A Closer Examination of Haifa Society

This morning we began our community service in Haifa.  We split up into four groups – one going to the Rambam hospital to work in the children’s ward, one going to Ofakim to work with children with disabilities, one going to a senior residence, and one group teaching English to a predominantly Ethiopian school.  Overall, we were all very challenged during the community service, as it turned out none of them were easy tasks.  We struggled with the language barrier and the disorganization of some of the service sites.  In the end the hard work we put into the community service paid off and everyone felt that they had done a good thing.  Greg played checkers with a 17 year old Israeli Arab patient in Rambam without quite understanding that apparently there are different rules here, Noah S. slow danced with a woman at the senior residence, and Liat good heartedly accepted the gentle ribbing of the young Israeli children making fun of her American accent while speaking Hebrew.  We are all looking forward to returning and conquering the sites tomorrow.

After lunch we began our examination of the diversity of the culture of Israel through the micro chasm that is the city of Haifa.  We learned about the Bahai religion and people as we toured their beautiful gardens (lots and lots and lots of pictures), although even after watching the promotional video we had zero converts… From the gardens we headed to Carmel, a Druze village where we learned about the interesting history of their people. Many of us were surprised to learn about an Arab minority which is so loyal to Israel that they send their own people to the IDF. They served us an authentic, plateless, almost cutlery less meal. Many of us enjoyed the fig leaves, the cabbage, and the bowl of fat, while others of us stuck to the pitas, rice, and humus. And as is the Diller way, we ended the evening with a movie about the emigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel and the challenges they faced along the way. All three encounters provoked our thoughts on Israel’s Declaration of Independence and the diverse treatment of minority groups in the Jewish state.