Jerusalem-Ir Hakodesh- The Holy City

Some of the most wonderful conversations I've had with Israelis were in the back of a Taxi. Yesterday was no exception as Ruben and I had a great cab ride from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Our driver pointed out various sites and we also had an opportunity to learn about his background, his children and his political views.

We arrived in Jerusalem and checked into the Dan Panorama0 hotel. I immediately starting seeing some dear friends who had arrived for the convention. I left Ruben and went off to the opening dinner where we were greeted with lots of live music and fabulous food. Of course the theme was traditional Israeli food so we had more falafel and hummus. Unbelievably, I'm still not sick of it! Aside from being with nearly 300 rabbis from around the world, one of the highlights of the dinner was hearing from the Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat. I even had a chance to shake his hand and say hello as he left. I was impressed with him and his goals for Jerusalem particularly that of trying to increase the number of tourists from 2 million a year to 10 million a year.

After dinner, I returned to the hotel and Ruben and I spent some time catching up with some of my colleagues from around the world including a friend who serves a congregation in Pretoria, South Africa!

Today- Wednesday February 25th 2009

From morning to evening, today was jam-packed. Ruben and I started the day quite early as we had breakfast around 7am. In case you were wondering, today's breakfast was just as great as the last few days.

Here are some pictures to show you how good it looked...

After breakfast, I went to the Old City to the Western Wall to join up with about 50 women who were participating in the monthly Rosh Chodesh (new month) service. As a rabbinical student during my year in Israel, I went to these monthly gatherings quite often and it was great to be back for this one. Of course, our being a large group of women singing at the wall (with some male colleagues behind us for support) was a very emotional experience for me, especially since this is the first time I've been back to Israel since being ordained as a rabbi. Just being at the wall is a holy experience for me as I think of how many generations had to "wail" at the wall. I was very happy to let my voice be heard as we welcomed in the month of Adar!

Following my stay in the Old City, I joined up with the rest of the conference for a meeting and then went with my subgroup to Jaffa for our day of Tikkun Olam- fixing the world. I had picked the group going to the "Reform Mechina" without knowing much about it. Mechina, which means preparation in Hebrew, is a gap-year program for teenagers in the year after they graduate high school before going into the army (as all Israelis are required to do). There are 35 mechina programs in the country- half of them are Orthodox and half of them are non-Religious with only 1 being Reform. These youngsters have a chance to spend the first half of the day studying Jewish texts and learning about leadership and then they spend the rest of the day volunteering throughout Jaffa. After a very moving text study with a few of the Mechina participants we had lunch and continued on to the Arab-Jewish Community Center in Jaffa. I had a great time learning with Mechina participants and interacting with some truly adorable kids at the community center!

We got back to Jerusalem and...

Stay tuned and I'll fill you in on all the great things I did tonight and how Ruben occupied his time while I was in Tel Aviv!

Also, feel free to pass this link on to those who might be interested and to post comments!

L'hitraot,

Rabbi Emily