it takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seamingly secure, to embrace the new. but there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. there is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

Today we had an all section sports day tourney. I played 4 pick up games of soccer and then we went swimming at a pool nearby!! Then I had a 7 hour Rwanda workshop thing. I did a presentation/powerpoint on the psycological effects that happen before and during a genocide.I talked about classsification, dehumanization, blindly listening to authority(The Milgrim Shock experiment-if you don't know what I'm talking about look it up on youtube it's shocking) and conformity within a community (look up the elevator conformity experiment on youtube). Then we had a speaker that survived the genocide!!!!! He was a Hutu and his family hid Tutsis in their home during the genocide and saved them. He moved to Israel to get a good education and is studying at Tel Aviv University. We also broke into our committees(i'm on the tzedakah committee that needs to raise 5,000 dollars from the United States by writing letters to jewish organizations, family,friends, making a facebook cause page, selling Tshirts, etc.We also watched Hotel Rwanda which is a great movie and it was even more powerful because we watched it right after the speaker whos experience really transformed the image of the genocide from facts and politics to a personal ,closer to the heart tragedy. The thing that pissed me off the most about the movie was how little the Western World intervened.The only group that was there from the beginning were the UN Peacekeepers who were utterly useless because they couldn't fire on anyone or "take sides". But that is almost worse then not doing anything at all. "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." -Eli Wiesel. The entire genocide was discussed and talked about in the Western media but instead of acting quickly and getting involved, they argued over trivial things like, "Should this be considered a genocide? How many genocidal acts does it take to make a genocide? yadda yadda yadda... call it whatever the hell you want but there are thousands dying this very second so get your asses over there and stop it. People watch the news of terrible atrocities and say "oh my g-d thats so sad" but then they turn it off and go eat dinner and continue their normal lives. One of the reasons for this, I think, Is because Africa seams like such a far off place and most people feel no connection to it at all, but rather think of it as a problem happening on the other side of the world that doesn't effect them whatsoever. I think it's absolutely terrible and the most disgusting part of it all is that its happening ALL over again this very second in Darfur and Americans hardly give a shit about it and I'm in Israel swimming in the ocean and dads on his computer playing backgammon and my friends are learning happily at college at people are getting wiped out on the other side of the world. Why isn't Darfur the center, most important thing to us right now? I know that ultimately, its the government and the government only who can really make a difference and stop whats going on but people have seam to have lost interest in the subject and when there's no pressure on the government, they don't feel that it is imperative for them to intervene completely. Why are we still buying from china when they're supplying all the weapons that are killing masses of people1?!?!?!

Tomorrow I'm GOING TO TUVIA's for SHABBAT!!!! He lives all the way in Binyamina which is like 3 hours from Bat Yam but I'm going with my friend Chelsea from Atlanta because she went to Muss on a different time that I did. I can't wait to see him and pontah:)) Shabbat Shalom parents