yamamash: Sukkot in Israel

Sukkot in Israel is kind of magical with a hint of silly (this may or may not be a country-wide opinion). It's pretty amazing to see fast food restaurants on the street with small huts directly outside of them in order to allow people to complete the mitzva of sitting in a Sukka for every day of Sukkot while enjoying their hourly falafel/schnitzel/shawarma/hummus fix. Also the happy-holiday-wishing LED screens on buses, store advertisements, other things, everywhere, give me such a warm happy feeling of community togetherness that seems like a somewhat ironic/confusing feeling to have and write about in a country of so much recent (as well as a bunch of less recent) tension, aggression, and complexity. It's not that the pleasant barrage of well wishing didn't happen over Rosh Hashana, but being surrounded by "חג שמח"s accompanied by visual aids in the form of huts plopped every few feet is really something special. But of course it's not only fast food restaurants in Petach Tikva, the Sukkot are pretty much everywhere in all kinds of shapes and sizes and levels of fancy. I guess enough about the Sukkot, but if you want to speak more about them, I'm open to it. Because they are just great. But for those of you who have had enough, some pictures...

Blurry but smiley picture of the Naims and their beautiful Sukkah

Beautiful Sukkah!

Shop in Tel Aviv exploding with Sukkah decorations

After eating everything and relaxing for the first few days of the holiday, our program took us on a two day trip to the north where we hiked part of the Israel National Trail (שביל ישראל), visited one of the most northern points of Israel at Kibbutz Misgav Am (right by the Lebanon border), and did a kind of fast forwarded tour through parts of Tzfat.

One of the most beautiful color palettes in a temple in Tzfat

During one of our hikes, we were having a chat with our madricha whose name is Klil (which is also the name of a tree that only grows in northern Israel, where she is originally from). She was talking about nature in the north and mentioned how in the north there's a much larger variety of trees which enables parents to utilize a greater amount of creativity when naming their children. Strange that this trend hasn’t really caught on in the United States, but I guess it would be even stranger to be calling your buddies Sycamore, Spruce, or Oak (unless I live under a rock and these names are currently in use, in which case I apologize to all Spruces of the world).

Trail marker for Shvil Israel-- pretty cool that Israel has a national trail that runs all the way from the north to Eilat and that it's actually a popular thing to do

Post-hike beauties at Misgav Am (Lebanon in the background)

While we were at Misgav Am, we listened to a talk by a man who lives in the Kibbutz whose purpose is to show the radical, far right-wing side of the conflict to every birthright group that passes through northern Israel. His way was more of an aggressive one, wanting to share his view while closing himself off to any opinions or discussions that my group wanted to share or have, for he was older and smarter and more experienced. Therefore, he considered it to be a waste of his time to listen to the generation of brains that the future of Israel will have no choice but to listen to. Needless to say, he rubbed me the wrong way, as intensely abrasive/irrational/insulting people usually do.

However, after we heard from him, our tour guide, Ayal, offered a more rational and objective view about something I’ve never really heard discussed in terms of being a significant component of the Middle East conflict. He spoke about post trauma (clarifying that there are glaring differences between post trauma and PTSD and they should not be grouped or treated the same way). As a soldier in a small unit in the 2006 Second Lebanon War he was able to speak about his own experiences with post trauma and how it has affected his life. He read a small piece written during the war about coming back to his base from a mission in Lebanon with the rest of his unit, laying awake all night with the rest of his unit in complete silence and only being able to understand that the situation was awkward and unusual, hoping that it would silently disappear rather than be understood and resolved.

He spoke about the difficulties of accessing the members who are most likely to directly experience these symptoms—the classically male macho member of Israeli society who isn’t likely to voluntarily voice emotional pain and disturbances or start going to therapy (until a girlfriend insists that she can’t continue living with a screaming person in her bed every night…an example of what prompted one of the soldiers in his unit to confront post trauma years after the traumatic events were experienced).
But night terrors and other sleep disturbances, anxiety, irritability, and concentration issues are only some of the symptoms that victims of post trauma endure. Nor does it only affect the combat soldiers directly involved. Ayal also spoke about the effects war has on children, mentioning the extremely high rates of bed wetting in towns like Sderot, one of the Israeli towns that has been the hardest, where I believe he said that 70% of children under the age of 17 wet their beds more than twice a week. As a result of his interest and concern in post trauma, Ayal is very involved in studying and speaking about the issue both on a personal and professional level. It was just amazing to hear such intense passion about different populations involved and the negative impacts they have to suffer, all while momentarily putting politics aside.
After the group trip, I went with four girls from my program to the Tamar music festival by Masada and the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Eshkol. Although we were faced with a few challenges like how to comfortably fit five people in a four person tent (and a few others that would probably be best to discuss on a medium my parents don't have access to) it was a really great and beautiful trip.

Masada was our neighbor for a night!

Hot Air Balloon festival in Eshkol National Park

Somehow we didn't realize before getting there that it was definitely a family-oriented festival...pretty sure we were the only child-less group there