CAARI picks fruit for Project Leket

Shalom,
Another busy CAARI day and a great way to start the week. First of all the sun is shining and we love walking out of our hotel, looking to the right, for a view of the blue Mediterranean Sea! Our day started, of course, with breakfast and conversation about what we did over Shabbat! Some of us visited with family and friends, others went to shul, others went to the dancing along the board walk and others just rested!
All of us leave for our community service work in taxis in groups of 2 -4 people departing the hotel from 7:30 - 8:30. The children are so excited to see us and we are excited to see them. We feel we are making connections with them and see the progress in the their English conversation. Each of us has a different experience that we share with the group over our next meal - lunch - back at the hotel.
This afternoon we drove to an orchard in Rehovet to 'glean'. And...glean we did - we picked over 200 pounds of clementines. We were assigned to finish picking one of the fields. Not such an easy job picking fruit - you have to gently turn the clementine so not to damage the stem. MMMMMMMM - some of the damged fruits had to be eaten by us - pretty sweet and tasty! We did a 'mitzva' today! Natalie and Ron thanked us for our hard work - they were surprised that we were able to pick that much fruit - and they gave us all T-shirts - which we shall proudly wear!
Our evening activing was a speaker, Nicki Maor, from the Israel Religious Action Committee. She brought us up-to-date on the conversion issues which has been controversal here in Israel and the States and Canada.
Another great day! Tomorrow - a day in the JNF forest.
Shalom,
CAARI 2011

Sunday, Jan. 23 - Tel Aviv

Shalom,

Great weather today, sunny and in the 60's. We are expecting rain at the end of the week, but right now we are enjoying what we have. We began our day with community service, lunch (got to eat) followed by an interesting visit to the Peres Peace Center in Jaffa with a magnificent view of the sea. We toured Jaffa and then...dinner at Maganda!

Having a great time!

CAARI 2011

TuBshvat Tree Planting by Marcia Bercov

Hello again,
And Happy New Year. Well, another kind of New Year's celebration, this one the New Year of the Trees, Tu B'Shevat. All of Israel marks this holiday by planting trees in different parts of the country.
This event is organized by the Jewish National Fund, or Keren Kayemeth L'Israel, as it is known in this country. This year planting took place in three separate areas, one in the north, one in the south, and one in Modi'in, about half an hour's drive from Tel Aviv. Trees came from the JNF tree nursery, which CAARI visited on a previous trip. And the trees, countless flats of them unloaded from trucks onto the ground at the foot of prepared hillsides...what a sight. JNF staff prepared the ground, digging holes for the seedlings and placing a flag next to each hole, as a marker of the site and a souvenir for the planter.
For me, planting a tree in Israel in person give me a very special feeling of connection with the land.
For many years, this was something which our family did by proxy, so to speak, from Canada. We contributed money to JNF for trees to commemorate many kinds of occasions, like the birth of a child, a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or in memory of someone who had passed away. JNF would then send a tree certificate to the family. Actually we have one sent by my Grandmother on the occasion of our marriage. But I digress. Today our group,having arrived early at the site, had the privilege of planting a tree before most of the people came. Mine is up on the hill, near a large rock where I hope the rain will collect and keep it well watered. After our group planted, Neil, our guide, recited the Blessing for the planting of trees in Israel, a very beautiful moment for everyone.
Then the crowds arrived - large groups of people, many families with young children whose faces lit up when they received their seedlings. Our group, located at two different stations at the bottom of the hill, handed out the seedlings, and some of us accompanied groups up the hill to help them. I escorted a large number of the most adorable little ones, probably about four years old, from the SeaHorse Nursery. Another memorable group consisted of half a dozen young soldiers, with rifles on their shoulders and seedlings in their hands.
In all, we distributed some 8,000 seedlings. What looks like a rocky hillside today will become a forest in years to come.
This is all for now. Shabbat is coming and we will welcome it very soon.
Shabbat Shalom and best wishes from Israel.
Marcia and Ron

TuBshvat Seder with CAARI

Shalom!

We have been celebrating TuBshvat - the anniversary of the trees! Thursday night after dinner we had our annual Seder with all the dried fruits, wine and music. All enjoyed the festivities as you can see by the pictures. Thank you Gloria, Diane,Sid and Gidi for making this such a lovely 7 memorable evening!

Susan and Neil

First day of School - by Rosalie Whitehill (New York)

Shalom you'all,

Today was the first day of community service for the group. All were excited, some a little apprehensive about how they would be received and what would happen. Around 7:30 the first group took off in the taxis and around noon they returned to the hotel with such smiles on their faces - "oh, it was great - better than expected.." They were full of stories and anxious to tell each other about their experience.

The following is Rosalie's account of the day.

Yes, it is almost sundown on another beautiful, sunny 63-66ish day in glorious Tel Aviv.....sorry for my friends in Plainview and family in Boston......but delighted for me!!!

Today was my first day back at my school.....now a 40 minute walk since our present hotel is further away......An aside.....in addition to the most accomodating staff I have ever experienced in Israel, the food is really good......a little less than other places on desserts, but that's fine with me.

Anyway, today was too easy for me.....I had all girls....3 classes of 2 and one class of one...(one of the girls is the sister of the boy whose family picked me up at the airport and she just grinned like a cheshire cat, the whole period)....and since she and the girl with her liked to sing, we sang songs in English and had a fine time.

This afternoon we had a tour of the first city hall of Tel Aviv on Bialik Street.....on of the first streets after the original settlers built their houses....It has been beautifully restored and I discovered that Dizengoff (first mayor of Tel Aviv) was great friends with Bialik (poet laureate of Tel Aviv) whose house is just accross the little plaza. Another place I had not visited before....for the past two years it was being restored so that it could open for Tel Aviv's 100th birthday last year.

If you read this far, I will add that my room-mate Diane is more than happy with this trip, really enjoying the people, what we do, and appreciating our coordinator and guide......all of which makes me feel good.

So that's the news of the day(s) and I continue to love Eretz Yisroel as much if not more than ever!!

love to all of you!!

Rosalie