Stories and Pathways

By Maya Katz-Ali  ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel Student at Clark University Everyday I feel like I get closer to the students in the center. There are many moments that my volunteer experience distracts me from  the current political situation here in Israel. It reminds me that while our country is undergoing great difficulty, life continues on, river-like, so many twists and turns but always moving on. I have recently added a question of racism to the mix of my interviews. I assure them that they don’t have to answer if it’s not comfortable, and that I won’t put it in the book but that it’s just to raise awareness that this is still sometimes a struggle in Israel. It is a reality that many of them have experienced; it is a part of their story but I think they can grow strong from it. I ask a question of what they want to be when they are older after that question, because I want them to dream and think about how they want to get there. Though I wish

By Rachel Kraus ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Career Israel Student at Brandeis University Unfortunately this past week was a shorter week for me as an intern because the center arranged for the kids to go on a 3 day trip to the North of Israel. But for the time that I was there, I had a blas t! I arrived and, of course, the boys were circled around the pool table; if they could, I’m sure they would play all day, every day. Then the same man who came a few weeks ago to teach them how to make various Ethiopian pottery pieces came. It was his last visit at the center and he wrapped up all this lessons. He also brought back all the art projects they did together and made a big collage out of all of them. I even got to make my own mosaic of my name in Amharic, which was one of their previous projects that I wasn’t there for. I love seeing the boys learn about Ethiopian culture and how excited they get about it, because it’s too easy to be so immersed in Israeli culture and forget

By Ryan Youra  ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Hillel Graduate from American University             I went for it. A rip of brown spongy bread, some potatoes and some sauce, and a messy pinch and smiles all around as the sauce dripped down my hand.               I ate Ethiopian food for the first time. Not just any Ethiopian food, but food cooked by my campers. I guess if I was going to finally have it, it might as well be homemade.               For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been volunteering at the Ethiopian National Project (ENP), an organization committed to providing youth outreach assistance and services to Ethiopian-Israelis. I’m currently working at summer camp for recently immigrated Ethiopian-Israeli girls ages 12-16. As a group, the volunteers plan the activities, buy supplies, and then help run the camp on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.               It’s easy to picture Israel as one homogenous population, just a ton of white, European descendant

By Maya Katz-Ali  ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel Student at Clark University I value each new story I hear. The students have been patient with me while I write their answers and helped me with spelling. I tell them they can also ask me questions after I tell them a bit of my own story. Who knew that one of the most difficult parts of my project would be to get them to pose or agree for pictures. I'm trying to put together a book for them of their stories or sentences from their interviews. But to pose for a picture - no way! Embarrassed  or not cool for this age, or just cultural thing...it's hard to tell.    Also quite late in the game, I got the idea of asking the kids about Ethiopian names and their meanings. Understanding the meanings is incredible! It really adds another level to the story I get from each student, because each meaning of each name holds story and culture. For example one of the children’s Ethiopian name (name in Amharic) means

By Jessica Shankman ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Career Israel Student at University of of Minnesota On a typical day, I travel with another American student when interning at the Lod ENP center. It's been a great arrangement: the two of us are able to navigate transportation together, as well as lean on each other when communication becomes difficult. She is also nearly fluent in Hebrew, which has become quite a source of comfort to me. However, one day this week she called to tell me that she would not be able to make it to work. This meant I would be doing a big group activity on my own.  The idea of conducting a group project on my own without my personal Hebrew translator present was nerve-wrecking to say the least. And yet, I found myself doing just that a few hours later. The activity we had planned was to have the kids complete a little questionnaire about themselves (best friends, favorite song, dream for the future, etc) and then stow them all away in a time caps

By Elyse Waksman  ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel Student at Clark University             “I will miss camp.” This is the last English sentence of the day we taught the girls at the camp at Tzvia. It was a bittersweet day, starting with this English lesson on the future tense, and ending with the girls giving us gifts and certificates to show their appreciation for us. We spent the day writing letters to IDF soldiers, decorating picture frames and filling them with photos of all of us, and exchanging contact information so that we can remain in touch. Working with these girls over the past five weeks has had such a huge, positive impact on my life, as cliché as that sounds. I hope and believe that we have also had that kind of effect on the girls. I wish that we could have worked with them for longer, because our relationships with them would have continued to grow stronger, but we packed as much as we could into the time we had.               During these pa

By Maya Katz-Ali  ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel Student at Clark University            At first, I had a small group of other students with me to help  interview one of the teens. I had someone help write down the questions and answers, as well as assist with translation. After this first interview I came to some new conclusions. I realized I should do the interviews myself, make the conversations more personal, and to have a safe space. I also had to remind myself that although these students have big stories, they may not be at the age yet of realizing the magnitude of telling their story. Their attention spans are short and they haven’t started thinking of their lives as a story to be written and that is still being written. I learned a lot from the first interview and even added a couple questions since about their home traditions and how they are different from Israeli culture. The next couple interviews went a lot smoother because I got used to telling m

By Jessica Shankman ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Career Israel Student at University of of Minnesota It is amazing to think that only a few weeks ago I did not know the children at the Lod Ethiopian National Project at all. All of the amazing day trips we’ve been able to go on, programs we’ve done together, and time we’ve spent just hanging out at the center have made me feel a unique connection to these kids. This past week, I was made aware of how the culture of the Ethiopian Jews fosters manners and respect. Even when the kids are having a hard time being convinced to do chores around the center or stopping whatever games they are playing to listen for directions, they are able to bounce back and regain attention in the end. They are considerate and are always making sure others are accommodated for. For instance, this past Thursday, the center planned a trip to the Cinema City in Rishon L’Tziyon for the day. I had assumed that it would be like any other trip to the movies

By Rachel Kraus ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Career Israel Student at Brandeis University The 4th week at my internship at ENP has certainly been the most exciting and inspiring one yet.  T his past Tuesday was the first time sirens were sounded throughout central Israel during this particular conflict, and I happened to be at Lod’s youth outreach center when this happened. It was the first time EVER that sirens were heard in Lod. It had started off as a typical day at the center; the soldiers who volunteer there led a great activity about dreams and how they can be achieved. Afterwards, everyone started getting ready to paint the walls of the center, paint a mural that they had decided on, and to do a little gardening in the yard. Suddenly, everyone started running towards the back of the building and I didn’t understand why until I heard the penetrating sound of sirens. It brought me back to my time on Young Judea Yearcourse in 2012 when rockets were fired at Jerusalem for th

By:  Jessica Shankman ENP Volunteer Career Israel Student at University of Minnesota- Twin Cities For the kids at the Ethiopian National Project, the end of school had been long anticipated. This week was full of festivities to celebrate the beginning of the summer season! On Sunday, ENP Lod turned into an open house for all of the parents and students to come talk about what events were in store for the summer. The parents were warm and welcoming, and many came over to speak to me in English which flattered and surprised me. The kids received different awards for participation and for the strengths that they bring to the group. It was great to watch as the kids went up and received their awards in front of their family and friends. Many of them looked embarrassed, shying their head away from the audience or looking at the ground as kind words were spoken about them. However, it was clear that they were proud of themselves all the same. Later in the evening, the girls and boys

By Jessica Shankman ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Career Israel Student at University of of Minnesota It is hard to express in so many words my feelings about this week in Lod ENP center. I went to work last Tuesday hoping that the talks of rocket attacks could not be true. I’ve never been in Israel for times as these, and didn’t want to think that these threats may actually come true. That day at ENP, the kids planned to do some center beautification projects—specifically, clean up the garden and do a graffiti mural outside the center gates. As we began doling out materials, and the kids’ spirits were high, suddenly movement outside came to a halt. Just as enthusiastically as they had headed outside to start the project, the kids were pushing themselves back in to the narrow hallway, shouting something about sirens.  At first I registered the events as what must have been a joke. Never have sirens been sounded in Lod (so I read). And even so, the kids were not panicked. Startl

By Rachel Kraus ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Career Israel Student at Brandeis University Wow, times flies! I’m now writing about my third full week at ENP. With each passing week, I am connecting more and more with the organization and its participants. At the beginning of the week, there was a special meeting for the teenagers and their families to welcome in the summer and introduce the summer’s programming. It was exciting to meet the kids’ families; some of them had the cutest baby siblings! Even more so, it allowed me to have a better understanding of where they come from. After the introduction and the presentation of awards from the past school year, the parents had another information session and the kids had a special drum activity. I joined in with them and we banged on the drums for hours, while the teacher who came in explained how each individual person’s drumbeats represent their words and feelings. We all had a really good time and I think it was very personally

By Maya Katz-Ali  ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel Student at Clark University In ENP I am working on the job of story collecting. Breaking into how exactly I wanted to approach this line of work was challenging. What kind of questions to ask, what might be too personal, how to record the information, whether this should be a group project, how to make the student comfortable enough to share his/her own experience…etc. Also Hebrew not being a language I am fluent in proposed another big barrier. I started to discover (and am still) slowly the answers to these questions and difficulties by seeing what the students of the center seem to respond best to. I decided that I would start out describing the project that I was doing. Saying that I was interested to hear their stories and family history because I believe it is very important to know to build yourself as a person. Then to explain that I want to put all this information together to bring home to explain