Heritage, Darkness and Camels

Remmie Greenwald

Day 3 | 2022 Children’s Village Teen Volunteer Program

Today was a great day. I knew that it was going to be a good day, but it was amazing. Izzy and I actually fell asleep before midnight. That was a good improvement from the night before which may or may not have been 2am. Even though we went to bed early, it didn’t really matter because we were both up around 6am. We just laid there and talked. We got up and started to get ready around 7:00 because the bus was going to be leaving at 8:00. We were leaving for our four day trip away from the village today, and we had packed up our bags the night before, just doing the last minute things that we hadn’t packed yet. We had a breakfast similar to what we had been having the last couple of days. Eggs, toast, fruit, cereal, really whatever we could find. Our bus ride to our first stop was the longest of the day. It was about two hours to Tel Aviv. We went to Anu.

Anu is the Hebrew word for “we,” so it’s the museum of “we,” or better translated into English, the museum of us. It is all about Jewish people, culture, and history. It was an amazing museum. I knew a lot, but I also learned a lot. Our guide was amazing. She was originally from America, so of course her English was good. She was very enthusiastic about the tour, and she really knew what she was talking about. It made the experience very enjoyable. The museum itself was very well done. We had to zip through the museum because we only had two hours for all three floors. We spent most of our time on the top floor which was where we started. It started with little blurbs about the different levels of Judaism; reform, conservative, reconstructionists, orthodox, etc. Each blurb had a little bit about costumes and traditions and how each level practices the religion. The rest of the floor was about Jews in the entertainment industry. One of the questions that stuck with me was “What makes a movie a Jewish movie?” Is it the fact that the main character is Jewish? Is it if there is Jewish content? Or how about if the director is Jewish? We didn’t really get an answer, and to be honest I don’t really know if there is an answer. There was a lot about Jews in music, cinema, TV, and comedy. They even had a little Seinfeld shrine. They had a few items on display that were either a part of everyday life as a Jew, or things that had significance at a certain point throughout the years. There were some pieces that I recognized and some that I didn’t. The next floor was all about Jewish women. They had a few artifacts including Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s collar. The second floor consisted of the history and spread of the Jews over the last 3,000 years. It started with a seven and a half minutes video going through all of that history. It was fast paced, but still had pretty much all of the information that we needed. Then there was a little bit about Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and customs, traditions, and history for each. There was a little bit about how Jews had spread and either stayed or came back to Israel. We were running out of time, so we didn’t have much time on this floor. We walked right through the small holocaust section, but it was okay because we will be visiting Yad Vashem later this week. On the last floor, there was one thing that we looked at that was worth noting. It was four different pieces of art, one for each “milestone” in a Jewish person’s life. First the brit Mila or baby naming, then Bar or Bat Mitzvah, then the wedding, and finally death. The one that I liked the best was the one that resembled death. It was a collection of rocks. That may sound strange, but it was really beautiful. Each small rock/stone had one word written on it. Together, all of those words made up the Mourner’s Kaddish. Now you may be thinking, why rocks? When you go to visit a loved one at a cemetery, it is customary to put a rock on their grave. We finished the visit at Anu with lunch from their Café, it was sandwiches and salads. We ate outside and enjoyed the nice weather. 

Next on our agenda was the Dialogue in the Dark. This was the museum/experience completely in the dark. We had to use our hands to navigate through the whole tour, much like blind and visually impaired people have to do every day. There were several different rooms and we had to feel around and guess what some of them were. Each room had objects that we would find in the place along with sounds that went along with it. We started in a rainforest, then moved to the cabin room. The next room was a street in the middle of a busy city, and then we went to the grocery store. The second to last room was definitely one of my favorites. We walked in and just sat down on the ground. After a few seconds of silence, music started playing. It was loud and we could feel the vibration throughout our entire bodies. We were just sitting in the dark immersed in the music for about 7 minutes. The last stop was a cafeteria type thing, still in the dark, and we got to learn all about our guide and how she lives her life, visually impaired. It definitely puts things into perspective. 

We had a pretty lengthy car ride to our next destination, the Bedouin Village. This was quite the experience. The first thing that we did when we got there was one of the things that I was most looking forward to on this trip, camel riding! We watched the instructional video and then we were ready to ride those camels. We put our helmets on, and Rinnie and I were the first ones on the camel. Hopped on and all of the sudden we were up in the air. While everyone else was getting on their camels, our camel was being a bit feisty. In a matter of about 24 seconds, we got off our camel, traded it for another one, and we were on the new one and back up in the air. The camel ride was short, but sweet. It was only about 20 minutes, but by then my feet were falling asleep. 

After the camel ride we went back to the tent to set up our sleeping arrangements. A tent with thin foam mattresses on the floor. We explored the village a bit, waiting for our next activity. We found puppies that had escaped and we played with them for a while. There was originally one that got out, but then Lincoln went looking for another and came back with a second puppy. We were told to put them back 🙁 Our first stop was to hear a Bedouin woman talk about her life. If I were to tell you everything that she told us, this entry would be so much longer than it already is. In short, she didn’t listen to the gender roles in her culture. She became super successful all the while raising 8 kids. There was also some pretty delicious tea that we had to drink. Dinner was next. It was amazing. There was lamb and chicken and veggies and hummus and it was just so good. We went back to our tents for some journaling and next we will be doing some bonding by the campfire. I hope we can at least get some sleep tonight, since we have to wake up at 4:45 in the morning. Anyways, good night.

Here is Rinnie and myself on a camel
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