A Little About Nativ

Nativ, the program that I am on, is run by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. It's a gap year program, for students between high school and college. However, this is a bit of a misnomer. The first semester is really just a study abroad program; it is only the second semester that more closely resembles the traditional gap year style programs.

There are a variety of options for Nativers, three in the fall and two in the spring. Currently, everyone here is enrolled one of three places: Hebrew University, the Conservative Yeshiva, or a hebrew immersion class called and Ulpan. I'll writing frequently about life at HU, so I won't into detail on that, but the Yeshiva and Ulpan tracks deserve a little time now because I won't ever have much information beyond what I have now.

Students in the Yeshiva, conveniently located right next door to our building, offers Nativers and others a place to study Judaism full time. Classes are (mostly, as far as I can tell) a sort of guided study, in that people learn together in pairs rather than lecture style. (If anyone from Yeshiva is reading this and I'm wrong, please correct me!). I toyed with the idea of switching to the Yeshiva before I got to Hebrew University for a few reasons: a learning-for-the-sake-of-learning mentality, more individually driven classes, and of course the lack of homework or tests. In the end though, I think I made the right decision.

Ulpan students learn Hebrew all day every day. The Ulpan is certainly not for everyone, but I've met several people in Ulpan who seem totally committed to becoming fluent or near-fluent in Hebrew while here, and that seems like the best way to do it. It was not, however, one of my goals this year to learn Hebrew, and so I think I'll do just fine only taking the required single Hebrew class at HU. I know next to nothing about what goes on at Ulpan, and I've heard that's the way it's been on past Nativs as well. Where exactly is it? How does the learning take place? Who runs it? What is it even actually called? All these things and more will just have to remain mysteries, I guess.

Next semester there are two options, and for the most part we are separated first semester by who we will be with second semester. Here in my building lives everyone who will be moving to a Kibbutz in the spring, where we'll be working for most of every day in various agricultural capacities. Some of us will care for cows, others turkeys, plants or even children. Some of us will work in the kitchen, and there may be other options that I don't even know about. The good news is that the work is only from 8:30 to 3 every day, the bad news is that the kibbutz is in the middle of nowhere, so who knows what we'll be doing during our free time.

The other group, who live in a different building in the same small complex as us, will be doing community service in the small town of Yerucham. I actually know nothing beyond that.

Later tonight I'll tell you about the street festival on Emek Refaim last night, and share some of my pictures from it as well.