In the village we speak a lot about tikkun olam, fixing the world, and tikkun halev, fixing yourself. To me, they are unavoidably intertwined. When I came to Rwanda to do something good for the world, I got something for myself too.

One particular incident in April reminds me of the lessons I learned at the village. I was very preoccupied with planning and executing the large mural before our big inauguration ceremony. I ran around all day, covered in paint, and probably looking very busy. One afternoon a boy came over to me and asked if we could speak in private. We went for a walk and he said to me, “Tanya, is everything okay? You don’t seem as happy as usual, you seem very worried.”

Wow. I thought. I have been worried- but about all the wrong things!

That boy and I went on walks together and had meaningful conversations every Saturday until I left.

I am lucky to have had the opportunity to work with exceptional people, and to create many fantastic art projects and build up the art program in the village. As my time at the village drew to a close, my students asked me, how will we do art without you?

But the art is not in me, and it’s not in the other staff who will continue teaching.

The art is in each one of them.

Keep dreaming and creating and sharing the ideas only you have with the whole world.

Now, as I head back to St. Louis and then New York, where I will continue to paint the stories of those I met in Rwanda, and find new ways to spread color to new parts of the world, Rwanda and Agahozo Shalom will forever be a part of me. And as the painted walls will attest, I will always be a part of them as well.

Thank you for joining me on this amazing, art-filled journey!

Stay tuned to see my Rwanda-inspired artwork and hear the stories of Agahozo Shalom at a presentation coming soon.

Painting a Massive Mural

The story of creating the mural is the story of the first seven months of the village. It all began when the kids arrived at Agahozo for the first time. I asked them each to draw a picture of their personal goals, feelings about the village, and ideas about Rwanda. They were a bit timid in those first weeks, not yet a cohesive group, but they found a way to state their nervous excitement in those initial drawings.

Over the next several months we sketched, brainstormed, and came up with a final design for the mural. We developed the biggest paint-by-number system in the world, and began by drawing the outline with the help of a projector at night.

Everyone participated in painting, kids and staff alike. I directed from below, mixing colors and sending paint up the scaffolding with a make-shift pulley. Spots of color started to appear, slowly at first. A blue sky, a purple tree, a pineapple, a person. I spent months covered head to toe in paint- no joke! As the mural came together, so did the village, for what had been a construction site was now feeling more and more like a home and a family.

After every painting session, the kids stood back and marveled at what they had accomplished that day. “When I come back to visit this village with my children one day,” said one kid, “I’ll show them the clouds that I painted!”

Part of the village inauguration on June 23 was held in front of the mural, the perfect backdrop to the kids’ dancing and singing. “Who helped paint this wall?” I asked the crowd gathered at the ceremony. Almost every staff and child of the village raised a hand. It is a big and beautiful expression of the hopes of the village, a testament to what a dedicated group of people, and whole lot of paint can do, and a work of art that will be admired by visitors to the village for years to come.

thoughts waiting on a crowded minibus

kigali
loud
dusty
rain clouds rolling in push me here miss buy a banana I have no hand you have two.
little kids waving hi! Muzungo! White! Black women learning to sew learning to live. Do you know your body is your own - what they are willing to sell for money for the kids glued to their backs bending over sewing machine peddling one stitch after another sweat dripping-
sweet creamy coffee sipping in a café too clean for these streets. Man on an apple computer white woman speaking too slowly. I can understand you I speak English too. White skin shining like a beacon, my white skin, a ticket to a little more room in this crowded minibus, this motorcycle zipping through crowded streets holding tight closing eyes past busy traffic because there’s nothing I can do anyway, and I DO and I CARE because I CAME but how much do my deeds and my words mean in this place with a past so ugly it seeps into every piece of present and future and finally someone else squeezes next to me in the van
maybe not so white after all.

Painting a Lifetime

I got lost in the deep shadows under the squinty eyes creased by laughter. Felt myself trace the long black braids cutting through the swirls of colorful fabric. I’m painting a lifetime, I thought, as I dipped my brush into black ink and moved towards the page.

For me, being an artist is about the space between myself and my subject, in this case fifty-two year old “Maman” Annette*, as we sit across the table from each other, staring, for two hours. As I spread a thin coat of ink across the page to form the smooth skin around her neck, she peers down to see her portrait. Sometimes she smiles, sometimes she breaks into a huge grin and laughs out load, shaking her head. Sometimes her eyes flutter closed, tired perhaps from a late night of caring for the sixteen young orphan teenagers who make up her “new” family. Especially tired because she has been sitting besides the bed of one who is sick. Sometimes she stares off into the distance.

Occasionally we speak. In bits of English, French, and Kinyarwanda, she shows me pictures of her family. She makes a telephone call to her daughter, Nelly*, only a year younger than me, to tell her she is having her portrait drawn. There is one photograph, an old black-and-white one with the year 1978 written on the back, that she cradles tenderly. I learn that it is a picture of her and her older sister who is holding a little baby. She points to the baby and in a mixture of languages tells me it is her son. She writes on a paper four other names. My children. Then she proceeds to tell me where they are. Nelly is in Kigali, going to Kenya soon to study management. The others are dead. The sister, also dead. genocide. I point upwards. Yes, she nods, they are there.

She looks at the finished painting afterward and nods, a smile spreading wide.

Together, we have created more than a picture of a face. In ink and color and line and shape, a reflection of a lifetime.

for LP

“The art of keeping the seventh day is the art of painting on the canvas of time the mysterious grandeur of the climax of creation: as He sanctified the seventh day, so shall we.”

-A.J. Heschel

Every Shabbat in Rwanda, I take a walk. As I follow the red dirt path away from the village and past fields of banana trees, all the worries of the week melt away. Colorful birds dart between the flowers, showing off their bright feathers. A tall blue heron steps out from behind a bush, then spread its wings and swoops into the sky. Clouds above drift quickly, playfully, choreographing a masterpiece for those who will stop to look up. Often I walk together with one of the kids, and when I point out to them the motion in the dancing skies, I find my amazement is contagious.

On my weekly walk I stop at the highest point in Agahozo Shalom, the school, and watch the village from a distance. Rows of orange, yellow, and green houses glisten in the sun and beam down at Lake Mugesera, a shimmering mirror in the distance. It is here that I am able to both physically and mentally extricate myself from the hustle and bustle of village life. From teaching my students to mix colors, from planning for the upcoming culture show, from questioning my impact as a foreigner in a developing country, from worrying about a particular kid. The village seems small out here under the big blue sky, and though I know the importance of our work in the village far outweighs its size, I am grateful for the perspective this hilltop brings.

Agahozo Shalom is a non-denominational youth village, and children from all religious backgrounds are respected and accommodated. Often they share their religions with one another through music, song, and dance. As a Jew in Rwanda I am certainly in the minority, but I have found everyone in the village to be very accepting, at times curious, and always respectful.

Observing the Sabbath, and its welcome change of pace, is only one way that Judaism affects my experience at Agahozo. Who would have thought that in this small town in rural East Africa there would be challah baked fresh every week (and even in a shape of an idea from the weekly Torah portion!), candle lighting every night of Chanuka, and a Purim party complete with megilla and hamentaschen?! It is common to hear kids on the Agahozo farm calling in Hebrew to Tzuf, the dog belonging to two Israeli volunteers, with shouts of “Boi hena!” (come here) and “kalba tova!” (good dog). Their Hebrew seems to be progressing faster than my Kinyrwanda (almost, I happen to have pretty good Kinyarwanda and can even ask the four questions of the Passover Seder.)

Because I speak Hebrew and came to Rwanda after working in Israel, many Rwandans assume I am Israeli. When I explain that though I am American, I have a strong connection to Israel and hope to live there, my Rwandese friends nod in understanding. Many Rwandans, and much of the staff at the village, lived for large parts of their lives exiled from their homeland. Banned from Rwanda by the Hutu government, Rwandans of the Tutsi ethnicity lived for over thirty years in Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and throughout Africa and the world. Nevertheless, they spoke, dreamed, sang, and danced of Rwanda, never forgetting their homeland. In 1994, after the horrific genocide, many of them returned. One of the counselors who grew up in Uganda described to me the scene when he moved to Rwanda in 1994. “Bodies on the sides of the road, in the grass, floating in the lakes,” he recalled, oddly casual, “the ground was stained red.” Yet they came back and are fiercely proud of their culture. The longing for a homeland that they recall is one that the Jewish people have felt, sung, prayed, and written about for thousands of years.

As Passover, the holiday celebrating the Jews’ redemption from Egyptian slavery, quickly approaches, I am reminded of a message particularly relevant to my work in Rwanda. Throughout the Torah we find constant reminders to be kind to the stranger, to the widow and the orphan, and the reason given? The Jewish people were slaves in Egypt. It is the common experience of suffering that creates a moral imperative to sympathize with and act on the behalf of others. I have never seen this more clearly than in Rwanda. Most of the Rwandese staff have suffered some type of loss, often a husband, children, or parents, and it drives them to give all they can to the children of the village. The Jewish people too, have the collective memory of the Holocaust still very fresh. The correlation between Israel recuperating in the wake of the Holocaust, and Rwanda struggling to rebuild itself now, was one of the initial reasons for the creation of Agahozo Shalom. I was reminded of this connection recently, when during a discussion about the closed nature of many Rwandans, an Israeli volunteer descended from survivors recounted his grandmother’s reluctance to share her emotions after the war. The Rwandans often seem to connect to the legacy of the Jews, because genocide is a memory they can share.

Atrocities have happened, and continue to happen to all people and all over the world. This Passover, I am reminded that if suffering does happen, we can at least use the experience to reach out to others, lift their spirits, their hearts, and their heads just enough to smile at the clouds drifting by.

Wishing you a chag sameach, a very happy Passover!

A Breakfast Story, and a day in the life of Agahozo Shalom

Breakfast in the village is served at 7 am each morning. According to the schedule, that is. To have any hope of receiving your fresh bread rolls - baked in the wood burning oven - and your mug of steamy African tea with milk (no refrigerator in the village, but milk is delivered fresh each morning from nearby cows owned by one of our staff), you had better arrive early. On Monday, January 12, the first day of school, kids were so excited they couldn’t sleep and arrived at breakfast at 6:30am so as to be up the hill and ready for school half an hour before classes began. To my surprise, the early breakfast pattern hasn’t wavered, and neither has the kids’ excitement for school. And their passion for learning continues long after the doors to school close and the stream of kids flows downhill towards the village.

The village is a separate entity from the school, a part of the Yemin Orde (Israeli youth village that ASYV is modeled after) philosophy of creating distinct home and school environments. While the kids are busy learning biology, chemistry, physics, math, English, French, Kinyarwanda, history, and more, the informal education staff (myself included) are busy preparing and managing life in the village.

Moments after school ends the village transforms into a bustle of energy and action! First begin the after-school activities, and kids fill the volleyball court and football field. The Art and Music Center, where I teach art classes, can be heard from across the village, with sounds of drums from “itorero” class, guitar lessons, and songwriting. Sewing, basketball, traditional arts, modern dance, drawing, cooking, karate, athletics, and music theory are only some of the many electives kids can choose to participate in twice a week.

At five o’clock the doors to the Learning Center swing open and soon it is filled with kids eager to learn computers, read books in the library, and get help with their homework. It is common to find kids pouring over atlases and chemistry text books, not for school but just to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. I host open studio time in the Art Center three evenings a week, and kids are free to try their hand at papermaking, drawing, and jewelry making, or at keyboard, guitar, and recording in the music studio across the hall.

The busy daily schedule calls for wake up at 6 and bedtime at 10, though at least a few of these teenagers push themselves even harder. Take Angie* for example. Angie is eighteen years old and, like all the other Agahozo kids, is beginning a catch-up year before Senior 4, the equivalent to beginning American high school. She knows her cousin of the same age is preparing for university, but she hasn’t been quite as lucky. As an orphan, Angie has faced many difficulties that children with parents who can provide for them have not known. Orphans in Rwanda often face teasing from other children and are discouraged from attending school, and often much worse. They live with the memories of their families being killed, and the hardships of the years since. Many don’t make it to secondary school at all, but those who do have a fierce determination. As acceptance to Agahozo Shalom is measured by a combination of vulnerability and completing a certain level of schooling, the kids here are a self selecting group of incredibly motivated individuals.

“I know I have a great opportunity now,” Angie told me, “and I am going to get everything I can out of it.” For Angie that means waking up at 5am and going to sleep at 11pm, while using every moment in between to learn as much as she can.

And for me, it means getting out of bed if I want to catch the early breakfast!

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Art Update 2

The Art and Music Center, now in a temporary location until the permanent building is built, is a hub of color and sound. I teach two weekly art classes, and our first project was sketchbook making. The young artists personalized book covers with colorful materials and sewed pages to make unique books that they can use to hold the many drawings they will compose throughout the year. The kids pursued the project with diligence and precision, making sure to cut every piece of cardboard to exactly the right size and make every line straight. But not without a little rap music to keep us going, and the occasional hip hop dance move!

I hold open studio time in the Art Center from 5 to 9, three evenings a week. During this time kids are free to come and use whatever materials they like. We have made our first sheets of handmade paper using paper recycled at the village, a hand mixer, and a makeshift sieve. Self portraits are another common Art Center activity, and the kids love to use mirrors to draw themselves as realistically as possible.

In the Art Center I work together with the house mothers, parental figures who live with the children, and they bring expertise in traditional Rwandan crafts such as basket making and decorative beading. They are wonderful women, and I am excited not only to work with them and learn from them, but hopefully to paint their portraits as well.

A Water Story

From First weeks at Agahozo Shalom Have you ever noticed how much water it takes to flush a toilet? How about to wash the dishes? It wasn’t until I had to carry all of the water I wanted to use for the day in a bucket on my head that I realized just how precious water is. “Amazi,” Kinyarwanda for water, might be the most important word at Agahozo Shalom. Though running water is in the plans for the very near future, it has been a scarce luxury thus far. In case you should find yourself in a similar situation (perhaps water frequently stops running in University City, Manhattan, or Waltham) you may find the following very helpful, so feel free to take notes. One must join the line of kids at the water tower in the center of the village and attempt to make conversation using all of the Kinyarwanda you know, which limits my conversation to “good afternoon,” “do you want to dance,” and “I like cows,” (cows are a very important part of Rwandan culture and are featured in most songs, dances, poems, and friendly greetings). Then fill up a bucket and somehow manage to get it back to your house (I prefer to carry it on my head though I am always subject to much pointing and laughing- look at the “muzungo” (white person) carrying her bucket with water helplessly sloshing over the sides…). Now you can boil some for drinking (though we also bring drinking water from a nearby spring), you can shower with it by standing in the bucket and pouring it over your head with a cup (donated by Urban Outfitters!), and you can wash your clothes by scrubbing furiously with a bar of soap only to find that you have somehow created more stains than you have taken out. Be sure to save the leftover soapy water and pour it into the back of your toilet so that it can flush. Now will you think twice before leaving the faucet running while brushing your teeth tonight? Though water from the tap is scarce, water from the sky has been very plentiful. Most days start out enveloped in thick clouds of fog but are clear and sunny by the time activities begin at 8am. Nonetheless it is quite common for dark clouds to roll in unexpectedly and pour out rain furiously for a short 10 minutes during which no one dares step outside. The rain echoes loudly on the roofs and turns the red earth into soupy clay rivers. Moments after the rain the sun is back and the distant hills are clearer than ever before with green patchwork fields and glistening tin roofs visible for miles. The lack of running water might be surprising to you or me, but only 10 out of the 125 kids had running water back home, and even fewer had electricity. At Agahozo Shalom, they receive three plentiful meals a day (almost always rice and beans with the occasional pineapple treat), all the school supplies they need, and new clothes, not to mention the soon to open educational and extracurricular facilities. And they don’t take this opportunity for granted. The kids here are truly exceptional and have already blown me away with their musical and artistic talents and their thirst for knowledge. They know they have been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance at Agahozo, and they have big dreams for themselves. At a fantastic four hour New Years celebration organized by the kids, many shed tears of happiness as the clock struck twelve and a new year of promise dawned. From First weeks at Agahozo Shalom “Sometimes it was so hard, I never thought I would reach the year 2009,” one girl told me. “And now I am here, at this village. I feel like I can do anything. It is like a miracle.” I think we’ll live without the running water. :-)

Art Update 1

From First weeks at Agahozo Shalom

The past three weeks at Agahozo Shalom have been jam-packed with games, sports, art, and music- summer camp style. I have prepared daily art activities which I share with the eight counselors (one for each house of sixteen kids) at a daily meeting. The counselors lead the kids in these activities while I hop from house to house, admiring the kids’ creativity and giving pointers on using materials and developing ideas (an important part of ASYV philosophy is building capacity in the Rwandan counselors to lead and run the programs).

On “Environment Day”, the kids created earth sculptures out of natural materials such as soil, sand, rocks, and grass. One group made a gorilla, one of the most prized Rwandan animals, and another made a traditional Rwandan shield to show that in their new home they are always protected. They made collages about themselves, imaginary creatures out of beads, wire, and cupcake holders (donated by Martha Stewart!), newspapers about the village, and friendship mobiles to hang in their homes. They also began to sketch ideas for a large wall mural that they will paint this month.

This week marks the beginning of school and with it the opening of the Art and Music Center. In addition to teaching two weekly art classes after school, I will host open studio time in the art center three evenings a week for kids to draw, paint, sculpt, and create. Let the art making begin!

Welcome to Rwanda!

From First weeks at Agahozo Shalom

Muraho! Hello from Agahozo Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) in Rwanda! On Tuesday afternoon I arrived safely in Rwanda from St. Louis via New York, London, and Nairobi.

About an hour out of Kigali, Rwanda's capital city, we turned off the main road and on to a bumpy dirt one that wound through the hills. Jean Bosco, ASYV's driver, drove Andrew, Benna, Sarah, and me (together the Americans of the village) past homes hidden behind leafy green trees and children playing. Our new home, Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, is more beautiful than I could have imagined. In the center of the village is a large dining hall, soon to be joined by the chapel and library (next in the construction plans). On the hill below are the homes- orange, green, and yellow buildings that will soon house the first class of 125 students. At the highest point of the village, symbolizing that one can always reach higher in learning, is the school. From every point there is a breathtaking view- hill after hill rolling into the horizon, with a shining lake in the center. Just like at Yemin Orde in Israel, at ASYV one can always see far, so that one can go far.

Counselors, house mothers, cooks, security guards, construction workers, landscapers, Israeli and American volunteers (there are seven of us), and many other staff are busy getting the village ready for the arrival of 125 children on Monday. My head is already overflowing with ideas for art projects to do with the kids, and I can't wait to get started. But even with the busy days, we have made time to enjoy freshly cooked meals of cassava, rice, beans, and vegetables. Our kitchen is made of a large store room of vegetables and a few outdoor fire pits, but the food is great. And these chefs certainly know the most about kosher cooking in this part of the world! They have made is quite easy for me to feel very comfortable here and are interested in learning more about why I practice religion the way I do, as many of them are very religious themselves.

Throughout the week, we have been busy with inspirational training sessions by Anne Heyman, founder of ASYV, and other staff leaders. I led one session on leadership, and in a discussion about role models I was shocked to hear personal accounts of the genocide that almost all of the counselors and house mothers experienced. Most notable and difficult to understand is the desire to forgive. It is something that I hope to continue to explore.

And of course, I cannot forget the Rwandan dancing. Dancing has always been my favorite way to integrate into a new culture and this is no exception. Last night I joined the Rwandan counselors in their traditional dancing- strong, graceful arm movements and steady rhythmic steps. The shining smiles on everyone's faces as we danced together to clapping, singing, and cheering, showed that we are a team, and together we are a part of something amazing. Every person here, whether Rwandan, Israeli, or American, has the sincere desire to create a place that will give Rwandan children hope, skills, strength, and a promising future. And in just a few days… it begins!

Buckets of paint, pieces of tile, pencils, glue, and brushes poured into Yemin Orde youth village over the past few months. For three months I have worked with Yemin Orde youth to transform the beautiful green campus into a canvas of color. My first project was a lively mosaic made of pieces of broken tile and mirror. A group of ten children from Ethiopia, Brazil, and China worked with me to develop the design for the mosaic which would represent some of the central values of Yemin Orde. Once the sketch was completed, all of the youth of the village voted on the location of the mosaic- near the dining hall. Next the work began! Children worked with me during their breaks from school to break tiles, glue them to the wall, and fill in the grout. The result was a beautiful work of art that represents the themes of Torah, unity, Israel, and working together. My next project was a large, colorful mural on one of the central walls of the village. I worked with a group of thirty twelfth grade boys from over five different countries to design, draw, and paint the mural. The experience brought the diverse group together and gave them tremendous pride, for their creation will remain a permanent part of the Yemin Orde landscape, and will continue to express the message of unity and cooperation for years to come! In just a few weeks I will bring her creativity to Yemin Orde Initiative’s newest project, the soon-to-open Agahozo Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda! I will volunteer there for eight months, painting, teaching, and spreading all that she has learned at Yemin Orde. I will miss Yemin Orde, but I am glad to be spreading the message of Tikkun Olam, mending the world, in Rwanda, and making it more colorful along the way!

As the sun melted into the Mediterranean on Friday evening, the promise of something extraordinary floated in the air. Every Shabbat at Yemin Orde youth village is unique, but this weekend the village had the opportunity to host twelve Rwandan teachers who will soon open the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda. After an intense day of training by the Yemin Orde Intiatives Educational Institute, the eleven teachers, along with two Ethiopian Yemin Orde graduates who will join them in Rwanda, prepared for their first ever Shabbat experience. They gathered at a lookout over the Mediterranean, and were joined by fifteen children of Yemin Orde who came from Ethiopia, Sudan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Two of the children were refugees from Darfur who had fled to Israel and studied at Yemin Orde. As the children and teachers talked and sang, smiled began to spread around the circle and the beginning of a bond was formed. The children understood that these Rwandan teachers were going to build something great and that they were a part of it, and the teachers understood that these children were examples of the success they hoped to achieve in their own country.

Perhaps coincidently, the words painted on the floor in the center of this multicultural circle read, “Ain Menatzchim B”Alimut,” “We cannot win with violence,” a central value of Yemin Orde and a message that the Rwandan teachers, each themselves survivors of the 1994 genocide, already embodied.

After singing and dancing in the synagogue, the teachers joined their new Yemin Orde friends for Shabbat dinner in the dining hall. During dinner, Wilton Ndayisenga, principle of the Agahozo Shalom school, addressed all three hundred children. “We are here to share our experiences with you,” he said in a booming voice, “we want to learn from you and learn with you. Together we are going to change the world.”

Later that evening, the children and teachers gathered for an activity. Language was not necessary for this cultural exchange, as each group of children taught a dance from their country. The Rwandan teachers stole the show as they led the children in clapping, singing, stomping, and twirling according to Rwandan tradition. “This is the dance one does before giving the woman you love a cow,” they explained. The kids couldn’t get enough and danced all the way back to their houses that night.

On Shabbat morning Ofer Yerushalmi, director of Yemin Orde, and the children led the Rwandan teachers on a dynamic tour of the village. In Yemin Orde, every building, tree, wall, and stone is an opportunity to teach a message of leadership, cultural pride, or tikkun olam. The teachers were especially impressed by the “godjo,” the traditional Ethiopian hut which reminded them of homes in Rwanda.

Shimon Solomon, Yemin Orde graduate who will be working at Agahozo Shalom for two years, addressed the children of the village during lunch and told of the impact Yemin Orde has had on his life. “Through the army, my first and second degrees, my work in the Ministry of Education, and my current job as director of an absorption center, Yemin Orde and Dr. Chiam Peri are my role models. And now I am going to take what I have learned here to orphans in Rwanda.” The children beamed. The village they called home was making a difference in the world. They were making a difference in the world.

As the weekend came to a close, Yemin Orde had the privilege of hosting Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and his wife Marion to celebrate the opening of a new children’s home. In a historical encounter, Mr. Wiesel, himself a child survivor of the Jewish genocide, imparted the wisdom of his experience to the Rwandan team.

The Rwandan teachers boarded the bus back to Jerusalem amid myriad hugs from the children and handshakes with Dr. Chiam Peri. “I learned from you not to only care about myself,” said Avraham, an Ethiopian student in the ninth grade who had spent the weekend with the Rwandan team. “Your actions speak louder than your words,” replied Deo, who will teach computer science at Agahozo Shalom, “What we have experienced here is the beginning of something great, it has struck a match.”

The flame will not only light up Agahozo Shalom, but it has made Yemin Orde brighter as well.

A surprising visit to Rambam hospital...

Chag sameach (happy holidays) to you from sunny Haifa!
I write to you from an outdoor café where friends leisurely sip their coffee and wish each other a shana tova (good new year).

As the holidays approached at Yemin Orde, the village celebrated with more than just apples and honey. Classes were disrupted during the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah and instead the kids participated in Tikkun Olam (mending the world) projects. What does Tikkun Olam have to do with celebrating holidays and with life at Yemin Orde? It wasn’t until I joined the ninth grade on their visit to Rambam Hospital in Haifa that I understood.

I boarded a school bus together with over sixty ninth graders and managed to find a seat next to a girl with a very sweet smile who didn’t appear to speak much Hebrew or English. Over the sixty different hip hop songs blasting from every ninth grader’s cell phone (earphones are apparently not too popular) I managed to understand that the girl sitting next to me had arrived in Israel only two weeks ago from Poland and was studying in an ulpan (intensive Hebrew course) in the village. How brave she was to start a new life for herself in a country where she did not even know the language! Across the aisle from me sat an Ethiopian boy who asked me questions about life in America. “Are there other Jews in America?” he asked. “Do you like living in Israel?” I replied that for me Israel was the best and asked him about life in Ethiopia. He told me that Israel was better because in Israel he could learn many things. “What did you learn in Ethiopia?” I asked. “I didn’t go to school,” he replied, “I was a shepherd until I came to Israel three years ago.”
As the ninth graders filed out of the bus, I felt an overwhelming sense of admiration for the children who had each taken amazing journeys to be here.

But I hesitated as they headed toward the entrance of Rambam Hospital. Like most high schoolers they were loud, joking, yelling, and blasting their music. No one seemed particularly excited to visit sick patients and some kids loudly complained about coming in the first place. But as they turned the corner into the hospital wing and came face to face with patients in wheel chairs and hospital beds, everything changed.

They took on the role of caregiver and with gentleness and pride wished a shana tova to the patients and their families. They handed out apples dipped in honey and Rosh Hashanah cards to the nurses and doctors. Smiles lit their faces and their confidence grew with every room they visited.

As the group was about to leave a man stopped them and said that an Ethiopian woman who had recently arrived in Israel and spoke only Amharic had recently been admitted to the hospital and had no visitors. The kids ran to her room and crowded around her bed, joking with her in Amharic and bringing beautiful smiles to both her face and theirs.

When the ninth graders returned to the village that evening they were not the same group that had left a few hours before. They walked a little straighter and smiled a little wider. The boy who had grown up as a shepherd, the girl who had just arrived from Poland, the kids who were struggling in their English classes, and those who were just starting to adjust to their new lives at Yemin Orde were suddenly not the ones asking for help. They were the ones bringing strength and happiness to others, and in turn they brought it to themselves. Yemin Orde functions with the belief that Tikkun Olam (mending the world) and Tikkun HaLev (mending the heart) are inextricably intertwined. It is this same belief that fuels Yemin Orde’s involvement in building the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda. By bringing their successful philosophy to Rwandan orphans, Yemin Orde graduates improve the world and improve themselves. In the ninth grade visit to Rambam Hospital, I came to understand this idea first hand.

In this new year and time of introspection, may we all have the ability to change our world for the better, and in turn to bring strength and happiness to ourselves.

Shalom from Yemin Orde!

Shalom from Yemin Orde youth village!


I am beginning my third week in this beautiful community in the Carmel Mountains, made up of over 500 teenagers from Ethiopia, Brazil, Russia, China, Georgia, Ukraine, and more.


The kids range in ages from seven to nineteen and both live and attend school in the village. Diversity is the norm here, where at any given moment one can hear not only Hebrew but Portugese, Amharit, Russian, and even Chinese being spoken in the dining hall and streets of the village.

The village is also home to about thirty staff families and their children, as well as alumni of the village who still call it home and are always welcome to return.


I am the only American living in the village and as such am responsible for translating numerous English rap songs and reporting on the latest MTV news, since of course I personally know all of the famous hip hop artists in the US! (Of course I did not forget to mention that being a St. Louisian I grew up near Nelly)

But when I'm not explaining where St. Louis is on the map, I am very busy teaching art classes and tutoring in English. I am leading a group of kids from different countries in planning a mosaic mural for a wall of the village and have begun painting portraits of the students here. I host a nightly "English Table" in the dining hall at which anyone who wants to join speaks only English, and we discuss things such as the shnitzel we are eating tonight. It is always a lot of fun!! I am constantly trying to think of new ways to use art to bring a group of kids to work together, beautify the campus, and allow them to express themselves in new ways.


One of the most beautiful things about life here is the respect given to each child's past. In the center of the village is a traditional Ethiopian hut or "gojo." It reminds the many Ethiopian students to be proud of where they came from and not to forget the difficult journey that many took to get here.


I am learning so much about life in the village that will be useful to me at Agahozo Shalom in Rwanda. The entire Yemin Orde family is very proud to be spreading their educational philosophy around Israel and into the heart of Africa, and it is very exciting for me to be a part of that process.



There are challenges of course, such as giving complex Hebrew instructions on how to make a book to kids whose first language is Amharit and battling giant cockroaches, but overall it is a wonderful and inspiring place to be.

Shana tova- a wonderful new year to all!

Epic battles and muddy mosaics

Welcome to "Emek HaElah", a valley just outside of Jerusalem, surrounded by hills of beige clay and dotted with green Terebinth trees, from which the valley gets its name. In the time of King Saul, this was the place of the epic battle between young David and the Philistine giant, Goliath.

Today, nestled in this valley, is Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed Hey and the Eco-Arts Village, a community of artists who are inspired by the landscape around them and dance, paint, write, and sculpt their love of the land and its history.

But how does one transform the landscape and its rich history into
a piece of art?

This week I worked with the Eco-Arts Village to lead workshops for 100 teenagers from across the US and Israel to do exactly that. We created colorful mosaics with pieces of pottery and glass that evoked the rise and fall of the land around us, and made the land an integral part of the artwork by sealing the mosaics with a mixture made of all natural materials found in the earth.

We choreographed a dance that represented the battle between David and Goliath, and performed it to poetry that expressed how we can interpret the ancient battle in our lives.

Returning to my rooftop apartment at Moshav Aviezer after a day of building with mud at the kibbutz, driving through the Judean hills past Arab children riding donkeys, passing through security checkpoints, and shopping in stores urging customers to dress in accordance with Jewish dress customs, I pour out my response to this tiny, vivacious country in colors, crayons, and brushstrokes. My grandmother, a collector of Israeli art, used to say that the sun shines brighter in Israel than anywhere else in the world, and that its light attracts artists from all corners of the earth. To me it is not only the light in Israel, but the intensity of everyday life, the diversity of the population, and the remarkable landscape that inspire creativity.

This week I began to study a new form of art, one that combines artistic skill with a detailed knowledge of Jewish law. Sofrut, the ancient tradition of scribing holy texts, requires one to carefully study the laws of shaping each letter, and is done with a feather quill and special ink on parchment made of animal hide. I have only just begun with the Hebrew letter "bet", but I am excited to learn this special tradition and combine my art inspired by the land of Israel with the language of Torah.

Click the second slideshow to the right to view more pictures including my cousin Asher's wedding and the Ella Valley vineyard right in my backyard!

Don't forget to visit www.TanyaFredman.com and write me at Tanya@TanyaFredman.com

Lehitraot, and all the best!

Tanya