After Tel Aviv

I am really behind in this blogging thing. I was out of internet range for the last few days, arriving in Jerusalem earlier today. I have a lot to say and no time to write. It is after 11 PM and I am exhausted. I keep imaging what it would be like to have a real dead line.

Sunday we headed south, stopping at a town called Gedera where we visited Friends of Nature, a community empowerment NGO to learn about Israeli natives and Israelis of Ethiopian origin working to improve the life of the people in that community. We met with a Uv-y, a woman who came to Israel from Ethiopia when she was 6, walking a month with her family and taking about a year to get here. She was an amazing woman who over the years figured out that there was prejudice against her because she was dark skinned yet used that information to build a personal community and help those in the larger community. She was the first but not the last person we met who took her misfortune and made a concentrated effort to empower herself. She specifically told us that she chose not to be a victim. After she spoke we ate amazing Ethiopian food. Now I don't like Ethiopian food and I found the meal wonderful. I suspect that they held back on the spices.

We then traveled to the Gaza border to Moshav Netiv Haaserah, where we hoped to get some insight into the security complications around Gaza.

I have more to say about that visit but I can't write anymore.

Leila tov, l'hitraot.