We went on a journey to Jerusalem 15 UMD students, 2 mothers who are a part of the community we have been living with, 3 staff members and 7 young and excited children from the community. Lesson one of the day: parenting is not easy.

Our first stop of was Shimshon Farm in kfar Uria where we were warmly greeted by donkeys, goats, and a friendly israeli hippie.

This is one of the most outstanding landscapes in Israel dating back to the time of  Samson. We drank water from a well built during the first temple period, pet donkeys, visited baby goats, and walked up  a hill to enjoy the panoramic view. Besides loving the earth, our friendly tour guide, who started the farm with his wife, showed us their house with stones from the Byzantine era and a cave he turned into a cozy dorm for the volunteers who come to live on the farm. Kess Samai came and met up with us at the farm. Besides being a community leader, rabbi, and dad he also surprised us all when he kneeled down and started to milk a goat. After our shock and awe came our opportunity to try the fresh warm goats milk. The brave ones stepped up first as others cheered them on, while it may not sound so daring, staring  at an animal as you drink it’s milk while it’s flock surrounds you and your peers chant “do it” can cause a very unexpected adrenalin rush.

Lesson number two: whole milk is the real deal compared to our skim and 1%.

To continue tasting the land and the milk we ate lunch on the farm in a beautiful wine house overlooking the hills and farms. Lunch was all homemade salads, soup, dips, breads, and pastries made by our guide’s wife. Yum!

We then continued our journey to the tayelet, an outlook to Jerusalem. We split into two groups, one garin mother with each group, to discuss our views of Jerusalem. While we discussed the children played Ninja with one of the staff members. We discussed our opinion of Jerusalem before our first visit, and our reactions when we saw Jerusalem for the first time.  We learned how different our American views were from those of Ethiopians. We yearn for Jerusalem in America but the Ethiopians have an entire festival dedicated to the city.

The discussions helped us transition our minds and souls into our last and final stop for the day- the kotel. We all entered the kotel together and split up to each have our own personal experiences in front of the Western Wall. It was like honey for the soul.

After a long and exciting day, of both milk and honey we headed  back to Rishon to return to our new israeli families for dinner. Another long and exciting day.

From Becca and Natalie

After the session with Tali, the group chose a strategy of “divide and conquer,” in an effort to finish painting the apartment of a single mother with 5 children, beautifying the beit Knesset, and completing the compost container for the community garden built completely from old shipping pallets. By the end of the day, much was accomplished and the group convened for one last session for the night, delving again into the complex relationship between many of the issues we have encountered in the community and whether there is a “best way” to approach it.

We joined a local synagogue in Chula Vista for Saturday morning services. This quaint synagogue welcomed us into their community for the music-filled service and a potluck lunch. On our afternoon walk back to our house we took the “scenic route” (i.e. we got a tad lost), but it was a beautiful, sunny day. Everybody got a chance to rest and relax. Then, we had our final, formal group discussion activity to talk about our favorite parts of the week and how we hope to bring back our Alternative Break experiences back to campus. We ended Shabbat with Havdalah on our patio. Pancakes, french toast, and other breakfast-like foods made up our “Brinner” (breakfast for dinner) on Saturday. To end the day, we went to Fun4All and played Bumper Boats and mini-golf. It was a fun finish to an amazingly awesome week!

In the morning, we met with South Bay Community Services to learn about all of the resources the organization provides to the community: housing, food, tax preparation, counseling, and much more. We went to one of their shelters to clean some of the apartment units and help with other work around the center. Also, we went to its food pantry to pack bags of food. For lunch we went to a local park, at the water’s edge, and picnicked. We went back to the house and prepared for Shabbat. We had a joyous Kabbalat Shabbat service at the house, ate a delicious meal, sang songs, and played games into the night.

Following that we had a delicious Shabbat meal: soup, chicken, potatoes, rice, couscous, israeli salad and even more. The family put in a lot of hard work for all of us to enjoy a wonderful dinner. At the beginning of the meal we did two kiddushes. First in hebrew on the wine and then in gez, the holy language on the bread. The kiddush on the bread was on dabo bread and it is because in Ethiopia there was not kosher wine so they did the blessing on the bread instead. So for the kiddush on the bread everyone stands and says the prayer in gez.

When making the bracha on the bread there is actually money under it that was set aside for tzedaka before shabbat. This tzedaka is brought to saturday services to be given to the needy.

Saturday morning we went to services. The ethiopian community  starts services at 530 AM however, we came in at 730 AM to pray. There we watched as they prayed in gez. Then they had torah reading which was in hebrew followed by a gez prayer at the end. There was a bar mitzvah this weekend so everyone was very happy and excited as we threw candy across the mechitza at all the men. After prayers we had a meal at the synagogue. Every family brought huge loaves of dabo bread and they were all cut up and were eaten with all different types of bean sauces. There were also other desserts and snacks there. Services had been very fun and interesting to see and we really enjoyed being there. After services we all went back to the houses of our respective families to enjoy a traditional saturday afternoon. As it is the ethiopian tradition to not eat any hot foods on saturday lunch, for they don’t leave the fire on shabbat, we ate a cold cheese dish. Like all the families, we all ate an ethiopian dish, feetfeet, that was made of cheese, dabo, and vegetables. After we ate, we played games with the children, conversed with the parents, and enjoyed a nice shabbat afternoon. At four o’clock we met at the community shul for seuda shlishit, the afternoon shabbat meal. Every family brought their own dish and, together with our fellow group members and host families, we shared a joyful, delicious meal. It was so nice to see how the families, staff members, and maryland students all bonded along the course of shabbat. Following the evening prayer of Maariv, we collectively said the havdalah, lead by ari esterson. As we sang along and swayed in unison, the ethiopians enjoyed the joyous, beautiful sounding  havdalah, as it was something new for them.

After our wonderful shabbat, we had a group bonding night out in tel aviv. We all went out for ice cream, walked along the beach, and shared laughter as we enjoyed our group bonding.