Ashkemore Closes Community Week

Hello parents, grandparents, and siblings whose parents are making you read this them (don't worry I was exactly where you were two years ago),

First and foremost, I wanted to wish a huge happy birthday to Mr. Orlinsky. Lexi and I planned a huge birthday party for him at 6:00 this morning which for some odd reason people decided to skip. But Charlie, Lexi, the required staff, and I woke up early and celebrated. It was very fun and cool -- and may not have really happened

Speaking of "cool", in accordance with our theme of the day, Tikkun Olam (Fixing the World), we future-delinquent Diller fellows vandalized an outside wall of the Ashkelon stadium today as we were taught the ins and outs of graffiti by an Israeli professional. Don't worry, this was a planned event. In fact, we not only for permission from the stadium owners, but also spray painted "Be The Change" in pretty bright neon colors. In the process we actually met up with another group from Baltimore, ECYP, an African-American group also traveling to Israel, who helped us with the graffiti.

After mastering the art of graffiti (parents I would advise you not leave any cans of spray paint around your home from now on), we headed to a day camp to play with 8-10 year olds. It was very interesting to see how this camp compares to the day camps many of us attended as youngsters. We all enjoyed interacting with the kids despite the fact that very few of us could speak Hebrew and very few of them could speak English -- knowing how to juggle and do simple sleight of hand tricks has never come in handy so much in my life as when I desperately tried to entertain the kids in the day camp. Other faced similar language difficulties and learned a lot of Hebrew in the process of talking to these kids. I can surely tell you I learned many different colors such as Blue = Cahol, Green = Yarok, Red = Adom, and many more.

Next, we had a nice Israeli falafel lunch which was absolutely delicious unless you thought a banana pepper would be a good addition to your falafel (in which case you did not enjoy lunch). After lunch we proceeded to have an insightful discussion about whether countries or religions can have memories and what America, Israel, and Judaism as a whole's five most defining moments were. After some enlightening conversation we decided that memories are significant to the development of a society because the events themselves facilitate changes that continue to affect the our lives today and because without memories, each day would be a new beginning and progress would be nearly impossible.

With our bellies full and our minds exhausted we trudged down the street to the fire station where we learned all about fire trucks and what they carry to prepare for any and all possible emergencies in Ashkelon. They even let us try the fire hose. We learned that with lighter homework loads, our Israeli matches have enough time to volunteer at the local fire stations (in fact we had more than a few volunteers in our Israeli group).

Later that night we reconvened at a restaurant for closing ceremony. After an Israeli (not Italian) pasta dinner, the Tikkun Olam group members each gave speeches about his/her experience throughout community week, showed a slideshow, handed out trophies, and we even had a visit from special guest Donald Trump (impersonated by Ryan Sweren -- a spot on performance). Altogether, Tikkun Olam day was full of giving back to the Ashkelon community, learning, laughter, and excitement about Mr. Orlinsky's birthday (again happy birthday Mr. Orlinsky).

Tonight we will all get to bed very early 😉 in preparation for Congress tomorrow with all the Diller groups across the world.

Thank you for reading, and as they say here in Israel, שלום וביי (Shalom and Bye)

Ian Malinow