Sports day and Culture day by Noah and Steven

Sports day by Noah Margolese

On Saturday December 27th we spent Shabbat in Be'er Sheva with our host families and then continued Community Week with Sports day.

The Diller Teen Fellows program is all about new experiences. Still, I did not expect one when I went to shul with my host, Yohai Tevel. While I have prayed with sfardi Jews before, there were some friday night customs I did not expect. One of these customs which was new to me was the custom of smelling spices at the onset of Shabbat. This is done in order to cause the congregants to recite an extra blessing. It was great to experience Shabbat in a new way while in Israel. 

Our evening activity, was an incredible soccer game. The fans of Hapoel Beer Sheva brought an impressive energy to the stadium. That energy is what really made the game so exciting. Fortunately, the crowd was not disappointed, as Hapoel Beer Sheva defeated Petach Tikva 2-1. All decked out red and white, we felt like we were locals. 

After the game, Diller visited the Grand Kenyon, which has one of the greatest variety of shops of any mall in the middle east. This outing was a great way to cap off the evening.

Culture day by Steven Wise

Our cultural expeditions most definitely exceeded all expectations.

On Sunday December 28th, our day started off in an Ethiopian Absorption Centre in Be'er Sheva. Sadly, the kids weren't in on-site kindergarten that day, so we exchanged working with the young Ethiopian kids for gardening in one of the Ethiopian-cultural-public-gardens, which turned out to be one of the greatest experiences yet.

We had an opportunity to work the land of Israel. And, within an hour, a third of us had cleaned up a small pond, a third had weeded much of a field, and the other third had begun de-vining and repairing a fence. 

We then boarded our bus, and arrived in a Bedouin farmer (Fallach) village which housed 1000 people in the Negev. We went to our tour guide's father's old house, which turned out to be a cave. He lived (in the cave) with camels, goats, sheep, and cows. We drank some traditional Bedouin coffee (very strong), and learned about many Bedouin traditions. They really weren't so different than our Jewish culture.

Then we went to a big tent, and feasted on Bedouin rice, stuffed grape leaves, with chicken, oil with some potato inside... Truly some amazing food. (or how they say in arabic: "لاذىذ - laziz - delicious").

Then we drove to a camel encampment, and proceeded to ride camels. (I was bucked by my camel, and also pushed off by the camel behind me. Wow, I hate camels).

Then we came back to be'er sheva, to the "Israeli Y" and had a both hilarious, and educational course on fringe improvisational acting.

Today we touched all sorts of Israeli culture, and had such an incredible time together.