In Which the Eighteenth of August is a Milestone

Today I am a teacher.

I have finished my training and have been sent home to await the first of September, during and after which time I will teach four different English classes, in the seventh and eleventh grades, and be a מחנכת in the seventh grade (a homeroom teacher who is so much more – a mentor, a mother, a leader – who meets with the kids for about three hours a week). The next two weeks hold a remarkable number of meetings, with coordinators, principals, teachers, parents, and other school personnel; and the year itself will hold many further adventures and discoveries as I finally receive the opportunity to come face to face with – and educate and inspire – my own group of kids.

Moreover, and equally significantly, today I celebrate one year of being in Israel.

In spite of the allergy that I – and the rest of the Teach First Israel cohort – have developed to the word “reflection” over the past five weeks (having been made to reflect on every activity and thought process undergone in that time), I would like to take this opportunity to do just that. This year has been dynamic, enriching, and full of adventures. At the risk of over-sentimentalizing, allow me to ruminate on the events of the last 365 days.

There have been events ranging from the expected to the unexpected… from the musing to the amusing to the musical… from the implausible to the impossible.

In just 365 days, I have transitioned from a familiar culture to a more unfamiliar, from one lifestyle to its opposite, from home and family to an apartment – where I was chosen by a dog – in central Tel Aviv (having, of course, bypassed the opportunity to live with a crazy out-of-work meditation coach in the Nes Tziona alley by the beach).

I have experienced the local culture first hand in the form of a piyut festival, two thrilling performances by two of Israel’s finest musical artists – Nurit Galron and Matti Caspi – and a relaxing holiday with my cousins at the Sea of Galilee; not to mention the more unexpected cultural phenomena such as the very high number of (almost daily) romantic propositions and the day that I atoned for my sins by waving a live chicken over my head.

I have also experienced the local culture at its most artistic; public sing-alongs, private sing-alongs, and vocal ensembles of all shapes and sizes. I recorded with one ensemble and performed in a music festival with a varied collection of prominent Israeli artists, including collaboration with Israel Gurion, one of the figureheads of Israeli musical history. And, of course, unbeknownst to myself for a scarcely believable period of time, I hobnobbed with celebrities at the farmer’s market, the most generationally distant of whom I was excited to see and the most current and famous of whom I did not even recognize, much to her shock.

I managed, too, to use Israel as a springboard for absorbing other cultures as well. I performed in two American musicals, one of which I stumbled upon by accident – by “kismet” – and during which I broke a tooth, caused torrential blood streams from my head, and had a violent allergic reaction to the makeup; and the other of which I jumped from a decidedly treacherous chorus position to the more thankfully uneventful roles of both music director and leading lady. I also attended a concert given by Renee Fleming in which she ranged from her beautiful classic soprano repertoire to an astonishing alto rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluljah.”

I have looked backwards and looked ahead… from the moving memorial event organized in honor of my cousin Tiltan, at which I sang, to the day when her younger brother Yuval shed his (metaphorical, we’re in Israel) cap and gown and joined the Israeli Defense Forces. And most impossibly of all, in a family different from my own, I have even witnessed the beginnings of life by personally helping to birth a baby along the side of a highway.

I have grappled with real life, embarked on a journey of professional ups and downs, ultimately making a full circle – from my beginnings as a volunteer at a youth center in an underprivileged neighborhood… to my failed – or, rather, foiled – attempt to better myself by working at the Israel Opera… to my involuntary resignation and reluctant commitment to working, instead, in an unpleasant and pretentious local café… to my self-comforting vocational expansion which includes a flower stand at the local farmer’s market… to once again, as in the beginning, finding my niche in a profession of commitment to underprivileged youth, this time within the framework of a high school.

I have become reacquainted with the splendors of this land through visitors of all kinds, ranging from dear college friends to equally dear college professors... and I have seen, first hand, its hardships as well, most strikingly by visiting an institution for teens who would otherwise be either in prison or on the streets – even engaging them, albeit artificially, in conversation.

In one year, I have so spread my wings, so explored and discovered both myself and my surroundings, that I received a call, to my cellular phone, from television producers on Channel 2 who heard of me and wanted to meet me in person, and perhaps to feature me on their show.

In addition to the friends and support pillars I have found and appreciated along the way, I have – at long last – become a part of a framework in which I have befriended ninety extraordinary people. And each and every one of these people I respect and admire from the bottom of my heart.

Let us raise our glasses to an exceptional year. May the next be as rich and rewarding for us all.