May Update

By Ash and Annie

So dear family and friends of hineni, what have we, the shnatties been up to this joyful month of may?
Well, we kicked it off with a lovely dinner organised by Jaqui and Lips, and prepared by all of us. A wonderful evening sitting in the park and enjoying each others favourite songs. That was until we were interrupted by an American-Israeli that wanted to invite us to dinner sometime (much to our dismay- we thought he would tell us off for the noise!)
That week also saw two birthdays. Ryan’s, on the 2nd, and mine on the 5th- shabbas beyachad.
The week after that was lag baomer! Machon organised a bon fire that featured s’mores (courtesy of our Americans). That week we spent our self imposed Monday tnua time watching “Don’t Mess with the Zohan” to begin our “Zohan Appreciation Day” that featured brushing of teeth with humus and wear hair in unusual ways.
One week we had tnua time in a very interesting place. We were lead on a bus to a hill that was surround by barbwire, we were in Jordan, pre-1967 of course. We made laffa and had a team building peulah run by Michelle and Andrew.
We were welcomed into Shir Hadash shule by Rabbi Pear and his family for our Hineni shabbaton. It began on a Friday night, when we were all billeted out for dinner in the Katamone area. Then a lovely service and an entertaining talk by the Rabbi. Lunch was enjoyed with some special guests; John Zeleznikow (my dad), Josh Back, George Schneider and their kiwi friend Gavin. Sarah and Doron then ran a peulah about being a Jew in Australia and New Zealand. They used the eruv in north Sydney and the killing of animals in New Zealand as examples.
We celebrated Yom Yerushalim. Ari and Lauren were so kind as to organise a BBQ for us. Later that day afew of us headed of to the flag parade. Which not so much of a parade as a giant free concert that everyone danced to with giant Israeli flags. (Girls and boys separate- it’s the only way to do things). Later that night a hefty amount of machon headed out to the ‘Liela Lavan’, a concert that feature such awesome aritist; … .
We celebrated 2 birthdays in one eventful weekend! Nathan turned 19 on the happy Friday (25th)of the weekend of Shavuot. Which began with a dinner at our teacher Marc Kaye’s house- for those several henenites that participate in his Judaism class. Then it was shabbas, and thanks to Ari some of our boys had a lovely shab and shav (shabbas and Shavuot) at Yeshiva- which concluded at you guessed it- the western wall for our second of the three yearly pilgraims. Others of hineni orgin enjoyed the lectures at the egalitarian yeshiva- pardees. There were even some girls that celebrated the chag with our good friends from bnei at harova, in the old city. Me, I went brovvenders, the midrasha down the road, which was home to afew of our hineni mads. Ah, yeah, the second birthday. Mark finally turned 18.
So that’s what we have been up to. Hope all is going well in Oz.
We all send our love.


A Poem about life on Machon:
Machon was fun, fun was the time
Tiyuls, talks, tours, all sublime.
Northern tiyul was off with a boom
Time flew and swooped, zoom zoom zoom.
Kayaking, hiking, jeeping made us fit
To Metula, up north, onwards to the tip.
But wait, there was more, swim, eat, nap, swim
Splashing in the ocean, living on the brim.
Aside from tiyul the food was pretty bad
Thirst was quenched by lessons, teachers getting mad.
Fighting, screaming, learning, laughing, we cry.
Drug tests are negative, yet we’re all high…
ON LIFE