When I got to the shelter this morning the older of my mentees was anxiously waiting my arrival because it was baking day. Last week we had picked out a recipe on pinterest and we were finally going to make it. Baking at the shelter was a little more difficult that I had anticipated. I didn't know where things were, didn't have a lot of equipment and we couldn't use the oven in the kitchen. We made it work though. Instead of using the oven we used the toaster in the kindergarten and managed to somehow melt all the chocolate we needed (although since we originally did it on the stove without a pot of water underneath we had to stir milk in afterwards to keep it a consistency for dipping). On the menu was a s'more covered in chocolate and sprinkles. But since graham crackers don't exist in Israel we used tea biscuits (which have a similar taste and consistency). We had a really fun time figuring it all out though and of course eating the extra marshmallows and chocolate chips (To be clear though, kosher marshmallows in Israel are not my thing).
Making our chocolate dipped s'more creations took longer than expected so I finished up during my free time but I didn't mind. It was nice to get to back with no one interrupting just like I would do at home. Personally I don't think there is anything better than getting your hands covered in chocolate and making something that tastes great. Israelis generally have no idea what s'mores are. They aren't big into the whole marshmallow and chocolate and biscuit thing but I think we changed their minds come snack time.
I was late to our group session because I was working on something for my mentoring session but when I got there Hannah and the girls were painting. The girls really liked it. They cleaned up right as I arrived for snack time. They all loved their s'mores pops. All of the moms also came around looking for the girl I mentor to tell her how good they were! Around this time the other girl I mentor also came up to me and asked if I had watched the vampire diaries yet like we had talked about. I said no but I promised I would watch in preparation for our session the next day. She looked the happiest I have ever seen her when I told her I would make sure to watch. Even Shiran commented how excited she was and how nice it was to see her looking forward to something.
After snack some of the kids in our group wanted to play cards and others wanted to watch finding nemo. Sadly we couldn't find the remote to put the movie on in hebrew but the kids actually paid attention to it in english and seemed to understand what was going on. I was a little disappointed because it would have been neat to watch the movie in hebrew but then again I was able to understand everything which was nice.
Oh I forgot to mention above but we saw the 4 little girls who were sent to a boarding school type facility/family. They come back every other weekend to see their mom and they were still at the shelter when we got there. When we walked into the kindergarten Sarah noticed that there were kids that looked like them and next thing you knew they were running towards us. It was so great to see them and they all looked extremely healthy and well taken care off. The older girl whom Hannah and I had worked with looked so put together and a little like a model with her outfit and confidence. During their session with the women Miriam and Sarah and the women draw pictures of themselves but using a metaphor rather than a picture of a person. I don't remember all the details of the story that Sarah told me but one of the moms drew a picture of a boat rising to sea level and the mom explained it was because she was going to rise to any challenge and overcome what was happening in her life. This was one of the newer woman in the shelter and I thought it was empowering and very wise of her.
After volunteering and dinner we had group. We broke up in small groups to discuss several readings on the vision of Israel and what it is like today. The most memorable of the texts to me was the declaration of Israel. In it was written that the Arabs/Palestinians would be granted equal and full rights of citizenship and were just as much members of the state. However we then read a speech by Ben Gurion in which he used the term Jew more than people or human and I was a tad confused because he seemed to contradict what he had helped written in the previous document about Israel yes being a Jewish state but also being open to everyone. One of the other readings dealt with the idea of the promised land and how it was promised to the Jewish people. Personally I have always had trouble with this idea when people say the land belongs just to us. Back when this supposed promise was made Christianity and Islam didn't exist. In fact many of the followers and leaders of those religions were Jewish at the time. For this reason I have also said that technically the two religions are other sects of Judaism. Because of this I also think it is fair to say that the land of Israel was promised to all 3 religions. If the other two were non-existent yet than technically those who were Jewish were promised the land as well. But that's just my opinion.
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