After waking up ridiculously early, we were on the road by 8:00 a.m. Our destination: Allapattah Middle School, where we will spend the rest of the week with City Year, dividing our time between the aesthetics of the campus/building, and tutoring the students. In the morning, the Hopkins crew was teamed up with Broward, and we were assigned the task of repainting the basketball court. It was cold, with the wind dragging down the temperature even more, but it was cool to see our project come together into a noticeably nicer court.
After lunch, we had the privilege of hearing Rabbi Leonid Feldman, the first Russian to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States. He spoke about the question asked and answered by the book of Genesis: Am I my brother’s keeper? He related it to the Jewish quest for social justice, and the fact that it took generations of familial betrayal – Noah and his contemporaries, Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, Jacob and Esau, Jacobs twelve sons – before Joseph finally forgives his brothers and answers the question in the affirmative; as a people, we have an obligation to fight for our brothers and sisters. Rabbi Feldman linked the Biblical story to his own background; as a dissident to the USSR, he was imprisoned and was released thanks to the persistence of the worldwide Jewish population to support the “illegal” Jews of the Soviet Union.
When his speech was over, a panel of City Year workers answered questions we might have about the program, and it seems like a valuable and interesting approach to improving the American educational system. When that was over, we were put into small groups, which were each assigned a class to assist. In my case, I was paired up with a sixth grader named Chastity, and was told to teach her about proportions in fractions – the planned lesson for tomorrow. It was rewarding to work with her and accomplish my goal, but at the same time it was disheartening to see people with such fewer educational advantages that I had and continue to have. It makes me respect City Year even more.
We were rewarded at the end of the day with a night out on Lincoln Road, a cute shopping area in Miami Beach. So far, this trip has been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see it through!

AWB 2012 Miami Begins

After a long day of planes and bus rides, we finally arrived at the hotel by the University of Miami Hillel. We were so excited to finally get to meet all of the wonderful people that we are going to spent the next week with.

Once we were all settled in at the hotel, we headed over to the UMiami Hillel for a pasta and meatballs dinner. Personally, the rugelach was my favorite part! Everyone started talking and doing “Jewish Geography”, and it turns out that we really are all connected in one way or another.

After dinner, we went outside to do some icebreakers. This led to a lot of laughs and getting to know each other, and the group became more comfortable around each other. As much as we wanted to stay and learn more, it was time to go back to the hotel to rest up for the busy day ahead of us.

Today, the first official day of the trip, has been quite eventful so far. At 9 A.M., we loaded the buses and headed over to a local synagogue, Temple Israel of Greater Miami. We played some games (ninja, anyone?), and then headed over to a cemetery. We learned a little bit about the history of the cemetery and about Miami, and then were split into groups. We grabbed shovels, gloves, rakes, rags, and buckets of water and split up around different areas of the cemetery. It was interesting to learn different things about the people who were buried there, and to see the different areas. We weeded, raked, and cleaned, and we felt a true sense of accomplishment once we were done.

After cleaning up at the cemetery and washing our hands, we went back to the synagogue and enjoyed some lunch. Well it’s time to get back to the program! Thanks for following the blog!

With love,

UDelaware Participants

Reflections by Hillel at Binghamton

Update to Parents

Posted by: Rabbi Shalom Kantor on Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 9:22:07 am | Comments (0)

It has been an amazing week from the hours of service that we preformed in the morning recreating the Northwest Boys and Girls Club with paint, new benches, murals, tables to the special afternoons we spent with the children of the Kendall Boys and Girls club in the afternoon. Each and every student on this trip made such a difference and added immeasurable amounts to our community. We ended the week with a beautiful Shabbat with some much needed and deserved relaxation and reflection on all that we had accomplished.

As our students return home we asked them all to make some sort of commitment to continuing some of the work or incorporating the lessons of the week into their lives and their insights into how they wanted to do this were beautiful and moving.

I (Rabbi Shalom) look forward to many more adventures with our students as we continue to build our own community, our connection to our heritage, and work together to make the world a better place for all of humanity.

We will be up loading pictures to our web site within the next week and hope you will check back to see the actual work that we all did.

Until then blessings and L'chaim

Rabbi Shalom Kantor

Our Last Day

Posted by: Michael Weinberg on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 8:48:16 pm

Yesterday was our last day working with the kids at the Boys and Girls Club in Coral Gables, and honestly even though we are going to the beach today, I would rather go back to the Boys and Girls Club and work with the kids I’ve interacted with. No one wanted to leave, and everyone I talked to agreed they wanted to come back. Probably the hardest part was saying goodbye to the kids that I didn’t have time to help that day that I helped in the past few days, since I was with other kids that I had been helping; as I was leaving, a kid I worked with the day before named Sebastian looked at me and asked me if I could help, and I had to say I was leaving. This was like a recurring theme for me; each day before we left, groups of kids would come up to me and ask for help with all their work, and when each day I had to leave knowing that there were dozens of kids that I could easily help with just a few more minutes, I would pretty much wait until the last minute to go outside to the debriefing.

A few things I really liked: the smiles on my kids’ faces when they figured something out on their own or when I taught them tricks to make homework go faster, when Caroline told me she wanted to run an animal shelter and work at the Vet’s office when she grows up, when Daniel (a kid) beat Daniel (an adult) in pool, and when I saw much of the completed work we’ve done. Some of my kids live lives of relative privilege, however not all of them do, and in both cases, I feel I can make a difference in their futures by sharing insight and experience from my life, as well as helping them understand the relevance of their homework. But for now, it’s 86 degrees outside, and I have no choice but go to the beach; I suppose I could stand to hang out in Miami beach for a few hours!

Day 3: Reading with kids

Posted by: Nicole Richards on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 8:55:03 pm

Today was our third day of service and our second day working with the children at the Kline Boys and Girl’s club. While I was excited to continue my service work, I couldn’t help feeling very uneasy walking into the club. On Tuesday I’d been paired with a seven year old named Gabriel. My first impression of him was that he is a sweet faced young blonde with a bit of a trouble-making streak in him. However, as the afternoon progressed, I realized that of all the children I’d interacted with, this child closest fit the definition of “at risk youth.” He spoke of fights and other things that are highly inappropriate for a seven year old. His way of showing off to his friends was by insulting them. It was pretty clear that his ideas of fun will warp towards drugs and fighting as he gets older. Today I learned that he is a year behind in school because, as he nonchalantly told me, “I get bad grades”. Additionally, he “loves violence.”

Most troubling was the way he sensed that adults do not have a lot of confidence in his abilities. I think he has just as much potential as any other child there.

I left today feeling even more mixed then I had the day before. When reading with Gabriel, I found myself getting frustrated with his lack of enthusiasm to the point where I couldn’t help but wish that I could just read the story to him. This thought, and deciding to work against that thought, reminded me why I am here, on this trip, in the first place. Other adults have not been giving Gabriel a chance, and probably would have given up and read him the rest of the story in order to get it over with. But I know what it’s like to have the academic adults looking down on you; it’s an awful feeling. I believe in Gabriel’s potential, and I also believe he does not believe in his own potential, and I refuse to be yet another adult letting him give up on himself.

Reflections looking back

Posted by: Jeff Steinberg on Sunday, March 27, 2011 at 9:19:28 am

Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to spend time with a young boy at the Boys and Girls Club of Miami. A typical visit has consisted of reading with him, playing games, and generally trying to learn more about his origin. Even though I shared three afternoons with him, it still was not enough to reach out to him in a way I had hoped.

Today, however, I read a book to him that related very well to this entire trip as a whole. The story was about an impoverished fisherman who had saved a fish, who had in turn granted him a wish. The fisherman asked the fish to provide him with a bigger house. Ultimately, the wish was granted, but the fisherman was not pleased, as he asked the fish to keep improving his lifestyle. A few wishes later, the fisherman had a large enough house and plenty of food for him and others, but could not become satisfied. Eventually, the fish became so insulted that he took everything away from the fisherman, even the worn down hut he had originally lived in. The fisherman realized that after all of that, he just wanted his old lifestyle back.

Basically, this story reminds me of our society today. Many privileged people take what they have for granted and get carried away with materialism. The societal norm, unfortunately, is to always one-up the people around them, whether it’s driving the fanciest car on the block or being the best dressed out of a group of friends. It bothers me that people tend to lose sight of community and selfishly think only about themselves. This book is a great example of someone who wants more without even needing more.

On this trip, I have realized that everything I have is a privilege that I should feel lucky for, while many of these kids at the Club do not have the same opportunities that I had growing up. Instead of being selfish and always asking for luxury items, we should focus more on the necessities. The fact of the matter is, there are underprivileged people in the world, and I bet the homeless out on the street do not appreciate those individuals driving around Mercedes Benz’ while being left coughing in the dust. Even though I feel that I didn’t really impact the boy I had mentored, I feel that I learned so much more than I thought I would through this experience. With privilege comes choices, and it is up to us to decide the right choices.

Day 2: Building our souls and making a difference

Posted by: Alysia Siegel on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 10:57:43 pm

March 22, 2011 – Miami ASB

Today was one of those days that was good for the soul; the kind that just fills you up. We started the morning with some old fashioned manual labor. I really liked what we were doing (stretching canvases) because I had learned how to do that in the painting class I took back in Binghamton, so I felt like I was able to share some of my first hand experience with the rest of the group. I enjoyed the second half of the day even more. We went to another Boys and Girls Club to actually work with kids. I helped a 12 year old boy named Adrian with his homework. At first when one of the teachers assigned me to help him he said, “I don’t know why she thinks I need help. I can do my homework on my own and I don’t need anyone else”. In response to this apparently difficult attitude I said, “I know you can do it but why don’t you explain your homework to me”. In this way I was able to bring him to realize maybe I could help him out a little bit. It felt nice to see him let me in this small way. Adrian seems like one of those kids who are a bit of challenge but only need a little extra time with things for them to come around. He seemed surprised that a bunch of college students from New York would come to spend any amount of time with them. He even said to me, “I wouldn’t do that”. I just tried my best to share some things about myself with him as I was helping him with his spelling and math homework. Maybe I did have some impact on his day as he asked if we were coming back tomorrow and quietly said perhaps he would see me then. I wonder about the impact we will have long term on these kids but I take comfort in the fact that they also will have an impact on us which we will always have. I’m excited for another day like today and I hope I get to work Adrian again in the afternoon so we can continue learning from each other.

Day 1: Welcome to Miami

Posted by: Nathan Shapiro on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 10:56:37 pm

Tonight, we listened to a Faces of Homelessness Panel. We listened to several speakers who had experienced poverty and homelessness and how they were able to recover from these experiences. One of these speakers discussed how she had run away from home as a youth and had never been motivated to succeed in life. She said that if “one person had told her to go to college, she probably would never have gone to jail.” I realized that sometimes all it takes it the words of one person to make a difference in someone’s life. I think that it is this fact that makes my experience here meaningful.

Nathan Shapiro

Day 1: Welcome to Miami

Posted by: Lauren Nevidomsky on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 10:55:51 pm

Monday, March 21, 2011:

The experiences I had today really opened up my eyes. The day before I left on this trip my mom and I dropped hundreds of dollars on shoes. Then, on the way to the airport, I complained to my parents how some people don’t even have $5 on them when we are at school. I never dealt with poverty before this. Today I met with senior citizens who might only be eating one meal a day, a meal that they aren’t even providing for themselves. It’s just a weird experience. I can’t wait to see what situations I will be thrust into next.

Day 1: Welcome to Miami

Posted by: Jacob Schwartz on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 10:50:22 pm

Monday, March 21, 2011:

Our 72 person group walked into a JCS meal for the elderly and began to mingle with the 60+ year olds who were there. Some of them were poor, this being their only meal of the day, but some were not; they were just there for the company. I walked up to a table with three men who were probably in their 70s or 80s. “Do you speak Hebrew?” one of them asked, in hebrew. “A little,” I answered, also in hebrew. He was of medium build with blonde hair and a mustache. He then proceeded to tell a bunch of risqué jokes involving Israeli soldiers and American girls, along with some serious advice about volunteering in Israel. He was funny and charismatic, making my experience at JCS fun and memorable. I got up to serve the food and by the time I was done, the man had left.

Jacob Schwartz

Our Boots Are On Fire!

We learn from the Torah numerous values and guidelines we should live our life by. We are taught especially in Pirkei Avot to acquire yourself a teacher, make for yourself a great friend and judge people favorably. The other day working at the Boys & Girl's club I was blessed to witness all three. Everyday we acquired ourselves a teacher, learning from the students we worked one on one with and from each person on our trip. I am grateful to have spent time with one specific scholar who told me that we were similar than I thought. When I asked him to explain further he pointed to my Israel bracelet and said, "I am Jewish, too. I've been to Israel." My face lit up as the child continued to finish his homework and I was impressed by the connection a young eight year old could make to a faith he perhaps did not practice continuously at home. Although I do not belong to a specific University on this trip, I've made for myself some wonderful friends. This trip brought people together from all over the country forcing people to leave their comfort zones. As the days progress our stereotypes and preconceived notions of the children and ourselves have started to diminish. So as we continue to help improve a small part of Miami, we learn that we cannot do it all. however, there is no better place to being to improve the world than with ourselves.

ASB Miami Thursday March 24, 2011 Kent+ Group :]

Today we continued working at the NW Boys and Girls Club. The Kent Plus group finally got to work outside under the beautiful Miami sun. Some of us painted cubbies and book shelves while others worked on their carpentry skills building benches. Today's work was a clear indicator of the tremendous strides our entire ASB Miami group has made working along side City Year for just three days. It truly staggers the mind when we came to the realization of how much people can accomplish in their charity efforts. Especially when their diligent organization and overwhelming sense of group dedication and motivation is as evident as it is in this group of volunteers.

Later in the day, we spent our last afternoon with the children at the Kline Unit of the Boys and Girls Club. It was a very bittersweet goodbye but many of the volunteers developed meaningful relationships with some of the children. We may even have the opportunity to continue communication through a Pen Pal system! Whether we helped/talked to a kid for 5 minutes or an hour, we truly believe we've made a difference in their lives and each of us has learned something from interacting with every child.

Group discussion for tonight was particularly touching for the people in our group because we talked about privilege and the ladder of charity. We took a survey that evaluated the level of privilege in our lives. We also discussed varying definitions of privilege and how accurate they were for specific contexts in addition to how they can be applied to our everyday lives after this trip. It was a good time for personal reflection about gratitude and realizing how people who are more privileged in life should always pay it forward.

Illini Take on Miami - Day 3 :)

When we were seven years old, we were taught to give Tzedakah, the Jewish value of giving charity. At the time, we may not have fully understood it, maybe even taken it for granted, but every Sunday we would show up at our various religious schools with our change.

As the years went on we learned more and more about ways we can help the world through "tikkun olam" and always connected it to our Jewish roots.

As we find ourselves in a community of fewer resources than many of us are used to, we feel pride in being surrounded by so many amazing people who grew up with the same Jewish values.

Today, as well as the last few days, have been filled with numerous moments, both touching and enlightening. In the mornings, we've been working at the Northwest Boys and Girls Club. We've talked about how it takes a community to raise a child and here we see first-hand a community coming together to makes things better for hundreds of children.

Our group continued a project that a different group had started yesterday. We traced inspirational quotes as well as motivational signs on about 20 canvases. the quotes included, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress" by Frederick Douglass and "Reach for the moon. Even if you miss you'll land amongst the stars."

These quotes will be something that children can look at everyday for years to come and hopefully, can encourage them to continue their love of learning and always keep a positive attitude when it comes to school.

Before dinner, we were fortunate enough to get the opportunity to listen to Rabbi Feldman, a Rabbi from Palm Springs, come to speak to us about how our week relates to Judaism. Among the amazing concepts he spoke to us about, one that stood out to us was the fact that word Hebrew translates to mean the word alternative (as in alternative spring break).

This connected us back to our Jewish values that we learned when we were little and really helped us connect the work we're doing and relive the lesson we've been learning all along -- Tzedakah!

Ashley Abramowicz and Rachel Segal

Hillel at Davis and Sacramento - Reflection from Tuesday, March 22

One of our favorite moments of the day was visiting the Holocaust memorials in Miami. After the physical part of our day was over, before we went out to enjoy our night, we went to see the memorial. It was really moving. Many of the members of the group have been to Holocaust memorials in other parts of the world, but the one in Miami was impacting in a different way. It was a visual representation of the 6 million Jews who perished in ghettos and camps during World War II. The visual representation of the people truly invoked strong emotions. It almost seemed as if the statues were going to move. They were extremely realistic. And to see so many names on the wall was just insane.
The rest of our trip so far has been about creating a positive environment and keeping a good energy and the visiting. So far, we have enjoyed everything, but our favorite part has been working with the children. Getting to actually meet the people in the community that we were working for was motivating and a lot of fun. Even in such a short time, a lot of the kids bonded with the Hillel students.