Tzivia’s Blog Number 1 – Pre Rosh Hashana 5785
Hi everyone,
What was meant to be a relaxed four week term, easing us into the new school year before Rosh Hashanah, was transformed into a hectic truncated three week rollercoaster ride.
But let me start at the beginning, as I am sure you all want to know what it’s like being in school in the holy city of Tzfat.
I arrived 3 weeks ago to a totally new school, the only new girl across all four classes, and although I did not know anyone, everyone was so friendly and helpful. I’ve made so many new friends from all over the world. Most of the girls are Israeli, although they also dorm in Tzfat. My class has fourteen girls from around the world, literally: I have classmates from: Cyprus, Belgium, Brazil, Italy, Slovakia, America, Austria, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Thailand and of course good old England.
Going from a class of eleven (made up of 3 year groups combined), I am now in a class of twenty four, totalling 110 students across the one year group. It has been one of the biggest changes for me after so many years in a really small school. My actual classroom is a portacabin, and I have been warned that it will be really cold come the winter, but at the moment the weather is really nice which is a change after the so called summer we had in Manchester this year.
The doors to the building get locked at 8.15am and we have to be on time, but considering my usual school commute consisted of a 15 minute walk to meet daddy in Shul and then a 45 minute (minimum) drive to North Manchester everyday, my now 30 second walk means that I don’t have a problem arriving on time every morning.
The lessons are all really interesting and I’ve learnt so much. We cover so many different topics and I can already see the difference between the English style GCSEs I did last year and the Continental style baccalaureate I will be doing over the next two years. One thing is for certain; sitting in lessons where the teacher only speaks in Hebrew has most definitely improved my Ivrit. I still have a way to go, but I am coping well and confident that in time I will even be dreaming in Ivrit.
We get woken up each morning, including on Sundays, at 7.30am with breakfast at 8.00. We go straight into lessons and have just two short breaks before lunch at 2pm. Depending on the day we may have either one or two lessons after lunch, except on a Friday when we finish at lunch.
Besides the academic program, there are extracurricular activities almost every evening (sometimes late into the night), so I am definitely not bored. There is not much to do outside of school hours, so having official programs and learning activities is definitely important.
My school is called Beit Chana – named after Rebbetzen Chana Schneerson, the mother of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Rebbetzen, together with her husband Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Yekaterinoslav, in the former USSR, now known as Dnipro, Ukraine. The school is on a hill and offers an amazing view of the Land of Israel. We can see out to Meron, and when the sun slowly sinks below the hills and mountains of the Galilee it paints the sky a beautiful and vibrant pastel orange or pink. From the porch in my dorm, we can see the Kinneret and somehow it appears much closer than it actually is, almost as if we could just pop over for a quick refreshing dip in its cool waters.
Much like Eton College’s new mobile phone policy, we are not allowed to use our smartphones. As soon as we arrived we had to hand in our devices which were placed in a little phone jail: a cabinet with a glass front and tons of little ‘cells’, one for each girl’s phone. The school provided us with Nokia ‘dumb’ phone, but the call plan only allowed calls to Israel, America, Mexico and Panama, so mummy and daddy had to download an app on their phone which gave them a virtual Israeli number. It is quite cool, but it does mean that I cannot message them and of course also miss out on the family WhatsApp groups. We do have access to computers, so I can also send them and Chaya emails. It feels sort of like the olden days; sending a message and then having to wait a few days until I can get back to the computer to read their reply. However, when we leave Tzfat, such as when we have a Shabbat Chofsha (a ‘free’ Shabbos), they give us our smart phones back; this is for safety so we can keep in constant touch with our parents when travelling. I think daddy told you how important this was when I got off the bus at the wrong stop in Yerushalayim, but working together with daddy, google maps and also getting to practise my Ivrit, I was able to find my way to my host for Shabbat.
The school provides us with a Rav-Kav, which is sort of like an Oyster card but it is used throughout Israel and is pretty much the only way to pay for public transport. What is really cool, is that as this is a fully funded government program, the school puts the money on the card, giving us free transport. They also provided me with my school uniform, a load of stationery as well as the books we needed. All I had to bring from the UK were those books I wanted with an English translation.
Away from the normal part of school, is living with the constant sound of planes. Tzfat is nowhere near Ben Gurion airport and is usually a quiet, quaint mountaintop city, personified by its ancient walls and ubiquitous steps, so the sound of supersonic fighter jets is an anomaly. Every time we hear them screeching overhead, we know that it is a brave pilot in the IAF risking their lives for ours!
Unfortunately there is also the piercing sound of the sirens rising and falling as it alerts us all.
Until this past Friday, so for the first two weeks, I managed to miss all the sirens. There had been one on the first Shabbat I was in Tzfat, but it didn’t directly affect our area, so it was not that loud and most of us did not even hear it. Although on Motzoei Shabbat we did hear and see a number of the Iron Dome interceptors – they make a really loud boom when they explode the incoming Hezbollah missiles. On my second Shabbat there were five sirens in Tzfat, but I was in Yerushalayim and Baruch Hashem missed them all, and then almost as if I was one step ahead of them, the sirens only sounded in Yerushalayim once I was on my way back to Tzfat, so I missed them again!!
Then came this last Friday, when after the ‘beeper and walkie talkie operation’ everything went up a notch or three. The school staff were brilliant, and we had some amazing conversations with them about the necessity for that operation, but also about what the likely response was going to be. I had spoken with daddy and thought I had my head in the right place, but nothing really prepares you for a command by the army to be in a military lockdown and within the immediate vicinity of a bomb shelter. Due to a Shabbaton, we actually had no school on that Friday morning and I had been out of school when the instructions came through; it was pretty scary walking back into the complex to be greeted by everyone moving round with a great urgency as the dorm counsellors made sure we were all indoors and safe.
Within a short time we heard the sirens: five of them over the next three hours. Running into the shelter each time was particularly scary, but the atmosphere was surprisingly calm. Luckily our phones worked in the shelter and I was able to call home. The Iron Dome did its job and Baruch Hashem all the rockets were safely intercepted. We were kept in lockdown – staying in the school complex – for the whole of Shabbat and although there were only two sirens, there was the added sense of danger as we could not phone our parents. The main Iron Dome for the North East of Israel is in Tzfat and the surrounding mountains, so we hear all of the explosions and often see the incoming missiles exploding midair.
That night, Motzoei Shabbat, we got an update from the dormitory staff, and they explained that even though it was not a good situation, we were still extremely safe in the dorm: we were close to a shelter, the school has its own generator (the only one in Tzfat), plus there was a plenty supply of food. In fact, following the instructions of the Home Command, it was only the possible lack of food that might force an evacuation from Tzfat!
My international group of 14 girls spent the night sitting on the porch singing together, with one girl playing a guitar. I think I would say that that was the highlight of my short time in Tzfat so far; singing and praying for the safety of Israel, our soldiers and the safe return of all the hostages.
One of the girls had written a beautiful song about the war, asking for there to be no more fallen soldiers, no more hostages, no more rockets. As we were singing the line “there should be no more rockets”, we saw the Iron Dome go off and watched the interception of rockets that were coming towards cities in the North. It was amazing to see the rockets flying up to destroy the missiles sent by Hezbollah. During our sing-a-long we were told that due to the number of sirens that day and the possibility of a further lockdown tomorrow, we would not have any school on Sunday. There was quite a bit of shrieking from some very excited teenage girls; it was irrational but we had all been under so much pressure the previous 48 hours that we just needed that bit of release.
The next morning everything changed, as all the Israeli girls were told to go home as school was cancelled indefinitely, although there would hopefully be zoom lessons: covid times again!!! The international students were told to try and get tickets home, bearing in mind that we were meant to be leaving the next week anyway, this sudden change in plans made us realise the sense of urgency that had fallen on us. Daddy managed to get me a flight for Wednesday afternoon, and together with the rest of my friends we prepared to spend a few days in a practically empty dorm. Then that evening we were all told to leave Tzfat and the North of Israel as quickly as possible, to get ourselves to the relative safety of Central Israel and await our flights home from there.
That is why I am now writing this blog from a bus on my way to Bet Shemesh!
Even though right now it’s quiet; I am watching the beautiful scenery of our beloved Israel go past the windows, there are no rockets and no sirens, but as mummy put it, I am escaping a war zone. I feel for my teachers and all the amazing staff at the school, but now is a time when everyone needs to be with their family. These past few days have been crazy, with everything changing by the minute. It began with the usual school, albeit one with the subconscious knowledge of the ‘regular’ rocket attacks against the Northern cities and then Israel rightly went on the offensive with the (so far unclaimed) precision attack against the Hezbollah terrorists and what a Chutzpadik operation that was! This turned into a military ordered lockdown and then into multiple dashes to the shelter. We were then told to bring our tickets forward only to be then told that those who don’t live in Tzfat should leave straight away. It has been hard to wrap my head round the speed in which things changed.
I think part of it is due to the fact that for the past three nights, I have not gotten to sleep before 3am, although I have been surrounded by some amazing friends with whom I have had great fun talking and singing together whilst listening to and watching our brave IDF heroes defending our homeland. What is often referred to as “only in Israel” moments.
Of course I am happy that I am coming home, and get to sink into my own comfortable bed and to eat yummy homemade food a few days earlier than planned, but I wish this war was not the reason for it.
I’m going to sign off now with the hope that all our soldiers will be safe, our hostages should be returned home and this war will end speedily with no more deaths or injuries.
I’ll see you all soon
Tzivia