Contemplating the End of Summer

By Corey Rudman, Bus 18

Hello to all. My name is Corey Rudman. In contemplating what to write for this very blog post that you, the parents, are currently reading, I had a variety of options to choose from; I could’ve written about the past week in a basic format, write a recipe, or a whole variety of other things. Instead, I have elected to write a poem, with the genre being open. In all honesty, I have written this very quickly, in an effort to return to the free time I have given up to write this very poem.

As I sit in a floating chair, in a kibbutz outside of Tel Aviv, I can’t help but contemplate the speed of time. No sooner had I landed in Israel, blinking my eyes, did I come to understand that suddenly we have but a week left. So much has occurred, and yet it feels like so little. The time we have spent in various activities has been lovely, but the time I have enjoyed the most is the time with my friends. It’s the little things that matter, I often hear people say, but it takes experiencing the little things to understand this often cliche phrase. As I continue to write this poem-like trail of thoughts, I look at my friends surrounding me, giggling, talking, kibitzing like the good Jewish children we are, and I despise the fact that we will have to be separate so soon. These are the years that are so important in the foundation of who we are as people, and I am so lucky that I get to grow into the person I will one day become among all of my peers on this trip. As I finish up whatever it is I have just written, I will end with a phrase that means a lot to my friends and me: “How lucky I am to have something that makes goodbyes too hard.”

A Conversation with Rabbi Rick Jacobs

A Conversation with Rabbi Rick Jacobs

Our campers were lucky enough to spend a Shabbat with Rabbi Rick Jacobs on Kibbutz Mashaabei Sadeh in the Negev. "Many had just arrived in Israel from Poland where they experienced the soul shattering sites of the Holocaust. Our Shabbat service was spirited, our...

read more
July 8th, Ein Avdat and Sde Boker

July 8th, Ein Avdat and Sde Boker

Written by Leo Kushnir and Nathan Liebman, Yallah! 2024 Participants We started with an early morning in the kibbutz, which was actually our last day waking up here before heading off to Eilat. As usual, we woke up relatively early and got together with friends to...

read more
Experiencing Auschwitz after 10/7

Experiencing Auschwitz after 10/7

  Written by Eitan Klieger, Yallah! 2024 Participant *This article originally appeared in The Times of Israel Today I walked through Auschwitz. Our teen group went through the gates and saw the camp with our own eyes. We walked the same path that one million Jews...

read more
First full day in Israel

First full day in Israel

Written by: Lily Gartenlaub, Daria Blyveis and Alex Gutman, Yallah! 2024 Participants Hi all! It’s Lily, Daria, and Alex writing the first teen blog of the summer! We woke up bright and early in our kibbutz rooms and got breakfast together. Then we bussed to...

read more
Arrival to Israel

Arrival to Israel

Written by Ben Markbreiter, Yallah! 2024 Madrich Today we welcomed the first 16 teens to arrive in Israel this summer with Yallah Israel/MBI! We had an exciting time meeting at the airport where we all learned each others’ names, situated ourselves geographically, and...

read more