ISS July 4 VLOG! By Loucie and Britney

Israel Summer Seminar 2017 Begins! July 2&3

July 2: The Journey Begins.....
After saying goodbye to all the parents at the YMWHA, we bussed to the airport. We went through the airport security, spent a little time walking around the airport, then met at the terminal to begin our adventure. Before leaving, we all said the traveler's prayer, in both Hebrew and English to understand, and received Canada-themed pens to remind us of our Canadian patriotism while away in the holy land. Finally, we took one of our many group photos to come, and got into the plane. Away we go!!!

- Matthew Boyer

July 3:

To begin: HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY 'MURICA! Yesterday, we started off the day with a rude awakening of wheels on the tel Aviv runway. We are finally in Israel! After going through customs and picking up our luggage, we made our way to the old city of Yafo. There, we admired and learned about history of the Jerusalem gate, the sea mosque, and the harbour as well as many other places. We took a short break for frozen confection to combat the heat. After, we had a relaxing session of acro-balance in a beautiful, shady park. We soon came to the hotel and unpacked our belongings. we finished up the day with dinner, ma'agal laila, and a soothing meditation. Day 2, here we come!

- Eli Rubineau and Joelle Nadler

Workshop 3 by Ishai Cohen

Sunday November 13th was Cohort 9's 3rd workshop. For the beginning of the workshop we were with Cohort 8. We started off with some icebreaker, to you know... Break the ice. Then our wonderful JC Jared Boretsky started off the tikoun olam discussion. He spoke about what tikoun olam is and that it's one of the four pillars of diller. We were then split up into groups, with a mix of Cohort 8 and 9 kids. We then continued our discussion on tikoun olam in smaller groups. After that we wrapped up the discussion and cohort 8 left. We had a short snack break. Then the committees did their updates. 

We started with a leadership program, which focused on another diller pillar. It stated off with the leader game, where one person would go out of the room and then inside the room we picked one leader who would start up different patterns (clapping snapping etc.) and everyone else had to do the same, the person who went outside had to figure out who started the pattern. After that we did a quieter activity where everyone read questions. Every answer was highlighted in a different color and each color corresponded to the same color bead. We would put the colored beads on a piece of rope. We sat down and each color corresponded to a different type of leadership. So we got to see more or less what type of leadership everyone preferred. Once we knew more about our leadership styles, we did a discussion where Sarah made a statement about leadership qualities and we stood along a spectrum from Disagree to Agree. It was interesting to see how people's views differed and to argue our points. We wrapped up the program by considering some quotes about leadership from Yitzchak Rabin, Dr. Seuss, Rabbi Sacks, etc and discussing their significance. We then filled an endless survey and that was the end of our 3rd workshop. Up next, our first shabbaton!

Workshop 2 - Names and Identities by Eli Rubineau

On Sunday, October 23rd, Diller Montreal cohort 9 had a workshop about names and personal identities. Before we got into it, we started with a check in and caught each other up on what has been happening since last workshop. Then, some committees presented: The Israel update committee did a news report and we discussed the UNESCO controversy about the Temple Mount, and the Parsha committee did a quiz about sukkot since there was no parsha this week, and we learned about the holiday's customs.

As we got into the main part of the workshop, we started out talking with partners about what our names mean and what where they come from, and sharing with the group. Hearing so many different origin stories was such an eye opening experience.

After that, a quote was posed to the group. It reads "Every man has three names: one by which his parents call him; another, by which he is known to the outside world; and a third, the name which his own deeds have procured for him." We discussed in small groups what we thought it meant to have multiple names, and some examples of them.

Next, we watched a couple small documentary clips on the subject of names. We came together as a whole to talk about how a name can affect the way someone lives their life, and how important it is to make your name yours.

The last activity was to make a collage of magazine clippings that represents our identity. We used the collages to explain a little more about ourselves to the group and talk about our personalities and preferences.

After a small wrap up and summary, we wished each other chag sameach and parted ways. Until the next time, cohort 9.

by Eli Rubineau

Cohort 9's First Workshop! - by Josh Reinhart

So far as Cohort 9 we've had an orientation, volunteered together (at Federation CJA's Yom Yocheved Clothing Giveaway), and gone for ice cream as a group. This past Sunday, however was our first actual Diller workshop.

In our first actual workshop with Diller, we did an icebreaker where we told embarrassing stories about ourselves in the time it took to tie a ribbon around one of our fingers. Then we listened to a report on Israeli news by our Israeli shinshinim, Nir and Shahar, who are working in the Montreal Jewish Community this year and will be helping out at all our Diller meetings.

After that we went outside to work with a person from Dynamix to improve our teamwork and leadership skills, by playing a bunch of games that were pretty fun. The first game we played was rock, paper or scissors, and we had to all battle each other until there was one victor.The second game we played was one where we had to make two lines, one team for each line and flip a bunch of frisbees, these frisbees were numbered so we had to flip all ten frisbees in the order of the consecutive numbers, ex:1,2,3,4,5....

The third game we played was one where you had to traverse a maze created by a bunch of coloured dots that were scattered on the ground, and we had to work together to find the correct pattern to get out of the maze.

The fourth game we played was one where we had to use a bunch of open tubes to take a bunch of balls from one bucket and transport them through the use of teamwork, with the tubes into another bucket. The fifth game we played was one where we had create a human ladder, first we had two separate teams with only one person climbing the ladder, then we had one team with two people climbing the ladder. To create the ladder you had to people holding a stick together with a bunch of other people beside him doing the same thing, then the person climbing the ladder had to crawl along the sticks, held by the people. 

The final game we played was one where you had to transport a bunch of balls from one bucket to another by holding on to a board with strings that had a hole cut into it. Everybody cheated for that one it was pretty hilarious honestly. Each of the games  had us develop and use different skills necessary for teamwork, including communication (verbal and non-verbal), trust, listening, patience, and concentration.

Then after we said our goodbyes to the Dynamix person, we went back inside, had snacks, then talked about the different jobs we could be given for the next workshop, then we went on and talked about our different personal values and which ones we want our Diller  group to follow.  I think that everybody had a good time, it was lots of fun and I really enjoyed it, can't wait for the next one!☺

-Josh Reinhart