2nd Shabbaton: 50% Self-Management Part 2 by Noah Rocklin

For dinner on the Saturday night of our shabbaton, we were split into small groups and given a sheet full of questions for us to answer and discuss together, as we made our own pizzas. This really helped us bond and become closer as a group. After dinner, we were split into groups of 3 or 4, and sent on a scavenger hunt throughout the main floor of the Retreat Centre in pursuit of a prize. Our hunt included riddles, trivia, and a puzzle, which led us to our Diller sweatshirts!

We finished of the night with a rather impactful Maagal Laila run by our JC's. We were each given a paper with a question written on it, that we answered to everybody. This let us really understand one another on a more personal level. The next morning, after a nice breakfast of lox and bagels, we filmed a video to send to our Israelis, directed by the Communication group. We lined up outside in the freezing cold in our matching sweatshirts and quickly turned to the camera and says our names.

Before leaving, we had a quick feedback and clean up session. Overall, the shabbaton was an incredible experience for our group. Special thanks to Sarah, Moriel, Tair, Alon, and our JC's Spencer and Rebecca for making our time so exciting!

By Noah Rocklin

2nd Shabbaton: 50% Self-Management Part 1 by Hannah Bicher

Our 2nd shabbaton was super fun and chill. We went to camp Kinneret which is near Mont Tremblant. 

Once we arrived at the Y at 1:00pm, we went straight to camp. Once we got there, we unloaded our bags and supplies and prepared for Shabbat that was soon to arrive. 

The Rituals group hosted Shabbat candle lighting where girls and some of the boys lit some candles that were in a shape of a Magen David. Then we did Kabbalat Shabbat, which included services and some trivia questions, and ate dinner which was really good. 

We had a program run by the Partnership group later in the evening where we did many activities like testing our Israel knowledge. We were each given a year and the group in charge read an event in Israeli history. Then, the person from each team who had the correct date, had to go up and eat a licorice really fast in order to tell them the date. We also did activities about our pen pals, to see if we really knew our Israeli. One of the activities was where group two placed papers of fun facts about everyone's Israelis and we had to pick the paper that has the fun fact about our pen pal.  

We did Ma'agal Laila both nights to get us to connect with each other. The Friday night, we sat in a circle and closed our eyes and Sarah tapped someone on the head and asked questions like "who in the room makes you laugh a lot" and you had to tap someone who you thought made you laugh. Afterwards, we all hung out together before going to bed.

  

Saturday morning, we had breakfast and then we did a program led by Rebecca and Sarah about prayers. We started with small pairing discussions related to random materials, and when we brought them back to the group we learned that these were the materials mentioned in Parashat Terumah, for the construction of the ark. This led to a discussion about individual vs. group prayer. We ended off with a guided meditation and personal prayer.

Later on in the morning, the Leadership group ran their program. We had to put on a skit about any values related to leadership like honesty, communication, etc. Everyone enjoyed it very much and we discussed what type of leaders we are.

During our break, we ate lunch and played outside in the freezing cold for only 10-30 minutes because it was -35 out. Then we all chilled inside and played some cards for a little while. 

Later in the afternoon, Tair and Alon who are a shinshinit and shaliach from Israel hosted a dialogue program where we talked about the Women of the Wall and Israel. They also provided us with some guidelines to help us have meaningful discussions with each other and with our Israelis when they come. We would like to say thank you for talking to us about this interesting issue and we enjoyed listening to an Israeli's  perspective about the Women of the Wall.

Afterwards, we played games like  the apple game where we had to squish together in a tight circle and we had to pass around the apple from behind our backs while someone in the middle had to guess where the apple is. Some fellows even tried taking a bite out of the apple secretly. This was fun and it made everyone more awake. 

Right before supper, the Rituals group was in charge of havdallah. We sang a lot of songs like Baruch hagever and Ani maamin. We really connected. We even sang our national anthem.

To conclude, I am so happy I am in Diller because I got to meet so many nice people and it's so fun to hang out with all of them. 

By: Hannah Bicher

Workshop 5: Tu B'shevat By Gita Margolese

This past Sunday we had another fun and educational wokshop. The theme of this workshop was Tu B’shevat. We discussed what trees symbolize and the importance of appreciating nature.

The workshop began with each fellow describing their roses, thorns and buds of the week. Roses represent something good that happened during the week, thorns represent something bad that happened and buds represent something we are looking forward to in the near future. Many of us said that our bud was the upcoming Shabbaton which I know I can’t wait for!

Next, we had a Tu B’shevat Seder led by our amazing JCs, Rebecca Gotteiner and Spencer Albert. In the Tu B’shevat seder we drank four glasses of grape juice, each glass darker than the previous one, starting with white grape juice and ending with red grape juice. We also ate three different fruits, the first one with a hard outer shell (oranges or grapefruit), the next one with a hard middle or pit (olives or dates) and finally, the last one being completely edible throughout (raisins and blueberries). Each of these represent different level of purity, holiness and potential. During the seder, we also had a five minute meditation session where we were able to relax and unwind and simply focus on our breathing which really helped refresh us after a tiring and long week.

After the Seder, we acted out a story as a group about Honi ha-M'agel who was once walking and saw an old man planting a carob tree, a tree that takes 70 years to grow. He asked the man why he was planting the tree and the man told him that he was planting the tree, not for himself but for future generations. The old man then fell asleep and when he woke up, 70 years had passed and he was able to benefit from the carob tree that he had planted many years earlier. We reflected on being grateful for what nature provides for us, as well as the importance of ensuring that future generations get to benefit as well.

We then were each given a picture of a tree to personalize. The tree represented who we are as a person where the roots represented where each person comes from, the trunk represented our core, our beliefs and our morals and the branches and leaves represented our aspirations and goals for the future.

After our creative work we had a short break for lunch where we made delicious falafel.

After lunch, we had an amazing program run by Avital Beller, our shinshinit. The group was split into two teams. Each team wrote down words related to Tu B’shevat on individul pieces of paper and put them on a plate. Each team then acted out charades with the words written by the other team. The next part of Avital’s program involved spliting into four groups. Each group was given an article relating to either Tu B’shevat or trees and we discusses our articles in our groups.

We then broke off into our committees for the Shabbaton and finalized our programs.

Finally, Sarah, our awesome coordinator explained what the Jewish Community Mifgash with the Israelis would be like. We brainstormed as a group some fun activities that we could do when our fellows from Be’er Sheva arrive. We all had an amazing time at the workshop and can’t wait to see each other again soon at our Shabbaton! I would lastly like to thank Sarah, Rebecca, Spencer and the whole Diller team for all the time and devotion that they put into making each aspect of Diller run smoothly. We really appreciate you!

By Gita Margolese

Workshop 4: Montreal Jewish Community and Self-Management by Naomi Spiegelman

At every Diller workshop, the teen fellows get to explore different topics that are part of the fundamental principles and objectives of Diller. This workshop was about the Jewish community and working on our self-management (leadership).

During the first part of today’s workshop, Leah Berger, a Senior Planning Associate from Federation CJA came to speak to us and explained a bit more in depth about our Jewish community, and the many agencies affiliated it. We learned how the funds raised by the annual campaign are allocated to the various agencies. Afterwards, we had fifteen minutes to do a mock money allocation with 5 agencies and $3.9 Million. Although there was a time strain, it was very interesting to see how everyone has different thoughts and views on what are the priorities, what is urgent and what is not. There was some discussion about whether it is a Jewish priority to provide services for non-Jews as well, and Leah told us that this is a point of discussion in the allocations meetings as well. Within this, we briefly spoke about a topic that is very important to me: Tikun Olam. Tikun Olam in English means to repair the world, to make it a better place by performing acts of kindness.

Afterwards, we had a lunch break. Following lunch, we worked on the self-management topic. Sarah presented to us the Journey of Bread and Water (also known as Milk and Cookies). We learnt about the importance of creating a mission, a vision, goals and objectives. This session was also an introduction to our next project. We have a Shabbaton coming up relatively soon and different committees in our Diller Group are responsible for planning different sections of the Shabbaton. My committee is in charge of “Rituals”. We brainstormed in the allotted time and will continue planning and working on our self-management as the shabbaton approaches.

By Naomi Spiegelman

Workshop 3 by Amanda Marciano

This past Sunday, our cohort had another great workshop. The theme of this workshop was Current Events and Media Bias.  We talked about current events happening around the world and how they affect us. We also learned a lot about media through discussions and games.

When we first arrived, we were shown media posts and headlines about Israeli bias in social media. We then went back to have a great discussion on what the media had to say about Israel and how biases exist on both sides. We also discussed the kind of information that the media gives us and how media works and how sometimes it can give false information. We discussed together as a group the pros and cons of this and how it affects all of us.

We then moved on to playing a fun game organized by our JCs.  We were split up into two groups and were given statements made by Jews, Christians, Muslims or other people and we had to guess by who this statement was given by. It opened our minds and gave us a chance to reflect on the points of view of other religions.

 After a nice break to talk, relax and eat some snacks, we moved on to our next activity. We were again split up into four groups and each group was given a different article to read and discuss. Each article stated something different on similar topics. For example, one article talked about discrimination toward Palestine. It talked about how there are people who are against Palestine and some are for them. Everyone has their own opinion about this. The article also talked about how there are people who discriminate against Palestine and think that all Palestinians are terrorists and bad people. After everyone came back together, each group got the chance to talk about their article and share with the rest of us what was discussed within their group.

Afterwards, we were very excited to learn that we will soon get the chance to speak to our Israeli pen pals. Since Sunday was the first night of Chanukah, we all lit the menorah together and recited the blessing for Chanukah. It was very nice to be able to light the menorah together. Lastly, we made a short video to send to our Israelis wishing them a happy Chanukah!

I think that we all left the workshop with something a new point of view on things. I look forward to meeting our Israeli pen pals. Overall, it was another great and successful workshop. I am very excited for the next meeting. I can’t wait to see what we will learn next! 

by Amanda Marciano