Happy November

Hey all,

Sorry its been so long since I've written. I had a full week on Kibbutz and we've been working, learning, and having a lot of fun. We have been working in the date fields.... where we have been closing up shop for the off season. To be precise, that consists of stacking and rolling up huge 12 foot mesh bags in groups of 24. The mound of bags for us to old grows everyday and we may never finish, but we have fun out there. As for learning, we have had sessions about community, Israel, and modern Zionism, and its really interesting to see all the different viewpoints in the group. We had a really fun session called "Beseder, Lo Beseder" meaning "Cool, Not Cool" where there were about 50 topics that we all had to classify as either cool or not cool.... these led to discussions of topics from Gilad Shalit to Brittany Spears. While some topics were funny, it really made us think during certain topics.

Every Wednesday, we have a trip off of the Kibbutz. Last week we took two small hikes to incredible sand dunes in the desert and to a beautiful Red Stone Canyon. We ended the day in Eilat with some time on the beach. The hikes were a great chance to see the beauty of the South of Israel, and it really made us think as we learned about the relation of our land to the Torah, and about claims that one mountain we were on is supposedly the real Mt. Sinai. As part of our day, we also went to a lookout point over Egypt. It was neat to be able to see Jordan, Israel, and Egypt all in one glance, and its wild to see how the markings of the border have changed so much with time and advancement of security measures. What used to be large rock pillars to signify a line has now become high security border fences. Despite the unfortunate fact that the original simple border is gone, it was easy to see that Israel knows what it is doing security wise.

This past weekend, we made the trek to Jerusalem for our first Keshet Seminar of the year. During this Shabbat, we gathered with 200 participants from other Zionist year long programs. We were of all different sects of Judaism, and it was a interesting and controversial weekend that definitely made everyone on Shnat Netzer ready to return to Kibbutz Yahel.

Now we are back at Kibbutz, and we had a great day in the date fields today, with enough breaks for eating all the pomellos we can, of course. The group is so obsessed with Pomellos.... we even had a pomello party the other day where we played games such as "hot pomello" "pin the tail on the pomello" and other crazy pomello games. We also had a great Halloween party last night, and we gave some Israeli's and Australian's their first ever Halloween experience. It was really funny trying to hold a serious meeting beforehand, because everyone already had their costumes on.

The food has been pretty good... we eat lunch in the dining hall, and its great having such good variety everyday. For dinner, we cook meals as a room, and I am proud to say I have come up with some great dishes. Tonight, we had Moroccan style couscous with fresh picked dates, and other fruits and veggies. yum!

As for pictures, for simplicities sake, I am going to try to start posting lots of pictures on here. I will do separate posts of just pictures and maybe captions, and please comment on whether I should stick to this or link you to a better photo website.

I am having a great time, and everything around me on the Kibbutz is so beautiful. I miss you all... keep in touch.

-Ethan