Meitav



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= STRAUS AMIEL =

Research Question:
How does Amiel help to support Jewish communities in the Diaspora and how does it support its people?

Rationale:
Before I was born, my whole family was sent to the Jewish community in Toronto, to help building the community: my father was a rabbi there, and my mother was a teacher. I was disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to do it too. For as long as I can remember, one of my dreams was to do the same when I get older. I think this project is a great opportunity to learn more about it and about the people who go to the Jewish communities and help them get connected to their Jewish soul.

Straus Amiel:
One day I learned, with a small group of girls and a rabbi who taught us, about Beit HaMikdash and the Mashiach. He said that if we want something to happen now, we have to start doing things as a nation, and not as separate people. The first thing we need to do, our rabbi said, is to be in Israel- to bring all the Jews from the Diaspora to Israel, and to teach them and connect them to their Jewish side. I believe that Rabbi Shlomo Riskin thought the same. That he saw that the Jews who lives outside of Israel stand far away from where they are suppose to be, whether in the physical way- they live in the Diaspora, but also in a deeper way- they don't feel connected to the Jewish part of their soul. In other words, Rabbi Riskin believed that with all the problems and danger of assimilation around the world, the Jewish people need "great leaders" to raise the schools and build strong communities "based on intellectually compelling and spiritually uplifting Judaism" (Training Rabbis & Educators for the Diaspora- Beren-Amiel, Straus Amiel, 6). Rabbi Riskin called Rabbi Eliahu Birnbaum (the chief Rabbi of Uruguay), and they created together the Beren-Amiel program, which prepares teacher to educate children and teenagers who learn in schools in the Diaspora, and the Straus-Amiel program, which prepares rabbis to lead the communities. The two programs are parts of "Ohr Torah Stone". In this project I'll be focusing about the Straus Amiel program. The Straus Amiel program trains the young rabbis to lead and build strong communities and show their leadership in the synagogues and communities in different ways. For example, the rabbis get to understand the nature of their communities and develop the vision and program they would like to run in their communities. They learn how to comfort community members who would come to ask for advices. The rabbis also learn to get rhetoric and public speaking, to inspire their communities with meaningful speeches (Straus Amiel, 3).

The need of great leaders in the communities is strong. For example, people from the Jewish community in Madrid(Comunidad Judia De Madrid) wrote an article for Straus Amiel and said that since the expulsion from Spainand until 30 years ago, there has been no official Jewish community in Spain. They also said that thanks to the wonderful Rabbi they was lucky to get, the community is getting better and stronger, and maybe "the Golden Age will be back again in Spain" (Straus Amiel Graduates, 16). It's clear that without the great training the rabbis get in the Straus Amiel program, they wouldn't know how to run their communities and would eventually fail in this great mission. It's touching to see how the people here are aware of the problems in the communities and are doing the best they can to help the Jewish communities in the Diaspora to make them stronger and more connected to their Jewish soul.

To read more about this amazing organization, click here: []

= Wonder Woman- Sharon Brand =

Rationale:
When I heard we were suppose to interview a person who helps his community, volunteers or does things not only for his own good- but also for the others, I immediately thought about Sharon Brand. Sharon is the exact person for this category- I can tell that she has dedicated her life to charitable causes and helping other people, in many different ways. Sharon volunteers in Shalva, and actually brought it to Gush Etzion. She works in Etrog- which is a very special program in Neve Chana, and also established a gemach (place where you can borrow things that you need for only a specific events, almost for free) for weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc.



Sharon Brand:
Sharon believes that love is the most powerful thing in the world. She gives an example of that: when she went to see a place where she thought to go to for Shabbat, she apologized for the man who helped her and thanked him a lot. He was surprised and said that "we're here to help each other"- and this sentences was with her since then. Sharonsays that we're not just doing a favor for somebody else- that why we're here, that are job in the world. In here I'll try to show you the great love Sharonhas for everybody in the world, and what she does to make it bigger and stronger. Sharonlearned this love from her amazing parents. She grew up in Haifain the best family she could wish for. Her family gave her (and still gives) the two main things in her life: the sense of being creative, and the love. The family was simply giving and helped other people naturally. They didn't think they were better because of that- it was obvious to them that a Jew should help a Jew. She remembers that they lived next to a hospital, and always on Shabbats they signed up in their synagogue to host the families of the sick people in the hospital, and they never knew with how many guests her father would bring back from the synagogue. Sharon went to the 'Ulpena' (a high school for religious girls) in 'Kfar- Pines' (a village next to Hadera) and she owes that to her counselor in Bnei Akiva, who insisted that she and her friends wouldn't go to the regular high school in town- and Sharon decided to go to Cefar-Pines. Her parent disagreed: they were afraid she'd become too religious (her family wasn't very religious), but Sharondidn't give up: she said that if she won't go where she wanted to go, she won't go to any other high school. Her parents knew she was serious and at the end they agreed. To express gratitude to Bnei Akiva and her counselor that raised a big part of her personality, and helped her to become what she is today (thanks for the activities, but also for making her going to the Ulpana), Sharonis very involved in the activities Bnei Akiva in her city. She helps the counselors with making activities, teaching and educating the children and even comes and does activities with the elder members of Bnei Akiva. After high school Sharondid "sherut leumi", as any other girl in her age, in the ulpana where she learned, and then learned history and literature in a university. At age 21 she got married to her husband, Yitzhak, and they moved to live in Alon Shvut, where he was studying in the Yeshiva. She worked in Neve Chana as a counselor, then as a social coordinator. When she worked as a social coordinator, they had a lot of girls from the school who volunteered in Shalva in Jerusalem. Shalva is a center where people help and take care of children with special needs, in the afternoons. During the Intifada in 2001 the roads were closed, and there was no chance to bring the children who lived in Gush Etzion to Shalva in Jerusalem, and the families needed to deal with their children for longer and harder time than they could. As a social coordinator, the council asked Sharonto help the children in the afternoons. After a long meeting with the heads of Shalva, and a long consideration, they decided they could start it with a back up of 100,000 NIS. On Hanukkah they opened Shalva-Gush in Alon Shvut. Shalva started in a small apartment that belonged to girls who did "sherut leumi" in Alon Shvut. She started to bring furniture, and decorate the place only with volunteers, and they started to work- 3 times a week. When there was no food from Neve Channa, Sharonmade food for all the children in her own house. After two years in the apartment, they moved in to the building of Neve Channa for 6 months. Sharonsays it was a very good experience and made a good feeling of helping and giving in school. On L'ag BaOmer, 4 years after they started, they moved to the beutiful building where they are until these days. Today more than 30 children attend Shlava-Gush, assisted by 60 volunteers and therapists of different types. They build a personal program for every child. The people in Shalva believe that a very important part of helping children with special needs is to give them a place in the community- that the children will know they belong there; they're part of the community. The community gets a lot of it too: they have a lot of different kinds of activities the community is doing with the children: festivals, a professional "A Star is Born" special for them, camps and more. After being a social coordinator, Sharonbecame the "head" of the Etrog program in Neve Chana, which she keeps doing until today. Etrog was established because the girls (who learned in school) asked the principal to help them feel they learn real Torah, and not just as a part of the school program. In Etrog we have 2 lessons with different rabbis, then all the girls come and we sing together. Then we learn in small groups about this week's Parasha, listen to interesting person who comes to give us a speech, and at the end we have a fun activity with each age's counselor.

Sharon is the manager of Etrog. She says that Etrog gives the girls tools to promote their connection with God, and helps the girls in this main part of life. Sharonlikes Etrog for many reasons: first it makes her learn Torah. It also focusing her: every week, she has to come and join an organized program of learning. And even more, Sharonfeels that the fact she works with teenagers makes her think about basic issues of life, again and again. Sharonhas 5 children: Ayala (21), Alon (19.5), Eitan (14), Yair (10) and Rachel (5). When she was pregnant with Rachel, she was nervous about it and promised in front of her husband that if everything will come out well, she will start a Gemach for bar-mitzvahs, britot, etc (-she wanted to do something for the baby and not in memory of her). She also decided that for every happy thing that would happen in her family- she would ad something to the Gemach. When she gave birth and everything was good, she started the Gemach. It was very hard for her to run the whole thing alone, and she involved somebody else who wanted to help her. They hardly knew each other- and now they are very good friends. They started in a caravan, cleaned it and added shelves. When it became too little and there was no room for new things, they moved everything to a place where Bnei Akiva used to be and the Gemach is there until today. This days the Gemach is open 5 days a week, with 36 volunteers, and helps 12 families a week, from Gush Etzion (they will never say no- they feel they have to do it, since the city gave them a free place and the people always donate money). They also helped other places, like Gush Katif, to open their own Gemach. You may think that Sharon's family is not happy as a result of all the things she is doing- that she's not paying enough attention to her children… But the opposite is correct: Sharonsays that her children are the center of her life and they are full partners to everything she's doing. For example, Rachel is very excited and happy that the Gemach was established for her, and Ayala has been working for 2 years as a counselor in Etrog. Sharon and her husband think that the most important things they should be focusing on while educating their children, is to help them love the Torah and the Mitzvot. They also teach the children to give, to volunteer and help the others. Although sometimes her children are upset about the way Sharonuses her time, her husband really helps her and they go with her through her "crazy ideas", and she with theirs. For each bar-mitzva of her children, they did projects of learning and had wonderful experiences- they really care about the way the child prepares for his bar-mitzva, so that he will be ready to that important day. For example, for Eitan's bar-mitzva he learned the Bible with his father at home, and with his old brother once a week- it was a good experience for the two brothers. When he ended learning, the whole family created a movie about the Bible stories. The movie ended in "Derech Ha'avot"(in Gush Etzion), and Eitan said in the movie that this is amazing that we actually live in the land of the Bible. Another thing Sharon's family is doing focuses on the holidays. Sharonbelieves that the holidays can raise the people very high, if we only will use the whole potential of them. To do this, Sharoncreates an exercise that every member of the family need to do for the holiday, and during the holiday the whole family tells what they have done in a serious conversation. Here are some examples for things the family had already done: for Shavuot, every person had to think about a mitzva that he thinks of as a gift. For Pesach, they had to think about an experience of getting out to freedom, and for Purim they created a learning about specific subjects, such as happiness in Chassidic stories, etc. Sharonis working with her friend and they both want to establish a center where they would sell kits with ideas and other things for families to use on holidays. In the time she has between all those great things she is doing, Sharonactually works… she has a studio for mosaics, and she teaches a course for women three times a week. In her free time she have between her volunteers and work, Sharon likes to watch movies or English TV shows- she doesn't like our reality, she wants to see different worlds. Sharon is also interesting in the Holocaust, and like reading books about that. She also does many different things: lectures for 12 year old girls, teaching mosaic courses for different groups and even more. We can see that Sharondoesn't waste time, with all the things she does in her in her life. And that's what she says: "time is an important and expensive thing". She says that she's sad to see that people who have 10 free minutes just waste them doing nothing. She always carries with her a work she needs to finish, a list of people she need to call and a Sidur of nice tefilot she likes to say. She really cares about not wasting time. When she feels she doen't have a time to breath at the end of a day, she feels that the day was worth it: that she done everything she could. She says that we don't have a lot time to be in this world, and that we should use the time and do with it a lot of good. May we learn those important things from the amazing person Sharonis, and live important life, full of doing and love.

= Personal Connection: =

**__Cyclamens between the rocks__**

Ariel Horvitz Between the honking in the roads and the dirty streets  Between the crime-families and the common television   Like cyclamens between the rocks   The beautiful face of our land is hiding Between the homeless people and the club stabbing  Between what we usually read in the newspaper   Like cyclamens between the rocks   The beautiful face of our land is hiding And when she suddenly needs  Somebody to lie in the mud inside a pit   You won't believe how they appear   Like cyclamens between the rocks Between the orange flags and the blue shirt  Between the flea market and the government   Like cyclamens between the rocks   The beautiful face of our land is hiding And when she suddenly needs… Between the gorgeous buildings and the absorption center  Between foreign workers and the wheat fields   Like cyclamens between the rocks   The beautiful face of our land is hiding And when she suddenly needs… רקפות בין הסלעים

בין הצפירות בכביש לרחובות המלוכלכים בין משפחות הפשע לטלוויזיה השטחית כמו רקפות בין הסלעים הפנים היפים של הארץ מתחבאים

בין הישנים ברחוב לדקירות במועדון בין מה שבדרך כלל קוראים בעיתון כמו רקפות בין הסלעים הפנים היפים של הארץ מתחבאים

וכשהיא לפתע צריכה שמישהו ישכב בבוץ בתוך שוחה לא תאמין איך הם מופיעים כמו רקפות בין הסלעים

בין הדגלים הכתומים לחולצה הכחולה בין שוק הפשפשים לקריית הממשלה כמו רקפות בין הסלעים הפנים היפים של הארץ מתחבאים

וכשהיא לפתע צריכה...

בין מגדלי הפאר למרכז הקליטה בין פועלים זרים לשדות החיטה כמו רקפות בין הסלעים הפנים היפים של הארץ מתחבאים

וכשהיא לפתע צריכה...

Ariel Horvitz wrote this song after a war called 'Oferet Yetsuka' in Gaza. He wrote it for all the soldiers, volunteers and everybody who do good for Israelin the hard times, and even in the regular times.

I chose to use this song to describe what I went through while writing this project, and the right way I think we need to go through as a nation.

I chose this song because it shows in a very nice way how inside all the problems, crimes and the big mess, we have those good people, who raise above the difficulty and spread their great light.

It's nice to see that what Ariel Horvitz chose to see is not the grey rocks that stand in our way and not letting us to continue, but the cyclamens under them- that make our way much more beautiful.

The people who made our land be prettier are people who aren't afraid of the difficulties and the problems- they're the people who look at the problem as an opportunity to do good.

It's hard for me to think that all the things that Israelis are interested in are the crimes, the poor family who has this bad child from the next door, etc. Ariel Horvitz says in the song- "between what we usually read in the newspaper". It's so true! We never open the paper or listen to the radio to hear about people who did an amazing thing- all we care about is the other things- what happened to others and not to us. We can discuss for hours about what to do with the foreign workers, what happens with the government, how this driver's honking like he's insane, and more and more. Ariel Horvitz described the Israeli nature in a precise way, with the best examples. I think that this song is not only a way to thank the volunteers, but is also a way to tell Israelthat something in our life style is wrong. This song is a way to tell our country to wake up and see the amazing things that are happening right in front of them, somewhere between the rocks.

Last year I was in a 'Shabbat Etrog', we were talking about a lot of things, and the subject about the problems in Israelwas very strong and powerful to me. I couldn't stop thinking about it since this Shabbat. In the end I thought of an idea to solve some of the problem. My idea was that the teenagers from all over Israelwill get together in a group (2-4 from every city) to talk about the problems we have, such as: children from hard families, people with no money, houses that need to get fixed, etc. They will think about ways to solve the problems, and we'll go and do what we need to do. A few months ago I talked about it with the youth coordinator in Efrat and we'll hopefully start doing a small group like what I imagined in Gush Etzion, with hope we'll get the group bigger in the future. I think this is a great thing to be Jewish and especially Israeli. I thank G-d every day for being here, having the opportunity to get better every day, and never stop thinking how I can become a part of the beautiful face of our land, and how I can make this place a better place to live in.

= Reflection =

When I heard about the project, I said, "Oh, fine". I thought that if the teacher told us to do it, we should do it the best we can. I admit that I didn't had great expectations from this project- I didn’t thought of it as something that will change many thoughts I have or would bring me to learn something new. What actually happened is that I really think different now and it's surprising. This project made me see a lot of things that I didn't new they were even exist: I leave in Efrat whole my life, and I didn't new that the Straus Amiel office is right next to my house. I also know Sharonfor a lot of time, and I new most of the things about her, but the interview with her just made me appreciate and admire her more than I did before. I'm glad that this project made me see so many things and brought me to think about the Israeli people in a new way. I thought a lot about the selfish and rude nature the Israelis has, and was disappointed of it. Writing this project and doing this research proved me that there are many people who do so much good, to Israelis like them or to Jewish around the world- and they do it in a simple and nice way. It's obvious to them that their job in the world is to help other Jewish. I don't believe that without doing this project I would have got the chance to see this in such a strong and clear way. While writing this project I also learned how to write better in English. I really like to write and I can do it well in Hebrew. In English it's much harder for me. Writing this project helped me to get better in that and made it easier for me to write in English and bring my thought, ideas and massages into words. In the past, when I had an essay to write in English, I usually wrote it in Hebrew first and then translated it. In this project I wrote it immediately in English. At the beginning it was hard but it became easier and easier. I used to have a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes, and I never knew how to correct them. In this project I had fewer mistakes than I usually had. I think this is because of the fact that I wrote it in English and didn't translate it- I turned my brain to think in English and I was ready to write better than I used to. I hope the next projects and things I'll write in the future in English will be so interesting to me and will teach me a lot, about life or even just how to write better. = Notes =

Comunidad Judia De Madrid, 14/11/11,  Congregation ramath orah, 14/11/11, . Shironet, 2009. 4/12/11. http://www.shiron.net/artist?type=lyrics&lang=1&prfid=161&wrkid=22553>> Straus Amiel, 2011, 4/11/11, < http://www.ots-amiel.org.il/english> "The Vision", Training Rabbis & Educators for the Diaspora- Beren-Amiel, Straus Amiel, p. 6-7 " 'תור הזהב' חוזר לספרד", עם הפנים לכלל ישראל: בוגרי שטראוס-עמיאל בקהילות ישראל בתפוצות (כנס בוגרים בינלאומי לרבנים ומחנכים), י"ח-י"ט תמוז תשס"ו, ע"מ 16. __Graphics__ http://ncetrog.wikispaces.com/%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%95%D7%AA+%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%92 http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:Rakefet002.jpg http://www.ots-amiel.org.il/hebrew/ http://www.ots-amiel.org.il/hebrew/about/?id=55 http://www.shalva.org.il/ Training Rabbis & Educators for the Diaspora- Beren-Amiel, Straus Amiel, p. 1, 2-3