Haifa chanicha

Here is a picture with some of my Haifa Young Judaea Year Course friends:

Arielle, Danielle, Sophi, Anna, Judith, and others...

I volunteer at Beit Sefer Ofakim, a school for handicapped children. The Ofakim school in Haifa is considered one of the best schools in Israel for children with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy and provides special services such as speech therapy, physiotherapy and vocational therapy. I work with the oldest group who are 18-21 years old. They have a range of physical and other challenges. They represent all of the different peoples in the area, including non-Jewish Israelis, Arabs and Bedouins. Amazingly, all the students are "blind" to the differences in culture, background and even handicap between them.

I work with them on arts and crafts and cooking. All of them are happy to see me. They say "Boy Po, Joy" which means "Come here, Joy!"

I had no jewelry when I came here and now I have tons of jewelry which we made together. While I bead with the more advanced kids, the others are busy sorting beads into colors. They taught me all the colors in Hebrew.

Cooking covers a range of activities where I may help them cut food and they help each other. I say, "Yoffi" alot which is "wonderful!"

I truly experience how giving is the real gift, as I receive so much more than I can possibly give them.


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My friend, Arielle Adler, wrote a few sentences about her typical day on Year Course and she gave me permission to share it on my blog! Toda Raba, Arielle!

A Day in Paradise

The phone goes off at seven AM arousing me from my slumber. I quickly get ready and I'm out the door by twenty of eight. I get on the bus and sit down next to an old woman. By the end of the bus ride, I have learned the woman's entire life story because on busses in Israel everyone is friends with everyone. Before going into work, my roommate Danielle and I stop to get a cup of coffee. Yossi, the owner of the kiosk is expecting us. We go there often and he treats us as his own. With glass cups and chocolate, he attempts to speak to us in Hebrew about his son's success with running marathons.

After draining our cups, we walk into , I spend my days in "Hadas" a class for 12-14 year olds. With only a little bit of Hebrew in my brain, I begin to work with the children. My specialty is math. I draw shapes after shapes after shapes and have the kids add and subtract up to five. I help feed those who cannot feed themselves; I sit with them outside during "recess" while they talk to their boyfriends. I learn what it means to work with disabled children. Though exhausting, I am always happy at the end of the day. I have established relationships with the kids in my class as well as the teachers. I have made a difference in their lives, even if it was just moving their feet to make them more comfortable or helping them drink from their water bottle. I am no longer just a volunteer; I am part of their daily routine.

After school and a workout at the gym, I take the bus home to my apartment. We sit in our "Mac lounge" and figure out what we want to do for dinner. Do we want to walk to the German Colony, a great strip of restaurants five minutes from our house? Or should we stay in and eat some schnitzel or pasta? Maybe we'll go to the place we call "Shwarma Row" Here they have shwarma and falafel galore. Open twenty-four hours a day and on Shabbat, it is definitely one of our favorites, especially at 2 AM on a Friday night. We decide on the schnitzel because we're trying to save our money for other things. We talk about our day and scrape our plates clean before washing them. After dinner, the boys call us and want to know if we want to go to the Grand Canyon. No, it isn't the gorgeous place in Arizona. It's one of the biggest malls in Israel. We spend our evening there walking around, talking, and drinking our ice coffees from Aroma.

Lying in my bed that night, I think about my day. It was just an ordinary day on Year Course, but it was so much more than ordinary. It was life in Israel, my life in Israel. To me, it was a day in paradise.