We were all here for a number of reasons: to connect with religion, with faith, with Israel, with a sense of adventure and danger and a sense of the self. To drink, to dance, to flutter and flirt, to live one of the rare occasions life has to offer where you are exactly what you do and nothing more; where the baggage of the past is left behind and everyone exists as a lovely little question mark.

I was there to find the things I felt my life had been missing, to see just how this current version of myself holds true while splattered across a blank canvas. Above all I was there to fan the smoldering embers of every day life and see how long it takes to spark fire.

Sunday, January 9th. At midnight I turned 25. Ellen, a USC sorority girl heading to Teach For America in the spring, shares my birthday – she will be 22. I had never met anybody who has the same birthday as me. We spent quite some time discussing the coincidence of it all.

That afternoon, we walked through the old Temple, our destination the Wailing Wall. We split into our respective gendered sections and prayed our way towards the stones of the oldest world. The man laid Tefillin, muttered words of indecipherable Hebrew meaning not nearly as much as the feeling of the tight leather bands cutting into our skin in the afternoon light. I pray – a scattered version of the Shacharit morning service, whatever I can recall by heart, which is enough still to this day to surprise me.

We spent the afternoon at Mount Herzl cemetery, taking an emotional tour through the graves of countless 20-something soldiers whose smiling faces look like people I’ve probably hit on or partnered with for beer pong. We looked to our own soldiers, all in uniform for the first time since we landed, all kids, just like us, thrust into an adult world a bit too soon. We read the weariness in their eyes. We cried. We thanked our lucky stars that we are who we are, what we are, from where we are and when.

The following day we were to visit Yad Vashem. When group leader Matt asked us not to do any drinking the night before, despite it being Erev Yom-My-Birthday, we had to respect that. I’m not one to overlook an opportunity to celebrate anything, least of all the anniversary of my birth, and so the game was afoot: how does a group of hard-partying 20-somethings remain respectful but still have a good time in mine (and Ellen’s) honor(s)?

I called the front desk. Suddenly, I am ‘Jay From Taglit’ and ‘we have some evening programming that we’d like to run here tonight’ and ‘well, I don’t know what to tell you, sir, I’ve got 40+ kids and three hours of evening events that we need a space for’ and ‘I’m not sure if the bomb shelter will do!’ and ‘dance floor, you say?’ and ‘thank you very much, you’ve been more than accommodating, I’ll be sure to tell my superiors.’

We arranged for iPod speakers and sodas and chips and balloons and it’s all just the right kind of depressing, and there, in the dimly-lit bomb shelter of a Jerusalem hotel, we threw a strange version of a shitty Middle School Dance. It is everything I wanted – people dancing freely, until we’re all sweaty and giggling and having the time of our lives. At midnight, Ellen and I were placed on chairs and paraded around the room. It was terrifying and electrifying and felt like my bar mitzvah all over again, where once more I am now a man except this time I pay electric bills and can hold my liquor.

It was an excellent birthday and one I will never forget.

We woke the next morning, in various states of stupor. It was our last day. No one said anything.

We boarded the bus to Yad Vashem. The experience is soul-shakingly powerful. Whereas before, I had been greatly saddened by the staggering losses of the Jewish people, in this visit I was stunned by my own anger, by the bubbling bile of hatred within me for anyone who could do such things, and I was moved to tears. At some point it became too much and, eyes blurry, I ran outside of the room and had to hold my own head and breath very carefully to regain control. In short: man, the Holocaust? Some real fucked-up shit.

We left, each of us powerfully moved. How do you follow a thing like that? You can’t. You can’t follow it.

We boarded the bus for the second to last time and drove to a winery in Nachshon. We had our closing ceremonies, including a series of B’nai Mitzvot. I was filled with an odd sense of pride to watch my new friends as they speak their minds about Judaism and the role it plays in their lives before we briefly read from the Torah and shout Mazel tov and pelt everything we can with handfuls of small waxy candies. In an hour we’d be at the airport, and in two, we’d be on a plane, and in four I’d have convinced the stewardess to slip me bottles of juice to act as mixers for the three full bottles of liquor that I tend bar with out of my seat on our fifteen hour odyssey back to Los Angeles. And we will land and we will lose each other intermittently throughout customs and security and by the time we actually get outside the magic will have gone; we’ll be alone once more; this time will be over and the moments will have passed and I will (I have) for days think back and smile, and I will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life. This has been a very special time, everything rife with meaning and power, a time to rediscover the things I love about myself and come back to Los Angeles the same but better and still very different.

But for now — we hug and we kiss and we take endless group photographs and we trade email addresses and make promises and some of us even cry. We have lived these days and, like it or not, in our heads and our hearts, are tied together forever. We have found ourselves in each other, and found our hearts in this strange and beautiful land, and found everything we’ve ever wanted to find, here in Israel.

The post Birth Writing: The End Of The End appeared first on Jewcy.

I’m told – by women, mostly – that I snore when I’m drunk. That night would be no exception. Acacia kept elbowing me, hard, in the ribs. One such elbow connected; it was 4:45 AM. I breathlessly got dressed, got my notebook and stepped over the sleeping forms of my friends, ducking under the flap and out of our tent into the fading darkness of the desert night.

Under the rising desert sun, I wrote the last entry you might have read as I walked the grounds of our Bedouin fantasy, wrote as the owls stirred and the camels slowly rose from their slumbers and kept me company in the cool morning light. Beginning

We drove once again through the winding desert highways to the Masada, the rocky mountain cliffs in the Judean desert that once played fortress to our forbearers. Lungs burning, and sweat pouring, we climbed step after step; into the rocky cliffs we began slowly peeling away layers as the day became HOT.

It has been 8 days since I’d shaved and my scraggly beard, if you can call it that, was tinged red in the sunlight. I was a rough draft, a charcoal sketch of the cologne-and-hair-product days in Los Angeles, and I wasn’t bothered by it in the least.

We stood on steel rail catwalk and, each leaning far over the edge, used what remained of our stony voices to scream our names into the echoing valleys of old. (We also screamed Penis, though, because it is HILARIOUS.)

We boarded the bus again, sore and tired and sweaty. We had gotten exceedingly good at the complicated gymnastic routine that is living in a bus. You go left I go right. I go up, one leg on a seat, and you tuck and tumble below and with a back flip double-twist, we were all seated and comfortable and the bus still stunk like camel shit.

At the Dead Sea, we ate salami sandwiches and drank lukewarm mango juice. It was a nice moment – peaceful and warm and everyone was quite happy with each other and no one seems to mind. A lovely afternoon; I wish that I could live in it forever. We disrobed and flung ourselves into the water. You might have heard correctly: it is salty.

We ran across the beach to the mud side. The most fantastic, gooey, goopy, salt-crusted mud you’ve ever seen, you’ve ever mashed between your fingers and toes and spread over every inch of exposed skin in your natural life. We slipped and slid and glooped through the soggy mush. We posed as the mud caked to our skin and slowly dried in the sun. We made funny faces as we touched each other’s impossibly soft skin.

We dried ourselves on micro future travel towels that will now never ever be clean ever again. In the back of the bus we finished our mango juice and, entirely for health reasons, mixed in some vodka and shake the bastards up nice and easy. We leaned back, warm and soft and very much at peace, and watch the world go by as we snake down into Jerusalem.

Tragedy struck. A water pipe burst in our hotel and we had to be relocated for the night. Tragedy then unstruck, and we were relocated to the Panorama Dan, a five star hotel, where only the filthiest of rich people stay. We were very okay with this. Such glorious tragedy should befall us all!

After a week of kibbutz and tent living, to be in a real proper human hotel felt alien. We stalked the halls with reverent hush. A maid cart! A real live maid cart! Would you look at that! MINTS ON THE PILLOWS JESUS CHRIST ARE WE ROYALTY – WHO DIED AND MADE US ROYALTY!

I had elected to perform the Kiddush before dinner; the same prayer I’ve heard my father power through every Friday night for the better part of my lifetime. I know his lilt, I know his tone; I do my best to bring it inside, to take it from somewhere deep within, and press it back out into the world. There is much to be said for feeling like one’s father while in the holy land, all kinds of intense stepping-into-adulthood metaphors and assuming the mantle-type shit. I don’t even want to get into that. Let’s just say it felt right and we’ll move on from there, no?

We had evening programming in our activity room, and the AC was pumping full blast, and I’d been going on and going hard for nine straight days, and I’d been awake now since 4:45 at the Bedouin tents, and everything rushed up around me and my head pounded and my eyes stung and nothing was right in the world. I spent the whole lecture slipping into a fitful and powerful sleep, waking with starts, sweating, sweating, and sweating. This felt like death. I’d forgotten to pack any medicine whatsoever, and so once we were done, I threw on some sweatpants and shuffled, head in hands, up and down the halls, soliciting drugs.

When I’d amassed a small handful of rainbow-colored delights, with a shrug and a slug (or three) of whiskey (Look I’m on vacation and it probably won’t kill me, right?) I took the whole god damn cocktail, and about 45 minutes later, my bedroom still inexplicably full of people dancing, jumping, laughing, I slipped away into golden slumber and woke in the morning, refreshed, renewed and reborn.

The post Birth Writing: The Beginning Of The End appeared first on Jewcy.

January 5^th – 9:18pm in Israel. I was running blind in the staggering darkness of the Negev desert. We had been there six days. The stars were my only company as my feet pounded the cracked earth, my lungs burned and still I kept running. Only when I truly began to fear for my ability to find my way back, I stopped, my breath heavy, my brow soaked, my heart beating strong and true in my chest. Here all alone, a speck of dust on a speck of dust under an endless starry night, I‘d let myself fall hard on my back, my favorite jacket (now dirty with the earth of this beautiful country) spreading out beneath me. In the distance, from the murky east, I hear the sound of shuffling rocks as a figure approaches.

We had woken that morning in Tel Aviv, bleary eyed and hung-over and rushed, and piled onto our bus to head off into the country side, our bus driver Alex pulling impossible maneuvers as the many-wheeled behemoth wound its way into the rolling hills of the Israeli desert. Our destination was a Bedouin tent where we were to spend the night, with fire and physical familiarity for warmth and carefully folded sweatshirts and towels for comfort.

We pulled up along rows of camels lashed together, who regard our sputtering bus with what I can only assume is typical camel-like apathy. Among them, Bedouins (just like in the movies!) smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, the air smelling strongly with acidic tinge of hashish.

We dragged our gear into our tent and, after negotiating the complicated social politics of sleeping arrangements, head back to the camels, where two of us each mounted on the mewling beasts we were led through the desert beneath a brilliant orange sky. We laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. After a brief circuit, we finally dismount, each sharing captured moments of bliss on LCD screens that never seen to leave our hands.

Soldier Daniel had found an abandoned and under-pumped soccer ball in a trader’s market in port Jaffe that he tirelessly carried with him here for this very moment. We yawped and wooped and lept for joy, a number of us running towards the empty central square. We chose teams – I was skins – and with the desert wind chilling my bare skin, we played what I truly believe was the fiercest, most athletic, acrobatic and intense soccer game in the history of the sport. I’d amazed myself. I scored one of the game’s three goals in a wild roundhouse kick that nearly decapitates my defender. We sweat – we stink – we reeked of camel shit.

Then we ate, four each to an enormous plate of rice and noodles and vegetables, of pita and tahini and some kind of lamb burger and beautifully cooked chicken wings that Zach Hyatt still insists were the greatest things he’s ever tasted.

Our tour guide Yael, an uncannily knowledgeable Israeli who I am ashamed to be mentioning for the first time only in this entry, led us next down a path and into the starry darkness, near (but still, very far from) the patch of earth from which I began this entry. We had been instructed to bring no lights, no cameras – they’d be no use anyway, the ruthlessly necessary flash robbing us of our cultivated night vision.

Yael explained our next activity. We were to come as close as possible to each other, huddling in darkness, and whenever we felt the moment was right, we were to break from the group and go off on our own for personal discoveries.

We obliged. Standing close, arms intertwined, our collective heat radiated through the circle as one by one we broke away and headed off alone. I was exactly where I wanted to be – with all of these people, together. At long last I too broke away.

I climbed a ridge and against the horizon I could see the silhouettes of my friends, some already so far out. Wherever they were headed, I decided I would beat them there. I took off running at full tilt, passing all of them, until there is nothing ahead of me besides endless nothing.

Now lying alone on my back, a sound approached and I knew I was not alone. It is Daniel the Soldier. There’s no way he could have followed me here – we were too far and it was too dark and that would have been kind of weird anyway. No, there was deeper magic afoot.

We knew we were to be alone but this was miraculous and we didn’t much care. Without a sound I offered him a cigarette, taking one for myself as well. He sat. I sat. He sprawled. I sprawled. We’d yet to make a sound — and suddenly we found the words. We couldn’t stop talking, but not about the usual bullshit – women, drink or song. This was a new beast, and in this otherwise silent desert we opened our hearts, each telling of the trials of our past years, difficult years in different but curiously similar ways, of families, of dreams and of wishes, of God and of the self. This went on forever, both of us willingly ignoring the constraints of time.

Eventually, on the wind we heard faint singing. We were being called back, we presume (though later we’d learn it was Phillip, a musician, so moved by his own experience that he burst into song.) We ignored it selfishly. Our work here was not done. At one point Daniel told me he wished our children could one day be friends, I can tell that somehow he is my best friend on this planet and I am confident the feeling is mutual. We returned, very late but not really minding.

At camp, we built a fire and I assembled, for the first time, my nargila, a two and a half foot fiery red hookah purchased early that morning.  There is much to celebrate, as if we needed any excuse. I produced from the depths of my wonderful coat two small bottles of hooch, which we passed around in time with the hookah as songs break out around the campfire.

We are all the best versions of ourselves, myself tenfold.

The post Birth Writing: Ancient Secrets Of The Negev Desert appeared first on Jewcy.

We began the day at independence hall, sitting before the very stage where 63 years ago, the state of Israel held a private press conference to officially declare its independence. Broadcast on radio station Tzlil, it was a moment of utter joy for Jews everywhere.

A delightful woman whose name escapes me but whose practiced remarks led our tour, but her joyous delivery never will. Once we’d heard all the trivia, they sat us down and played the original radio broadcast for us, ending with an orchestral rendering of the Tikva, a song that was not yet the anthem but within minutes would undoubtedly be.

We rose. We removed our hats. And we listened to the swell, the thundering drums, the soaring strings, and from the front row, I began to hear the low murmur of voices – not from the broadcast but instead from our soldiers in the front row. I didn’t even notice that I had joined in, tentatively at first, then stronger, prouder and more confident. It grew louder and more melodic as we grew bolder, and soon we all were singing, soldiers and Americans, travelers, pilgrims, citizens, proud Jews all.

“Kol od balevav penima…”

This is Judaism to me. This is pride and this is truth and this is staggering beauty.

I have never been a political man. I’m not quite sure why. I come from a long line of Zionists and activists. My father was very much embroiled in the anti-Apartheid movement in Johannesburg in the seventies and to this day has very distinct opinions on local, global, social and religious politics that he will GLADLY discuss with whoever is foolish enough to engage him in debate. I myself don’t pose as a politician or even a student of politics – usually, I embrace my own ignorance. To be opinionless is to be safe from being wrong.

Israel is more complicated than I’ve possibly imagined. So young, so new, held in sacred regard by the greater population of the whole world. It is a shrug and a sigh. It is a tragic and beautiful conundrum and I don’t know how I feel about it besides, now, loving it with all my being. I know it is important, extremely important. I know it should – it NEEDS to exist. And I wish I could grab every hand and force them to shake. I wish this wall didn’t need to stand. I wish my new soldier friends could live free and open lives in any manner they choose, a coveted freedom we flaunt and ignore and waste. I wish I knew what was right. I wish this wasn’t so hard. I wish that even now, editing this entry I originally wrote on my iPhone at the back of the bus en route to Beer Sheva, that thinking these things didn’t fill my eyes with tears.

I wish.

But some things never change. The day was to conclude with our first official sanctioned night out in Tel Aviv. I had plans to meet up with my cousin Adam, and while we strolled the twisting orange colored alleys of port Yaffe in the waning afternoon light, I felt a pair of hands fall on my shoulders. He had found me, and we embraced as brothers.

We had been scheduled to have a dance lesson – by gorgeous delightful Vera, whose unbridled joy on the dance floor I wrote about in an earlier entry. As she led everyone onto a makeshift dance floor for their lesson, Adam and I sat back on stone benches and caught up on our lives over the decade it has been since we’ve last seen each other. He discussed his experiences as a foreigner in the Israeli army, as a foreigner now living, working and studying here in Israel.

We discussed my grandfather, Dov Judah, or Dovie Yehuda as he is known here, the very first navigator in the Israeli air force during the Independence War. He and my grandmother Elsie were wed during the war; took their honeymoon there too. I had known this, my family’s deep connection to Israel, but had forgotten the weight of it all. To be reminded here, to effectively be studying my own history – the feelings are overwhelming.

There are no words, no glittering prose my fingers can type out that can tell you what this meant to me.

We were taken next to the Natal, a vibrant port area in Tel Aviv where we strolled through the rain to The Octopus, a huge glowing nightclub just off the pier. Soon the drinks were flowing and the music played loud, and sooner still mostly everyone from the bus was huddled and jumping and screaming with delight, sweaty and unencumbered with the weight of our day.

Particularly inspired after a round of scotch, I sped through the club with my now-trademark captain’s hat in a desperate attempt to unite the masses.

It was exactly that kind of night. We grooved, we jived, we spun and dropped and shook our things. We busted moves that will go down in history as the most busted moves that any man, woman or child has ever busted.

The post Birth Writing: Hear, O Israel appeared first on Jewcy.

January 4^th, 2011 – 7:21 AM in Tel Aviv. I was still half drunk, despite a decent night’s sleep and a strange shower and chugging my body weight in water. I’d been wearing sunglasses inside and had commandeered a soldier’s navy hat. At the time I was convinced I was pulling it off–with typical gusto no less–but I have a sneaking suspicion that I was all alone in that belief. It’s ok. Forward thinkers have been persecuted since the invention of forward thinking. As the American poet Kanye West once wrote: “I’m ahead of my time, sometimes years out, so the powers that be won’t let me get my ideas out.”

Ugh. Uuuuuuugggggghhhhhhh. Say it with me, folks. This is how I was feeling. This was the sound every piece of me made; like I was the depressing stale-beer squeeze toy for the entire universe. I’d known this was coming. We could smell it on the wind. Tel Aviv is reputedly the wildest city in a country full of wild cities and so far it has exceeded expectations.

I don’t know how much I can actually discuss about the previous night’s activities so just in case, I’ll pose the following as pure hypothetical: IF I had been elected to organize and coordinate a secret hotel room party, and IF I had successfully collected the better part of a thousand shekels and IF I had recruited a team of duffel bag-bearing hustlers to journey off-site and purchase a staggering variety of bottles and IF I had convinced a room full of lovely women to let me take over, rearrange their furniture and invite my 42 best friends in this city to attain highly altered states in the pursuit of truth, beauty and delirious happiness, and IF we pulled the whole god damn caper off with legendary zeal, well, could I get a hypothetical DAYENU!

But none of that happened, OK? Don’t put your words in my mouth.

Our trip leaders, Matt and Talia–patient, caring, shockingly responsible and truly, two of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met–had started shepherding us onto the bus that morning, where I would sit, with my cap pulled down over my tightly-shut eyes, as we wound our way through Tel Aviv traffic. Beyond the partying and the bullshit, Israel had lit a fire in my soul, and it is assuredly Matt and Talia who hold the matches. I owe them a tremendous debt, one I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly repay.

I had begun carrying my notebook everywhere – a pocket-sized moleskin with a Jack of Hearts playing card glued to the cover (it bears my initials, alright, fuck off) – in which I had been furiously scribbling notes on my experience. In the back of the bus that morning, with the weight of my stolen sailor’s cap bearing down on my still-pounding skull, I was no longer able to turn phrases for your amusement.

So: here, for your enjoyment: an uncensored excerpt from my chicken-scratch archives.

10:49 AM: We huddle in a sustained-living greenhouse maintained by Arab Israelis, a strange dichotomy whose existence I had so far been unaware of. Israel is a Jewish state in staggering turmoil, a beacon of hope for one people which has for nearly 70 years been inspiring others to seek their personal lands of milk and honey, or more realistically, to try to make it work here in ours. To say “I am an Israeli” is to imply “I am a Jew.” The two are nearly impossible to separate. These Arab Israelis spend their lives politely correcting the false assumptions of strangers. Yes, I am Israeli. No, I am not a Jew. I am Muslim, and I live here, and I am at peace. To turn them away from this paradise we have made is to make ourselves no better than those who persecute us. And thus the great debate: who shall be saved?

The rain has started now, thick drops thudding against the rooftop tarp with an immensely satisfying pitter-patter that whispers through the building as we pace among the plants. We are drinking tea that has steeped, it seems, for hours on an open fire, sweetened and flavored with honey and lemons that have been grown here in this very greenhouse. The effect is on the whole gentle, tender, and outrageously calming.

I am one with the land, and we are both at peace.

DOGS! Wet dogs! Collarless, ownerless, boundless friendly wet dogs freely running everywhere, their slick fur clinging tight to their sides. Here, they are domesticated only to the distinct lack of domestication.

I play with one. I fall in love. I have named him Charles, possibly after his father. I wonder if they would notice if I took him with me. I wonder if he’s docile enough to take the trip in the overhead compartment. It’s only a fifteen-hour flight. Dogs can do that, right?

So many young people, people my age, living off the land and making it their livelihood. I could do this, a fact I am constantly reminded by nearly everyone we encounter. I could give up my Los Angeles life and live modestly here, the sun tanning my back as I toil out in the fields. At night I would share what little food I had with whosoever could fit around my campfire. Ahhh fuck. I’d miss my DVR. How else could I record 30 Rock?

Sad but true. I am weak. These people are not. They are the antithesis of weakness. They are selfless and helpful and beautiful all, and motivated and captivating and the best versions of themselves. I am jealous of their freedoms, of their carefree abandon and their strong arms and tanned skin and much more specifically, of their friendly wet dogs.

Like my main man Mandela, we’ll stick with Invictus, folks: I am captain of my own ship, master of my own fate. To say I haven’t thought about living here would be a boldfaced lie. Plus, you know, I bet I could figure out how to access Hulu; I’m good with that kind of shit.

We smile. We laugh. We walk the grounds. We take pictures. We shake their hands and hug, when the inclination strikes, which it does, always, like miraculous clockwork. We leave, wistful and inspired and desperately missing a wet dog possibly named after his father.

So long for now, folks. Thanks for paying attention. I tip my captain’s hat to each and every one of you, and for good measure, top it off with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.

With all of my love and at least some of my respect, this is your captain, signing off.

The post Birth Writing: Fear And Loathing In Tel Aviv appeared first on Jewcy.

Despite a brutal lack of sleep on my journey, I actually did get some for five heavy hours; thanks in no small part to over-exhaustion and sweet, thick, raspberry tinted Israeli cold medicine; I wasn’t sick just yet, but in a very Israeli manner, it was a preemptive strike to secure my borders.

It was our final morning in Gonen. The sun slowly rose over the rows of small dormitories in our Kibbutz. This was a very special place, and like the rest of the country was slowly becoming, a place I wouldn’t soon forget.

Another night, another excuse to celebrate the very life we had been living, another round, and another and then one more for good measure. We have taught each other toasts, both ceremonious and filthy, amid uproarious laughter and swigs of convenience store scotch – describable as neither top shelf nor bottom. It’s ok. We’d settle for any shelf, really.

I had successfully taught my favorite soldier to use the word Weiner, which he does, liberally, much to my delight. Ten points.

As my Hebrew got better my English suffered. I’d adopted their lilt, their odd phrasing, their verbal commas and inflections. “You are, eh, going to come tonight, out with us, yes?” – a question so easily answerable it hardly begs asking.

Yes. Always. Anywhere.

A bus full of New Yorkers arrived at our Kibbutz last night, replacing our dear Canadian brethren; some look familiar,  as if perhaps we’d passed each other on a nature hike, or perhaps while stopped for lunch in a small hillside town. But you know us Jews – we all look the same.

It is their first night in Israel and I’m already jealous of them. Somehow a group of 15 – mostly dudes (Awesome, just what we wanted. Thanks Cody.) – Wound up in my bedroom, along with my roommates and anyone from our bus with the sense to join us, which were many.  We fraternized and roared and traded advice for news and good stories.

Our group is just large enough that the currency of a good story has a high rate of exchange and, like always, the best stories get told time and again, tweaked and refined and repeated ad nauseum to wide-eyed breathless laughter. We’ve started dipping into the memory banks for old favorites and holiday standards. We take requests.

The Process:

Step one: Build a small fire behind the eyes; tend to it, stoke it, throw more and more logs onto the flame. Invite anyone interested to come and sit with you, and let your fire warm their bodies, and light your world in yellow orange glow.

Step two: Buy the sweetest roadside honey you ever will have tasted from a gruff Israeli farmer with strange choices of facial hair. Pour it liberally over your voice, letting it drip and drizzle over each golden word that flings itself from your tongue, flowing freely into any ear open to listening.

Step three: Love everything, everyone, even the strange, especially the strange; love them until your sides hurt and your heart bursts and we’ll all get matching tattoos of our widest grins, right there on our faces where they belong.

If by now you can’t tell, I was having the time of my life.

Off next to the staggering promise that is Tel Aviv, to jam packed days in the country side, to old friends I’m surprised to find living here, to cousins I’ve missed for nearly a decade, to taking wild swings at the fast balls that are Israeli women on our first legal sanctioned ‘out night’ – which as far as I’m concerned is simply an excuse to dance, to practice my raunchiest Hebrew, to get myself in (and hopefully back out) of glorious beautiful trouble.

Enough for this entry. More to come, and more and more until you’ve stopped caring and you’re all sick of me and you just want to watch funny cat videos on YouTube.

Well, you can get bent.

Jay Judah is an aspiring producer living and working in Los Angeles. Jay twitters here, tumbls here and is a managing editor of Jewbauchery.

The post Birth Writing: All The Young Dudes appeared first on Jewcy.

Day 3, Night 4. Hours 72 – Three Billion.

If this was to be the new normal, someone would have told me, right? If I’d signed up to live out the rest of my days with mandatory lectures and ‘programming’ sandwiched between Sneaky Pete drinking, bus trips and the occasional social backflips, I think I’d have a right to know; you can’t just spring this on a guy.

I mean: I hadn’t even brought any shampoo, and it was starting to show.

I needed a shave. I needed a rainy three-day weekend with no further inclination towards self-harm and end-of-days party mentality. I needed a good night’s sleep and maybe some soup (what the fuck WHO AM I BECOMING) and maybe even a nice long bath.

Considering of course I didn’t have a bathtub, and considering I actually seemed to have a penchant towards social back flips, it seems I’d have to settle for the waking dream that this experience was. We spent the morning at a cemetery, practicing our Hebrew vowel-free pronunciation and learning tales of the foundations of Zion, of odd gardening conquests gone awry (Or, “One Man’s Attempt To Cultivate Tomatoes) and who was banging who and all the beautiful nitty-gritty they keep out of textbooks. Nice to know the founding fathers could be just as scummy as the rest of us.

This is how a lot of the lectures made us feel:

Our afternoon was spent wandering the twisting cobblestone streets of Tzfat, quickly becoming one of my favorite international cities. I had the best Shwarma any man has ever had and took some amazing photographs of the sun peeking out behind crumbling buildings. I bought a paratrooper necklace that I was ALL BUT PROMISED was straight-up Air Force instead (curse you, losses in translation, you’re kind of a dick) which would become an increasingly important distinction as my trip continued.

Most importantly, I found the gallery/workshop of renowned painter, photographer and ex-acid head by the name of Ya’akov Kaszmacher, whose fractal geometric religious art are like Mandlebrot shapes, imploding with Chai’s and Magen Dovids, and whose store I was in over a decade ago with my family. This is a man who shook my fathers hand so many years ago as we acquired some of the art that has since hung in my family’s home ever since.

I purchased a wonderfully trippy blue piece, a close cousin of the painting I’ve had hanging above my childhood bed since I could remember giving a shit about art; that I’d managed to track down this eloquent bearded man – to buy the art myself and bring it home with me, on my own, in this strange land, over the course of New Years and the start of my 25th year – carries some kind of blatant and wondrous symbolism that fills me with an indescribable pride.

I AM MAN! HEAR ME DECORATE MY APARTMENT!

Our latest kibbutz, in dark and windy Gonen, Israel, is equipped with a pub on-site. Two busses of Canadian Birthrighters, here already for four days, had taken it upon themselves to show us the ropes. They are strange and curious creatures, and much mirth would be had engaging in their gentle flirtations.

Through varying combinations of luck, chance and my increasingly excellent dance moves, I found myself locked in conversations all night – with friends, with strangers, with gorgeous women to whom I told glorious stories full of glittering promise. And so, in a room full of new friends, of freshly minted best friends, we danced and laughed and mixed and mingled well into the night. And when we left, arm in arm with former strangers, or slinking off into the night with new lovers, or taking moonlit strolls along the green trails of our kibbutz, the howling wind carried our laughter into the night.

I will always fondly remember that windy night in Gonen.

There’s an uncanny belief among all of us even then, even on day three, that this will later have been one of the most important things any of us has ever done.

I couldn’t help but agree with the entirety of my being.

Jay Judah is an aspiring producer living and working in Los Angeles. Jay twitters here, tumbls here and is a managing editor of Jewbauchery.

The post Birth Writing: The New Normal appeared first on Jewcy.

A few months ago, Jay Judah went on the Taglit-Birthright tour of Israel.  We’d heard a million different stories from individuals about their time on the trip.  From people finding religion, to body watching on the beach, shooting a machine gun, riding a camel, or deciding to give up the USA and making aliyah.

Jay’s story is a bit more nuanced than that.  Reading his account seemed more like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or Hunter S. Thompson; more interesting story, less cheesy testimonial.

Obviously we liked that, and wanted to publish it.  This isn’t an advertisement for Birthright or Israel, just a series that we’re really happy to present.

Read part one here.

January 2nd, 2011 – 6 AM, Jerusalem time. Another night with about as little sleep as physically – and mentally – able. I was fighting my own body, the rising sun, jet lag, the 5000 miles it took for me to engage this battle, and the highly suspect tuna sandwiches they served on the airplane. Note to self: tuna, on an airplane? Poor form.

After a day spent in lectures on Birthright policies, Israeli culture and history, and icebreaking games, I started an unofficial betting ring where we placed wagers on the likelihood of our fellow travelers falling asleep on their feet. I won, but still, we all lost.

The bonding process had increased ten-fold — as expected. Birthright is summer camp, except we were accountable only to ourselves; we had opinions, experiences, money of our own, and should we so desire, we could freely drink ourselves into bliss.

I could tell immediately – I was in love with the country: the slow chilly sunsets over hillside cities of crumbling orange brick, the forgotten and forgiven rudeness of the locals (among other observations, lines have no meaning, no purpose, no order. No one, not grandmothers, children; men who smell like bad cigars: no one respects the sanctity of a line!), the trials and rabbit-jumps of communicating in very broken Hebrew, my passing remembrances of Yiddish, my new found respect for ‘toda raba’ and ‘slicha’ and ‘sababa!’ and our wonderful, wonderful soldiers and the phrases (mostly filthy) that they tried to teach me.

In those first days, my room was never empty. I had established an open door policy, and would have it no other way. There was always music, often cards, and a high probability of merriment. Despite forgetting many names (Davids and Daniels and Michaels…Oh My!) these people were all wonderful in their own ways and I quickly garnered an appreciation for all of them.

After that first night, one of our soldiers (whose name shall not be mentioned in respect to his service, military and otherwise) helped me organize and execute a jailbreak, in which nearly our entire bus –save for some weaker-hearted souls– slinked off the grounds of the kibbutz under cover of darkness, down a rainy cobbled road to a local pub a mile or two away.

In no time we were at a bar, which I can only describe in the following way. Take any American dive with their sticky floors, shaky tables, dark wood and dim lights. Remove your ability to communicate with the bartender, the bouncer, and every kind of woman. Add a slowly ballooning crowd of mostly Israelis –hungry to dance, to drink, to smoke cigarettes with careless ease– to share the same space and jump and sweat and have confused flirtatious conversations with bemused Birthrighters in broken Hebrew. This is the pub we went to, and it was the best pub any of us have ever been to in Ma’ale Hachamisha, Israel – that much is a fact.

An Israeli – Vera – cute, young and probably able to beat me in a wrestling match (should I be so lucky,) confessed to me a love for salsa dancing. When the DJ played a song with a relatable beat, she grabbed me by the hand and dragged me onto the dance floor. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I know what I’m doing out there — one hand holding hers, the other draped seductively on her hip, a rakish look and quick feet and so much sway it hurts. I can spin; I can dip; I know the score. I assume the position — only to have dear Vera hurl herself from side to side with glorious abandon, like a paper doll twisting in the wind.

I have rarely seen someone have so much fun. I wish I loved anything as much as she loved “salsa.”

Off to Tzfat next, where my goals would be to begin my souvenir shopping (did someone say trinkets!?) and chiefly, tragically, to pick up another bottle of personal-stash booze. As far as Birhtright seemed to be going, you never knew when another party would have to break out.

The post Birth Writing: Jerusalem Outskirts appeared first on Jewcy.

A few months ago, Jay Judah went on the Taglit-Birthright tour of Israel.  We’d heard a million different stories from individuals about their time on the trip.  From people finding religion, to body watching on the beach, shooting a machine gun, riding a camel, or deciding to give up the USA and making aliyah.

Jay’s story is a bit more nuanced than that.  Reading his account seemed more like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or Hunter S. Thompson, less cheesy testimonial.

Obviously we liked that, and wanted to publish it.  This isn’t an advertisement for Birthright or Israel, just a series that we’re really happy to present.

Bedraggled and beleaguered from an impromptu going-away party the night before at La Descarga (a Cuban speakeasy halfway towards Downtown with a swanky dress-code, smoky music and a smokier cigar lounge) I picked up my good friend Zach – myself, through luck and chance, still wearing last night’s rumpled suit, and the two of us wound our way down Los Angeles’s bright streets and back to my apartment, where I hurriedly changed into jeans and my favorite button up. The two of us were shortly joined by Becky, our third musketeer if you will on this adventure, whose roommate Vanessa had (fantastically!) agreed to drag our luggage and ourselves to LAX on this chilly Los Angeles morning. Zach, Becky and I have purposely applied to Birthright together, and on our second attempt, all of us were accepted. We were set to leave on Dec. 30th at 9 AM, to arrive in Jerusalem at 3 PM, Israel time.

And so off to the airport we went.

In LAX’s El Al terminal, we checked in with our group leaders and waiting in line (for two hours, mind you!) to go through security. Small talk and nervous chatter and Jewish geography and what part of town are you from and quite a few “Oh, that’s my favorite bar too” and then we’re poured onto an enormous El Al airplane for a fifteen-hour odyssey into the soul.

I was seated next to Joey, ex-Navy, now an aspiring screenwriter, and we immediately take a shine to each other over dirty stories and the promise of trouble. On my right, Carina, cute, sarcastic, hilarious and works with lasers. So far, so good.

We bond quickly and, as is my style, get goofy even faster. El Al makes the mistake of offering wine to its international passengers — something they don’t exactly advertise and something they make you actively inquire about to get. How truly Israeli of them.

Well, inquire we do. Around hour six (after the three of us have synchronized our personal media players to watch the same TV shows and movies together – adorable, huh?), and after two glasses of ‘please-may-I’ requested wine, we decide it’s just not enough. So, with a shrug and a wink, I go scrounging. When the coast is clear, I stumble into the gangway and rifle through their steel cabinetry, eventually finding (and successfully liberating) two bottles of sickly sweet Merlot. The rest of the flight goes swimmingly. I don’t want to get into specifics, but around hour 9, we built a blanket fort across our aisle. No big deal. It was truly inspired.

We land, we meet everyone once more, and remind-me your-name-one-more-time (I’d forgotten both Joey’s and Carina’s names, tragically – good thing I was able to introduce them to Zach and Becky to force my own selfish reintroduction. Suckers!) and we stumble onto what would become our home-away-from-Kibbutz: the bus. Immediately, and without hesitation: the cameras come out, and we are all trigger-happy tourists. Oh, look, dear, buildings on the hillside! How quaint! Snap snap snap.

Our bus was a lovely smattering of all types and thankfully I got to know everyone equally. Working the room — or bus I suppose I should say.

I had slept 9 hours in the past 72. This was all about endurance.

We arrived at our kibbutz and had down-time to shower and meet our roommates. Mine were Daniel and Mitch. Daniel is an Israeli soldier specializing in intelligence. Mitch is a solid dude and very tall.  In retrospect I should have taken better notes – Mitch, should you read this, I apologize. We were all rushed and tired and perhaps the briefs alone would have to do.

New Years Eve was that night, and we celebrated twice in the fluorescent-lit rumpus room beneath the hotel’s beige wall-carpeted restaurant – once around 11 when we all get tired; again, at midnight for the true soldiers amongst us. In a rare and apparently unprecedented move, the New Year was la’chaim’ed with 6 bottles of the Israeli-equivalent of cheap champagne bought for us by Taglit Birthright themselves – an appreciated move, don’t get me wrong, but between the 40+ of us, it’s hard to get in the spirit after a meager thimble of bubbly.

Our true celebration was, however, brought to us by yours truly and the LAX-Israel duty free, where a short-lived bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black (an item apparently exclusive to El Al airlines) caught my eye and my money. Others donated what little libations they had, and together, 40+ of us –students, travelers and wayfarers all– crammed onto three low mattresses in my hotel room, gleefully ignoring suggested alcohol policies and bonding over profession, location, even college major (a pick-up line I thought left behind at frat parties.)

And like our own special Hanukkah, it came to pass that six bottles of champagne (just six! Only six! Six little bottles!) managed to get a busload of people burning brightly with the New Year spirit.

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