Half of what I say is meaningless, still I say it just to reach you...

I'm starting this blog now so that I don't forget to do it later. I don't have much to say about Workshop right now, as it doesn't actually start for 9 days. But I'm starting now to give you all my version of an overview. This is what I'm doing next year from the way I understand things...

This entry's purpose is to give you all a little background on what I'm doing and the lingo involved. Let's start there shall we?

As you all know, I've been going to the same Jewish Summer Camp since I was 8. The name of the camp is Camp Tavor and it's a part of the Jewish youth movement Habonim Dror.

Habonim Dror is active in countries all over the world. Habonim Dror North America (HDNA) runs seven summer camps across the U.S. and Canada. The names of the camps (or machanot, as they're called) are; Miriam (West Coast of Canada, kinda by Vancouver I think), Gesher (Toronto area), Gilboa (West Coast America), Moshava (Mosh for short, in the Maryland area), Galil (Philly), Na'aleh (New York) and Tavor (Midwest). They all have names related to things or places in Israel.

So, Workshop. As you may have gathered, that's the name of the program I'm going on. All the participants are members of Habonim Dror. This is the 58th Workshop being run, so that's what Workshop 58 means.

There are two main parts of Workshop; Boneh and Kaveret. Boneh (which means build) begins in September. During Boneh we live on Kibbutz and learn various things about jewish/Israeli history and we get Hebrew lessons. I guess that we'll actually be doing stuff on kibbutz, but at this point I couldn't tell you what.

Kaveret starts in the winter and that's when the Workshoppers are split into two groups or "kvutsot". The kvutsot live in different cities that are about 20 minutes away from eachother. There we do "Messimot" or "missions". Baisically those are community service-type things. Last year the Workshoppers spend time teaching kids in English as their Messimah. I'm assuming that we'll be doing the same thing, but again, I couldn't say for sure at this point.

This all lasts until May when I come home.

I'll try and keep updating regularly, but I have this bad habit of forgetting/procrastinating. My goal is to update once a week so that you all can spend the majority of your time Facebook-ing, which is what I know you all will do.

Speaking of Facebook, my blog address will be on mine if you ever forget it. I'll also be able to use Facebook and e-mail in Israel, so feel free to use either of those to get in contact with me. If you want to call me, just keep in mind that I won't be using my American phone AND that Israel is 7 hours ahead of EST and I'm not that much fun to talk to when I'm half awake.

I think you can post comments on these blog entries too, so go ahead and do it.


Ok, that's all I got for now. My next post will be from Israel!!!!

-Phia