Final Machon Update

Shalom for one last time from Jerusalem where the 122nd English speaking Machon has just ended. It has been a pretty packed final month with lots of highlights since I last wrote to you all. Continuing on from all of the special days and chagim that I spoke about last time such as Yom HaShoah and Yom Haatzmaut we continued on with Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) and Shavuoth in consecutive weeks. For Yom Yerushalayim the youth movements planned and ran activities for their own participants that reflected the way each movement views this day. Some had their group join one of the celebratory marches that take place around the city, some had a barbeque and some gave their people the time to explore Jerusalem as they individually wanted.

Shavuoth was really lovely at Machon, once again emphasising the crucial, high-quality role that peer hadracha has played with this particular group. The chavura that was organising the Chagim activities planned for the night before Shavuoth a lovely 'milky' buffet and some excellent study sessions followed by a late-night open-mike talent offering. The next evening was actually Shavuoth and, traditionally as well as being a time to eat lots of cheesecake, this festival is one where many people attend all night study events known as a 'Tikun Leil Shavuot' to commemorate the fact that Shavuot is traditionally about the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. Most of the Machonikim stayed in Jerusalem and we offered to organise a meal for them with a local family if they wanted. About a third of them took us up on the offer and then afterward they, and many others, walked around the city attending some of the wide variety of study options that take place throughout the night. Finally, as is the tradition, a big group walked down to the Kotel for prayers at sunrise (or just experiencing the atmosphere for those who don't pray). A long lay-in was thus in order the next morning and then the rekazim (their madrichim) organised a special Shavuoth lunch for those who had stayed and had managed to get up.

Those two weeks also saw the last fortnight of regular studies. All of the classes and courses came to an end as we asked them to reflect on what they'd learned in each area and how, as a result, their thoughts and beliefs had changed. Siyurim (day trips) and special events in this period included a 'My Jerusalem' siyur in preparation for Yom Yerushalayim where they heard different personal stories from a variety of perspectives from people for whom Jerusalem means something very special and yet also very different. There was a Jewish Studies siyur where we visited different types of Yeshiva (some with the boys and girls going separately) to look at how varieties of more or less traditional Jewish study are undertaken here. Finally, probably their most enjoyable siyur was to Holon to a place called 'Dialogue in the Dark, which helps them understand in a really creative and experiential way, the experience of being blind. Many of them said how much it had affected the way they viewed their own sensory abilities.

The Sunday selection evenings consisted of a visit from Adi Nes, a very well known Israeli photographer and a performance from a duo called Bible Raps who write their own rap songs to Biblical themes. This was really enjoyable and the two of them then came back a few nights later for an optional follow up evening which 30 of them chose to do where they wrote their own rap and accompanying video about their time in Israel which was, again, one of their real highlight experiences of Machon. The finished version with video and music all edited together by the Bible Raps duo was screened at the last night final party to great acclaim.


The final three weeks where then, each in their own way, very different from the regular Machon weekly timetable format. The first of them was another week-long Tiyul (trip), this time to the North of the country. We visited Acco, the Kinneret, Tzfat and the Golan among many places and looked there at issues such as the early pioneers and Aliyot, our borders, past wars and future threats, our relationships with Lebanon and Syria, minorities in Israel, ecological issues and Jewish mysticism. Some special highlights of the tiyul were the visit to the Kinneret graveyard where many of the early Zionist heroes are buried, a hard hike which included a swim in a beautiful waterfall, rafting down the Jordan river, a mini-jeeps trek, some great food and a fantastic "chocolate workshop". The whole tiyul was done in partnership with the JNF (Jewish National Fund) who worked with us on the ecological, educational aspects and helped us fund it and the increasing partnership we are building with them is something we hope to really build on in the future.

In the penultimate week of the programme we moved into a special one week seminar entitled 'The Contemporary Jewish World' where we aimed to bring all of the Machon learning together and to leave them with some of the big questions about Israel, Judaism, Zionism and the Jewish People to take with them and to carry on thinking about during the second half of their programmes as they actually go out into Israeli society. Some of the highlights of this week were some great guest speakers who some of you may have heard of including Danny Gordis and David Horowitz the editor of the Jerusalem Post. There were also sessions on issues such as assimilation, anti-Semitism, the Jewish community and Israel-Diaspora relations. There was a fantastic session tracing the way Jews have been portrayed in Hollywood movies and how the issues they dealt with are still with us today and a final creative video activity where they were asked to envisage how they saw the Jewish People in 50 years time.

One other special event in that week was a huge simulation game called 'The Duma' which simulates the Russian Jewish parliament in 1905 and which explored in a very creative and fun format the different, competing options open to Jews at that point from Ultra Orthodoxy, to Zionism to Communism to moving to America and looked at how the same questions that underpin those choices over a century ago are still relevant for us as Jews today. All in all the week provided a very good way to conclude the content learning aspect of Machon.

Also in this penultimate week we finished the community involvement/volunteering aspect of Machon by holding a presentations afternoon where each of the small groups, using photos and video clips taken during the projects, showed the others what they'd been doing. It was really great to see how much the Machonikim had got out of getting out of the campus and being involved in Israeli society and helping others, even for this relatively short period of time, whether that was in Teaching English to disadvantaged kids, helping out in a centre for disabled adults, helping the community to build a community garden in a difficult neighbourhood, involvement in a variety of tzedaka projects including picking fruit and helping an organisation that collects second had clothes and furniture for the poor and running a fund-raising sleep out and consciousness raising evening on the theme of homelessness in Israel where they actually raised almost 5,000 shekels.

In this very final week we started with a 2 day special tiyul, again planned by one of the chavura groups. They organised and ran a brilliant 'Amazing Race' style game in small groups across the country which involved clues, creative tasks and dealing with both the locals and with the Israeli public transport in different cities in order to win the race. In the evening they slept out on a beach near Netanya and then continued on with the race the next morning and, as with the real thing, had staggered starts for the groups according to how well they'd done the previous day. The whole tiyul was finished off with a fun outing to a water park and everyone arrived back very tired but fulfilled from an excellent fun and group bonding start to the final week.
On their return back to Kiryat Moriah, the final group's peer led activities took place, run by the chavura who had organised a range of fun and nostalgic ways to reminisce on their last four months on Machon including organising a Yearbook, the obligatory t-shirts and a final group photo. These final few days were taken up with various sikum (closure) activities including among other things: a final Chavura session with again time for reflection on how they've developed individually and as a group through both the group chavura time and through regular individual one-on-one conversations, a big fun quiz to see what elements of Machon they've really taken in (both educationally and socially) and then the final last night activities which consisted of a nice meal out, together with a show made up of some live acts and a great couple of videos put together by some of the group and then a final party. All in all the whole final evening took place in a really lovely atmosphere.

That took us to the final morning earlier today where there was an early wake up to do all the final packing and the room check-outs and then the traditional Machon closing tekes (ceremony). In closure, we hope that you have appreciated these update letters and that your children have enjoyed their Machon experience educationally, socially, spiritually and in terms of their personal development as much as we've enjoyed working with them.

All the best,

Haggai & the Machon tzevet