin there both as someone to rely on and someone to look out for helped bring me into the moment and appreciate the trip not only through my experience, but through watching her experience it too. We were one of 6 sibling sets on the trip, and I believe Israel brought new dimension to all of our relationships. If I had come here with Erin 3 or 4 years ago, I probably would have tried my best to spend time away from her, lest we get bogged down in a embarrassing and petty fight. But in light of our developing closeness over the last few years, we were able to back away from pettiness and pay due homage to our surroundings. Having her to hold after my visit to the Western Wall was such a relief, and I was truly touched when she told me she put a prayer in the stones for me.

#sistersister

Once again, gratitude emerges as a major theme of this trip.

I'm not really sure how to sum up an experience like this, and I don't think there's any real way to do it. I feel like I've been lucky because, as part of my upbringing and living in Miami, NYC, and LA, I've been around Jewish people my whole life. Not many people in our group had that luxury. Many came from places where they were the 'token' Jew and had become disconnected from their roots. Me being the holiday-hungry lady that I am, I never felt detached from my backround, but I also never had much reason to believe that it was that special. After hearing about our history as we were visiting the actual sites where the events took place, I can honestly say I feel differently now.

And yes, I will return to Israel someday... If only for the hummus. I don't know how I'm going to go back to Sabra after this.

So thanks, mysterious old Jews trying to breed us. This was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Almost continually I felt like a kid again, between the delight in new sights, flavors, and people, the luxury of not having to plan a damn thing, and forming fast friendships amidst sleepovers and bus buddies.

Not doves, but close enough.

10/10, would birthright again.