Zeminar Part 3

Shabbat in Elazar


Elazar is one of the settlements in the Gush area of Israel.  One of our Rabbis, Rav Yonatan organized most of the Shabbat.  We got to Elazar pretty late on Friday afternoon where Rav Yonatan met us at the place where we would be eating.  We helped set up the dining room and then he told us where we would be staying.  I was staying in a house with two of my South African friends, Tali and Tamar, and Steph who is from Australia.  We got to our host's house and got settled in.  About 15 minutes before Shabbat started, we all sat down on the couch to relax and eat some cake.
We all went to shul and then went to eat dinner.  Dinner wasn't so great because it was just food from our school but it was real nice to be sitting all together and getting to know Rav Yonatan's family.  After dinner we played some games and sang some songs and by then we were all exhausted so we went to sleep.
We woke up a little bit late in the morning and lunch is usually really early.  Lunch was amazing because our hostess is a caterer so she made a great lunch with yummy desserts.  Our host was the one who mostly spoke to us during the meal.  He spoke to us about his views on certain issues in Judaism and about Israel which were quite radical.  They were very interesting to listen to and to try to question, but at the end of the day they didn't all make sense.  After lunch, we just chilled out in our room for a couple of hours talking about our different cultures and backgrounds and views on life.
Towards the middle of the afternoon, we met up with Rav Yonatan for a tour of Elazar.  He took us to the top of the highest hill and we had a really cool view.  We were able to see all of the different settlements all around us like Ne've Daniel, Migdal Oz, Alon Shvut, and Efrat. I was supposed to help set up for the next meal, but by the time I got there they were already finished.  We then went to shul where it was really nice to see all the kids from the local youth movement gathered there and joining in the praying.  Our last meal was a light meal where I said a dvar torah, we sang a little bit, and before we knew it, Shabbat was over.  I had a really great time in Elazar and I recommend it as a great place to visit. 

Aliyah Day
Did you know that moving to Israel is a commandment from the Torah?
Did you know that there is no greater sign of the coming of the times of Messiah than people gathering from all over the world to live in Israel?
Did you know that our religion started with god promising our forefathers that their children will receive the land  of Israel to live in?

Our first speaker was from Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that helps Jews from North America and England  move to Israel.  He spoke about his own personal aliyah story and then he told us about how the organization got started. Our next speaker spoke about the history of aliyah and how people in Israel react to it.  The Law of Return states that every Jew has a right to immigrate to Israel.  We looked at the Israeli Declaration of Independence where it talks about our right to be here in the land of Israel.  Then we saw some clips from a movie called Salach Shabati which is a satire about people who moved to Israel in the early years of the country.  People in Israel love aliyah, but they always question people who make aliyah because they feel that they need to prove that they are tough enough to live in the State of Israel. Next, we had a panel of a few of our teachers talking about why they made aliyah.


During the second half of the day we learned about Soviet Jewry and their mass emigration to Israel.  Before the Russian Revolution, Tzars ruled the country and they did whatever they wanted.  After the revolution, there was Marxism which said that everybody had the same laws.  They tried to get rid of all religion and they killed many people, mostly Jews, but Christians too. Many Jews, called Refusnicks, tried to get out of Russia but the government refused to give them visas.  Finally, in 1990, the Iron Curtain fell and everyone was free to move wherever they wanted.  A woman from Denver, Colorado came to speak to us about how it affected Jews in America.  She said that she was part of a volunteer organization that would do as much as they could to get the Jews out of Russia, and if they couldn't get them out then at least improve their conditions in Russia or influence the American government to do something about the injustice.  In 1990, they eventually saw the results of their hard work when all of the Jews were released.  Lastly, we heard the story of Rav Yosef Mendelevich.  When he lived in Russia, he wasn't allowed to learn Hebrew or anything about Judaism.  He wanted to move to Israel because he knew that was the only place to be to continue the Jewish people.  Him and a few friends made a plan to fly on a plane that would go near the Russian border, then hi-jack it and fly it over the border into safer territory.  Him and his friends were arrested before they even got on the plane and he was put in solitary confinement because he wouldn't confess to making this plan.  He wasn't afraid of the secret police so they thought he was crazy so they put him in a mental institution.  He was declared sane and came out of the mental institution where he was threatened with the death penalty.  He began to practice the little Judaism that he knew in jail.  He had a trial and was sentenced to life in prison.  People all over the world heard about this decision and they protested it.  In the end, the sentence went down to 12 years in prison.  During his time in prison, he heard that some of his family and friends got the opportunity to go to Israel.  He was sent to a work camp in Siberia where he continued to try to stay religious.  After 11 years, they took him out of prison because he was so fanatical about his Judaism that they just couldn't deal with him anymore.

Mom, Dad, I'm making aliyah and moving to Israel! Shalom V'lehitraot!