The Big Day

Today we heard from a resident of Sderot and the founder of Sderot Media. Sderot is the closest Israeli city to the Gaza Strip. In the past 7 years, over 8000 rockets have been launched from the strip into Sderot. We learned about the lives of the people that live there, and how they are being terrorized daily by the kassam rockets from Gaza.

We also heard from the founder of Palestinian Media Watch - an organization that monitors things like tv shows, radio, schoolbooks, newspapers, etc. that is shown to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The findings shown to us were shocking to see the hatred that is being taught and preached by the Palestinian Authority.

The remainder of the day was filled with other lectures and discussions about the anti-Israel propaganda that is spread throughout the media, and especially on university campuses across Canada and the US.

We had some time to walk around during lunch, so here are a few pics of the old city.

Me at the Western Wall

Zimmy and I at the Cardo (used to be a street with shops set up waaaaay back in the day)

Zimmy and I walking the streets of the Old City

In the evening there was a semi-impromptu AEPi event. Through word of mouth in less than a week and a last minute change of location, 50 brothers managed showed up. The group consisted of brothers from all over the US, and me - from Canada. Many people there had since moved to Israel, and others were there for vacation, or other organized trips. I managed to see some guys that I had bumped into earlier on my trip, and also from other road trips and conventions I had been on in the States. After the event I met back up with the majority of my group to party the night away.

Tel Aviv

We were heading back to Jerusalem in the evening, and we still had a lot to see and do in Tel Aviv. I was not particularly excited about waking up so early - having been up late enjoying the first few hours of 2008. Our first stop was a university - the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), where we heard lectures titled Encroaching Islam, and Counter-terrorism.

From there we learned about IsraAID - an Israeli organziation that is committed to humanitarian aid around the world. We also heard about Save A Child's Heart - which is an organization that performs life saving heart operations on children from 3rd world countries. They bring the child and their family to live in Israel while the doctors perform the necessary operations and give treatment. Following the introduction, we went to the house where the children and their families were living. We came with balloons and candy for the children. This was a great experience to be able to meet these kids. Communication was difficult because the families were from all over Africa, and the Middle East; Neither English nor Hebrew seemed to be a middle ground for conversation. What we did learn from the families was that none of them knew much about Israel, and if it were not for Save A Child's Heart, their children would definitely have died due to their heart conditions.

After the visit, and the long day we headed back to Jerusalem. Due to our previous horrible accomodations (having 10 people crammed into a room with one bathroom) we got upgraded to a hotel with 3 people per room - which was a major upgrade. The hotel even served a great breakfast, which in itself is much better than our previous Jerusalem accommodations.

The North & New Years Eve

I decided to go to bed at around 230AM even though we had to be up at 6AM yet again. I figured I would be able to get some rest on the bus, and I could survive the day with only 3 and a half hours of sleep (also taking into account another night of partying for new years eve). Half an hour into my sleep, I get woken up by one of my roommates puking his guts out. Long story short, this continued until well after we left the hotel - he ended up catching a bug or something. Needless to say the 3 and a half hours of sleep I was hoping to get turned into half an hour of sleep, and a headache from listening to my roommate puke for 3 straight hours.

From the hotel we went to the Golan Heights to overlook the site of yet another battle; The battle was at the "Valley of Tears" and was during the Yom Kippur War in October of 1973. From the mountain, we were able to see down below to where the battle took place, and off in the distance we were able to see Syria. At our lookout point, we were in the trenches dug by Israel, and the turret of a destroyed tank. We learnt about the Yom Kippur war, and how Israel was miraculously able to defend itself after a surprise attack on Yom Kippur - the holiest day of the year for Jews. We saw a movie about the Valley of Tears, and the battle that occurred there. The Israeli tanks were outnumbered 10 to one, and somehow managed to hold off the Syrians for 3 days until reinforcements arrived.

After learning about the Yom Kippur War we headed to Tzfat to do some humanitarian work. They gave us hard hats and work gloves and we helped to move rocks and dirt. This was in effort to excavate old homes that had been demolished and rebuilt on its own rubble for over 500 years. We then headed to Tel Aviv for our New Years Eve night off.

At the hotel, I bumped into a bunch of AEPi guys that that had just arrived in Israel on the second half of their Hasbara trip (they spent almost a week traveling Poland). I had met them before on roadtrips and at convention. We bumped into each other a number of times during the rest of the trip in Jerusalem.

New Years was great - we went to a club which was right across from the beach, and then followed that up with exploring the boardwalk at the early hours of 2008.

The North

Once we got back to Jerusalem, it was after 11PM, and I was exhausted from walking over 5 hours. All I wanted to do was go to bed. When I arrived back at the room, I could barely walk in as everyone's bags were all over the place. Once I had a chance to look inside I counted 10 beds - yes ten - its not a typo. We were crammed in the room like sardines. The hostel-esque accomodations managed to double book some of the rooms, so they squeezed as many of us as possible in one room. There were 4 sets of bunkbeds and two single beds... and one washroom. I realized it would be near impossible to get to bed with people constantly wandering back from their weekends, and the bars. Two hours later - at 1AM, I finally managed to pass out, hoping to get some sleep before our alarm clock AKA Sammy was to wake us up at 6AM. The next thing i know, I get woken up by Sammy... but not at 6AM. Its 3 oclock and he is having a screaming match with some lady out in the halls. This lady was waking up her tour group because they needed to catch a flight, but she also felt the need to wake up everybody else! I manage to pass out again before Sammy comes around at 6AM to wake us up for good.

Once awake, we headed onto the bus for our two day journey up north and to Tel Aviv. Our first stop was Latrun - the site of a very important battle of the War of Independence in 1948. From the beautiful view it was evident why Latrun was an important piece of land to control. From the elevated landscape you could see from Jerusalem all the way out to the Medeterranian Sea. Along with the extended view, Latrun is on a main entrance route to Jerusalem, which also adds to its importance strategically. Latrun is currently the site of the armour corp. museum, where there are a large number of tanks on display.

Once we arrived at the hotel after a long travelling day, we had dinner and managed to find some time to relax before it was time to party. Since this hotel was in the middle of nowhere, we were not able to go out to party, and thus we had to create our own. We found a large classroom where we could party as a group. One would not think this classroom would be ideal for partying, but we managed. We hooked up an Ipod to the computer, and projected the audio visualization onto the wall. We pushed all the desks to the back, and all of a sudden we had ourselves a nightclub. We went around the hotel, and invited all the other tour groups to join us and party. We partied well into the night to celebrate the last full night of 2007.

Tel Aviv - Jaffa

Saturday December 29, 2007 - Tel Aviv - Jaffa

With no schedule for the day I managed to sleep in a little bit later. We headed out to have breakfast/lunch at a restaurant on the beach which was very nice and relaxing. The weather was perfect - just a bit windy, but otherwise I couldn't complain. After lunch as the rest of the group decided to be beach bums and sit around the beach and do nothing, so I went for a pretty extensive walk around the city. I made it to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin memorial - where he was assasinated in 1995. After that I continued wandering around. A few hours later, I found myself about halfway to Jaffa - at the south end of the beach. I figured I needed some time to relax, so I met back up with group - still on the beach. We hung out there for a bit before they decided to head back to Jerusalem. I decided to stay in Tel Aviv for a few more hours, as we only needed to be back at our hotel in Jerusalem by 11PM. At this point, I finally found some people who wanted to do something productive and not sit at the beach! Michelle, Samantha and I decided to walk to Jaffa and try and catch the sunset. Before we headed out we stopped off where they were staying. They were staying with a relative who had an incredible view of Tel Aviv and all of the coastline from the 18th storey apartment.

We started on our trek to Jaffa, and we realized that the sun was setting quite quickly and we wouldn't make it there in time. We managed to snap some half descent pictures before the sun was gone. We continued our walk, and finally made it there. Jaffa is the world's oldest port city. After walking around port, we figured it was time to head back to Tel Aviv and grab some dinner before we had to get back to Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv

We had one class in the morning about the modern history of the state of Israel. After that we had the next day and a half to ourselves because of Shabbat. A group of us decided to go to Tel Aviv. Once we go there, we grabbed some lunch and checked into our hostel. We walked around town and I managed to get to the beack for the sunset. Seeing the sun set looking off towards Jaffa was a great site to see. In the evening we went out to dinner followed by bar-hopping around town.

Hasbara and Krav Maga

Today we started our first full day of the trip. We stayed in the Old City and heard from a few speakers. We had classes about communicating for Israel and how to educate poeple about the current situation in Israel. We learnt about the history of the land of Israel and its importance to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Lastly we were taught about the Palestinian media, and how they teach hatered through TV, schoolbooks, etc. In between the classes - around lunch and dinnertime, we had some time on our own to walk around the Old City and be tourists.

After dinner we had a demonstrative class of Krav Maga - Israeli self defense. We were taught what to do in certain situations when being attacked. It was a very interesting class, and one none of us will forget!

Off to Israel!!

I'm going back to Israel!!!! Its been exactly a year, and im psyched to go back! I had an 2PM flight from Toronto to JFK in New York. Once there I met up with a bunch of other people on the trip who had made connecting flights and eagerly waiting for the El Al check-in counter to open. We had 4 hours to waste before we could check in followed by another 3 hours until the flight. Fast forward to 5PM local time on Wednesday - We arrive in Israel!!!! We all got on the bus and headed to Jerusalem. We had an introductory dinner in the Old City of Jerusalem and then we checked into our accomodations. We stayed inside the Old City - only a 5 minute walk from the Kotel, which was great. After settling into the room, and despite everyone being exhausted from the flight, and the fact we had to wake up early we had to go check out the nightlife on Ben Yehuda St.

AEPi Roadtrip to Ohio State

Another road trip - this time to Ohio State University. We had an interesting drive down there to say the least - including getting stopped at the border. Not only does Salzman not have his passport, but his drivers license has a hole in it! When we get there we go and grab some food, and get back to the house in time for the party.

While waiting for everyone else to wake up the next morning, I walked around the mansion and took a look at some of the cool stuff they had lying around. Started up in the 1920s I believe, the OSU chapter was the 5th chapter of AEPi. We found some books, plaques and awards that dated back to the 1930s which was pretty cool. While looking outside through the window, we saw a few police cars followed by SWAT vans barelling around the corner. I was informed they were probably going to a different fraternity house. I was somewhat puzzled because my watch said it was 9AM. Once everyone woke up, we went to the mall. Nothing interesting happened there - Salzman bought an iphone - but besides Lee Rosen, who really cares???

We got back to house, and got ready to go to the football game. Undefeated OSU (ranked number 1 in the country) was playing University of Illinois. The stadium held 105,000 people, and the atmosphere was electrifying. The game got off to a great start with 2 touchdowns in the first minute, and it looked like the highscoring play would continue. Somehow, Ohio State ended up losing their first game of the season, and it put a damper on the evening. The game was a lot of fun, and to see first hand the rediculousness of college football was pretty awesome.

AEPi Road Trip to University of Maryland

We left Waterloo at 7PM, and arrived at the AEPi house at 4:30AM - what a long drive! Completely exhausted I went right to bed. The next thing I know I get woken up by by guys I have never met before saying "We are going drinking in 10 minutes, lets go". This wouldn't be so bad, except its 9AM. After 10 hour drive and 4 and a half hours of sleep, the last thing I wanted to do was drink shitty American beer at 9AM. Maryland was playing Georgia Tech in football at 12:30, so we needed to party beforehand. After partying, we headed over to the game. It was awesome to see college football first hand. There were 47,000 people at the stadium - all in red cheering for Maryland. The game was good, but I decided to leave at the half because i was exhausted from lack of sleep, standing during the entire game, and the heat - yes it is october, and it was hot as hell. We took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.

The plans for the evening were to go to an AEPi party in DC. But more importantly, how could we miss the leafs vs. canadiens game on Hockey Night in Canada? Luckily the house had NHL Center Ice, so we could watch the game. The guys from Maryland couldn't understand our obsession with hockey. The leafs won a thriller in overtime, and then it was time to go party in DC.

Sunday we woke up and went to work. Their chapter earns money by vending beer at NFL games. There was a few open spots, so some of us got to go to the game. The game was a lot of fun, and so was selling beer. It was another hot day out, and going up and down stairs carrying 30 beers at a time for hours was quite exhausting. In addition to making money for their chapter, I pocketed $100 in personal tips! I wasn't able to watch the entire game, but I still had a good time, and the atmosphere was crazy.
At the Redskins game: L-R Stoop, Coleman, Lipnowski, Yuval, Boris, Josh Rosen, me

That evening we drove into DC to check out some sites. DC was only half an hour away; I couldn't have driven that far without going to DC. We saw the White House, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Monument. At the Lincoln Monument L-R: Melnik, me, Boris, Wilks

The road trippers: L-R Coleman, Stoop, Lipnowski, Kyle, Melnik,
Yuval, Wilks, me, Josh Rosen, Boris