Galil Blog

Belated greetings from Galil!

Last Sunday was mini Yom Israel at Galil. Usually, Yom Israel is a day dedicated to celebrating Israeli culture and discussing Israeli society. While we still spent some of the day doing this, parts of the day were spent commemorating the lives lost in the Israel/Palestine region since October 7th. 

We started off the special day with a lunch of shawarma, pita, salatim, and moussaka. Lunch was delectable! After lunch, we went to chuggim about Israeli society, Israeli democracy, the war in Israel/Palestine, and October 7th. Younger kids went to a chug about the symbolism of the Israeli flag at pro-democracy protests. 

After chuggim, we had a little bit of rest time and then played Israeli sports. These included soccer, dog walking (a vicious egg on spoon relay race), matkot (Israeli paddleball), chayeh sarah (an Israeli dodgeball-esque game), volleyball, and rikud. We worked up a sweat and went to the shuk, where we ate chocolate ruggelach and made bracelets. 

After our shuk adventure, we split into two groups. The younger kids wrote letters to evacuees in HaNoar HaOved VeHalomed (our sister movement) in Israel, while the older kids had a zoom call with madrichimot in the movement in Israel. It was meaningful to hear the stories of fellow movement members with shared values. 

After some rest and reflection time, we switched gears and got ready for an Israeli beach-themed pool party. We splashed around in the sun and ate ice cream sold by a curmudgeonly ice cream vendor (our lovely shaliach Guy Brenkel). Following the pool party, we had some shower time and got ready for our tekkes (ceremony) to commemorate the lives lost in the war. We sang songs of peace, donned yellow ribbons, and held a moment of silence for victims of the war. Tzevet, madatz, and chanichimot shared reflections on what it means to build peace.

We transitioned from our tekkes into a kibbutz-themed evening. We ate a picnic dinner of bourekas, jachnun, Israeli salad, and other kibbutz chadar ochel fix-ins. At dinner, we were introduced to the corrupt mazkira of the kibbutz, Olga. We spent the rest of the evening investigating Olga’s money laundering habits. We ended with a pride party where we ate ugat biskvitim and danced to Israeli hits! The day was mamash kef!

L’hitraot,

Amina