The Sm
Helping Hands
Young adults volunteer to support Israel and learn how to advocate for it.
Uniting
Around Israel
RANDY MODELL
Special to the Jewish News
TALYA DRISSMAN
Special to the Jewish News
did not care. Ben-Gurion Airport makes me smile no mat-
ter the weather. Personally, I was glad to see the rain; it was
a good omen, good for Israel.
•
0 ver winter break, 27 young adults and I traveled
Ready For Reverie
to Israel to volunteer on an army base.
We began the trip at an orientation meeting.
After the three-hour bus ride to our army base near
The youngest of us was 18, the oldest, 30, but
Tiberias, we started our work. Uniforms were waiting for us
age did not matter. Each of us had a purpose
in our barracks; and we played the match game,
and reason to participate.
swapping shirts, pants and sweaters until every-
A huge map of Israel lay on the floor at the
thing was "just right."
Talya
orientation and, when we played tourist on it,
Each day we had a schedule. Flag
Drissman, 24,
the realization that this was happening hit us.
raising
was at 6:55 a.m., followed
of Farmington
Finally, the evening of Dec. 23 arrived; we
immediately
by warehouse work.
Hills and
met in Newark airport. I had spent a weekend
We
were
allotted
30 minutes for
Marissa
in Brooklyn, excitedly telling my good friends
breakfast at 8:30 a.m., lunch at 12:30
Wengrow, 22,
about the trip and receiving different reactions.
p.m. We also had brief breaks at 10:30
of Troy hug
Work pals were nervous and requested I not
a.m. and 2:30 p.m., and dinner, special
before Marissa
bring anything back except myself. Others
for our group, was at 6 p.m.
heads to the
asked me not to take busses anywhere. My
Our group of 26 (plus two staff—
airport at the
good friends and family were nervous as well,
Miriam
Starkman and Ben Berger) was
end of volun-
but more often than not, they were excited for
subdivided
to different warehouses. My
teering.
me, a bit jealous and extremely proud that I
group of 10 worked with Balki, clean-
was helping our country.
ing artillery cannons, hubcaps, tank
The flight there was quick. We had amazing tail winds
stabilizers and more. We smelled like
that allowed us to get to Tel Aviv in only nine hours. The
turpentine for two weeks. It was great.
normally sunny skies were not there to welcome us, but we
Others helped beautify the base, making sure
there was no trash or unsightly plants to darken
the mood. Others relocated boxes, tested batter-
Talya Drissman, 24, of Farmington Hills is a graduate
ies and supplied us with delicious food.
student in Wayne State University's English program. She'll
HELPING HANDS on page 89
attend the WSU Law School this fall.
2/14
2003
88
ome of us are Orthodox, some
Conservative and some Reform.
These three labels define and
dictate the different ways in
which we practice Judaism. However,
there is one thing that unites us all: the
State of Israel.
For this reason, I, along with 27 other
Michigan Jewish 20-somethings, decided
to spend our holiday vacations both vol-
unteering in the Israeli army as well as
learning more about the Israeli-Palestinian
Arab conflict and Israeli politics.
Dressed in green army attire, we attend-
ed flag-raising every morning at 7 before
beginning the Israeli army workday — 7
a.m. until 4 p.m. with two half-hour
breaks for breakfast afid lunch. We helped
the army testing batteries, working in the
kitchen, cleaning and painting tank parts
and tidying the grounds of the base.
While these jobs may sound menial and
trivial, they were jobs that the army need-
ed to get done.
I spent my days working with my
friend, Avi Ebenstein, in the tire factory.
Israeli army bases in the northern com-
mand would request new tires for their
vehicles, and Avi and I would pull the tires
from the shelves, package them on pallets
and put them on trucks to be shipped. Of
copse, none of this would be possible
without the help of a forklift.
UNITING AROUND ISRAEL on page 89
Avi Ebenstein, standing, and Randy
Modell, working in an Israeli tire firctoly