A Super Sweet Sunday

Sunday October 25th 2009
This Sunday was another programmed day, with the entire group, and the whole day was absolutely fantastic. But before I get to that, I'll recap the weekend a little bit.
This weekend was a Shabbat we spent together, so there were group plans on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday we went to the Kotel for personal time. There wasn't an organized group service, just time to spend however you wanted. There was a group of women on the women's side of the wall, doing somewhat of a Kabbalat Shabbat, with dancing and singing. So I joined in on that for a little while (after spending a few minutes at the wall). Then we returned to Beit Schmuel for dinner an Oneg then time for ourselves.
Saturday morning there were optional services to a variety of different synagogues, so I went to an egalitarian Orthodox synagogue, which means there's a mechitza (separation between men's and women's sides of the temple) but the women can lead parts of the service and read from the Torah. It was a very nice service, although something I wasn't entirely used to. The rest of Saturday was very very relaxed.
Which brings me to today. This morning/afternoon we met up with a group of Israeli students, about our age who had taken time off before entering the army, to study. These students had already taken one year, to attend Yeshiva or some other program, and then they had taken another 6 months to continue studying. Most of the people we met today will be drafted into the army in March. Regardless, they were really really interesting, a couple of them had spent time in the States, so their English was really good, and others didn't speak English at all.
We were all divided into three groups and went one of there places. A). To meet with a Israeli (Jerusalem living) writer. B). To meet with an Israeli (Jerusalem living) photographer. C). To meet with an Israeli (yes, Jerusalem living) actor and drama teacher, who had founded a theater group here.
I went with group B, and met with Yoram Amir, an Israeli wedding photographer. He took us around Jerusalem showing us where he worked, and where he had all of his photographs. He felt very strongly about how the old buildings in Jerusalem were being torn down in order for newer and not as historic or well built building to be constructed. He used the following example: Jerusalem is woman, and all of the old buildings are fine pieces of jewelry. The newer buildings however are like cheap pieces of jewelry. And who wants to marry a woman with cheap jewelry? The answer? No one. So if this continues, Jerusalem will never get married. A little obscure, but certainly interesting. Amir used the windows from these old buildings that were being torn down as his frames for his photographs, and showed us several examples. It was pretty cool, plus we walked around a lot of cool places in Jerusalem.

Views From The Photography Tour In and Around Jerusalem

In the Jewish Shuk

Mural on the Side of the Building

Photographer Yoram Amir

So then we came back and had time to freshen up before the Idan Raichel concert! The concert was part of the MASA opening event, so there were several speakers, and some performances by a group of dancers and a teen choir before Idan Raichel came on. But when he and his band did, it was absolutely fantastic. All the musicians are amazing, and superbly talented. They played for about an hour and half, and every song was just as great as the last one! It's really hard to convey how fantastic they are! I suggest you look up the Idan Raichel Project, listen to a couple songs, and that will give you a glimmer of how talented all of them are! It was so amazing!
And that was this weekend!