Wednesday, July 25: “Yaaaa-lelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelele!”

When the time came for me to become leader of the day, I dawned the hat and cape with pride knowing that today was going to be awesome.  It started early, 6:45am to be exact.  The first thing that Yuval Bensal, my Israeli co-leader, and I accomplished was a special birthday wake-up for our Junior Counselor Aliza.  Secretly, we woke up all the Dillers and sang “Happy Birthday”, while our coordinator Leah created balloon animals which could be a dog, a crown, or a backwards parrot depending on how you held it.  We then gave Aliza her birthday presents: a very luxurious passport case from her mom and a tote bag which Rachel Forman described as “Super, super, cute”. 

After yet another delicious breakfast of Borekas and cottage cheese, we greeted our friends with a song describing why it was going to be so much fun while Bensal and I “had absolute power, for at least a couple of hours”.   Then, with the help of duct tape and fake mono-brows and mustaches, we became the supreme leaders Saleem and Achmed, the perfect guides to lead Diller through the Druze village. 

                “Attention!  The supreme leaders of the day have an announcement”, said Achmed/Bensal.

                “Yaaaa-lelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelele!”, I said in response. 

Once the Dillers overcame the shock that Achmed and Saleem were actually Bensal and I, we organized some warm-up games.  “Wah” was played, and so was “Jamousse”, but unfortunately they were cut short because it was time to depart our first stop.

Around 45 minutes into our hour ride to the Druze village called Pik’in, Bensal and I read some fun facts about some of the Jewish residents of the town, all of whom live peacefully together and for more than 2000 years.  When we arrived the first place we visited was the cave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yocahi, also known as the Rashbi.  Our tour guide Lior told us the history of the cave, telling how the Rashbi hid in the cave for 13 years and could even burn people with his hard gaze.  I think that would be a really cool super power. 

Our next stop was at an ancient synagogue.  It wasn’t very big, but it proved that the Jews had always been in the Holy Land, and is on the back of the 100 Shekel bill.  We took a quick look around, and started walking to lunch at the Druze Hospitality.

The Druze hospitality was amazing, the mood was cool, the food was great, but most importantly it had some of the best air condition we’ve had in Israel.  After filling ourselves with Drewish food, we sat down with a Druze to learn about the Drew’s religion.  After that long talk, we got onto the bus and got ready for congress.

We did a lot on the bus to congress: we wrote our song, planned our entrance, and applied superhero face paint to prepare for our first meeting with the other hundred North American Diller Teen Fellows.  As excited as we were to go to congress, we were also sad to be saying goodbye to our friend/tourguide Lior and our Israelis.  When we arrived at congress, we had the pleasure of hauling our fifty pound bags what felt like miles in the scorching Israeli sun.  Yet, when the opening ceremonies started, everyone was full of energy.  Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Montreal, L.A., San Francisco and now Metro west were now all present.  Each cohort had a skit and a movie, and of course ours was the best. 

Next we split into color groups for some activities.  Eric and I were in the dark green group, and after an hour and a half of ice breakers I could feel that this congress was going to be fun.  The last part of the workshop had us learning about our Jewish history, and just how we, as Jews, managed to come to North America.  We closed the night with a deep ma’agal, and then went to hang with our new friends.  It was an exhausting day, but one of the most memorable of the trip so far. 

- Noah Lisser