Saturday 7 July 2012

The Weekly Report: 10/05/2012

Dear Parents, Sniffim and Shnatties. Shalom Rav,

Last week finished with the machonicks staying in Machon for a Shabbat Beyachad that was very lovely.

The week started with democracy at it’s best and continued with politics at its best, the same day our etgarnicks went to visit the Kneset, was the day that the Israeli government was to supposed to be dissolved, they saw a lot of commotion going on, we even thought that our southern shnatties would be able to experience election day in Israel. In Israel, elections are held every 4 years, however since the assassination of Itzhack Rabin there hasn’t been one government that has finished its term and we thought the same was going to happen this time when we woke up the next morning to find that politics had a different plan for us. The head of the opposition Shaul Mofaz has joined the coalition and therefore the early elections have been canceled (for now).

This weekend the etgarnicks will be leaving for their northern tyul, the machonicks will be leaving for their northern tyul on Sunday, the tyul committees have been working very hard to plan the tyul, and our representatives form Netzer Barcelona that are doing the Spanish speaking Machon, are getting ready to leave for Poland with Machon.

Hopefully I will have pictures from the tyul for the next report, meanwhile I am attaching pictures form our machonicks.

I wish you a great weekend and Shabbat Shalom,

Michael

Weekly report by Jade K (Machon)

Hi everyone’s mums and dads!!! (and Sam Osborn, who recently informed me that people who aren’t parents actually read the parents report. I must say though I’m still not entirely convinced that this isn’t one of your many quirks, so if you’re reading this and you aren’t everyone’s mums and dads and you aren’t Sam, give me a yell, I’d love to know that you exist!)

The Machonikim began this week on a bit of a low in the wake of Tara’s departure, but we soon dried our tears knowing firstly that she had followed her heart and done what would make her happy and secondly that Etgar isn’t North Korea, we’d still be able to see her all the time. In fact, we’ve probably seen Tara more in this one week than we ever did on Machon.

As it was so wisely put this week by our very own Lily Manoim, “Pluralism means that in order to make everyone comfortable, everyone needs to be a little bit uncomfortable.” (A simply hilarious side note for those who know Lily: when quoting this exact statement 5 minutes after she had coined it, Haggai attributed it to Abra who is not only a Habonik, but a man and worst of all an Australian, needless to say she was not impressed.) Jokes aside, I truly believe that this statement strikes at the core of Machon’s pluralist ideology and like a Machane provides a Movement with the opportunity to practice Hagshama collectively, so does Shabbat Beyachad provide the Machon with a similar vehicle for the practical realisation of its ideology.

As a fairly distinctive (and sometimes misunderstood) Progressive minority faced with the prospect of `presenting ‘our Shabbat’ to our Cultural, Secular Humanist and Modern Orthodox friends, it was safe to say that Teva was feeling a little bit uncomfortable, however, in true Netzer style we didn’t let this deter us. Three services, three meals, two sets of chuggim, two divrei torah, five aliyot and one tish later with our fingers practically bleeding from all the guitar playing, siddur making, challah braiding, leyning and of course tree hugging we sat back, reflected on all of our hard work in preparation for shabbat and we saw that it was good. All in all it was a very restful and enlightening experience.

Shabbat was followed by an otherwise uneventful week as far as the day to day running of Machon was concerned, however that’s more than I can say for the Knesset. In the interest of not stealing Michael’s thunder, I’m sure he has already had lots to say on the subject in his funny little introduction thing… (Michael, if you are reading this know that by ‘funny’ I mean lovely and very informative.) All I’ll say is that if you get the chance to ask your Machonikim their opinions on the coalition, I promise you won’t be disappointed. After all, both a Machonik and a Netzernik are nothing if not informed and I’m not trying to impress you or anything but we happen to be a delicious combination of both.

Today's Yom Yisrael was truly unbelieveable (pictures included). We were given a choice between 4 tours that each examined a different aspect of Israeli high culture. Shoshana, Jords, Becca, Naomi, Lily and I chose to visit the main campus of the Hebrew University's affiliated design school, Bezalel. There is something weirdly comforting about walking through the campus of an Arts Collage. I think this is probably because no matter where you go in the world, they all look more or less the same (polished concrete floors, exposed pipes painted a bright 'unexpected' colour) and tend to be populated by the same general crowd of hipsters. Having said that, there were a few cool things that set Bezalel apart from the rest, most noteworthy being that Herzel was a huge fan, (saaaah Zionist!) he really pushed for it's establishment making it the oldest tertiary institution in Israel. Also, in the spirit of preserving the classic hands-on roots of the fine arts in the digital age, Bezalel is the only institution in the whole of Israel that teaches glassblowing and wet print colour photography. Pretty cool. We were then taken to the Cinemateque (yeah, the Cinemateque! I couldn’t believe it either!) where Steve Israel gave those hardcore enough to fight off their undeniable exhaustion an incredible lecture complete with film excerpts as examples about the history and thematic development of the Israeli film industry, which really was a perfect end to what was one of my favorite days of Shnat so far. As is evident from Benjy’s face (see photo), we sure found it interesting but I know film isn’t everyone’s cup of tea so I won’t bore you with the details (If you’re dying to hear them I’d be happy to send you my notes)

So there you go, another week has gone by in a flash. We all can’t wait for Northern Tiyul next week but also would never dream of wishing our time on Machon (or with our beautiful Northerners!!!) away. The last thing I wanted to say was thank you for sending us, I don’t think we say it enough. I honestly can’t imagine what our lives would be like now without Shnat and without each other.

We miss you! (but probably not quite as much as you miss us…)

O’s X’s and just an insane amount of love,

Jade (and all your kids by extension)

Weekly report by Tara D (Etgar)

Hello all from Beit shmuel,
you'll be pleased to know all is well
This may be a suprise, for not all of you are aware
I'm now an "etgar-nick", if anyone cares
Life here is peaceful and calm
We are all safe and have come to no harm.
We've toured the knesset and attended court
Learnt the difference between "bought" and "brought"
This week has featured pokemon
And on top of it all, the sun has shone
Shabbat service was arranged by Kitty,
Combined with star wars- how creative and witty!
We've been on buses, trams and walked,
We've had heated discussions and calmer talks
Today's Lag B'omer and we all cant wait
To celebrate here in the Jewish state
Its been a week of gluttony and excessive greed
Each person has been out for their own selfish needs
The cheddar went missing and chaos broke out
"It was Alyson Rolfe", we all heard Naomi shout
with hummus, champagne, strawberries and fruit
We picknicked happily at the shukh
Seeing as we are on the topic of appetite
We are due to barbeque this very night
Jeff has offered us a unique opportunity
and will answer questions for the community
Naomi is busy roshing the week
We are researching holidays in Mozambique
Lactose intolerance has become an epidemic,
Emily was the last to be taken sick
Jemma and I have been doing a lot of debating
Whilst Naomi did all the catering,
Theme night was "Thai", I am pleased to say,
A great way to start the month of may.