Monday, March 24, 2014

Preparing for the NAS from an Israeli perspective and J-serve Cohort 17

This past workshop we got to hear from Israeli Defense Forces commander Lior Gross, participated in an eye-opening J-Serve event on illiteracy, and started to plan our Community Week for the Israel Summer Seminar. Lior Gross is the leader of the Paratroopers Brigade Reserves for the IDF and is the commander of the IDF Junior Command Preparatory School in Haifa. His discussion with us was about what it takes to be a great leader. He didn’t talk about the typical leadership skills, such as responsibility, commitment, and communication. Instead he talked about learning how to love yourself. He taught us that you need “love yourself 11 out of 10” to be the most effective leader you can be. Lior opened up to us, telling us about his life story and revealing that he didn’t truly love himself the most he could until recently. That is when he became the best leader, and the best person, that he could be.




Next, we were joined by Josh Neuman, who works for BBYO and helped lead the San Francisco J-Serve event. With the help of our JC’s Philip and Rachel, and Diller Alumnae Rachael and Michaela Katz, Josh directed a program about illiteracy in America. We built used book donation boxes for our different communities, played a fun jeopardy game about reading and literacy statistics, and came up with pitches for programs that would increase the literacy rate in America. These activities opened our eyes to the severity of the illiteracy problem in America and gave us a new perspective on the issue. 










We finished the workshop with an introduction to Community Week for our ISS. We brainstormed some themes for the week and came up with a mission that encompassed all four of the Diller pillars. This workshop was really interesting and touched on some topics most of us had never thought about before. Next up is the NAS and I can’t wait!


-Gabe

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Analyzing and preparing- North American Seminar here we come! Cohort 17

Sunday, March 9

This workshop was the first time after the retreat that we were able to catch up with the rest of the cohort. We began by reevaluating and analyzing the Self Management retreat. We reviewed the goals that we set for ourselves before the retreat, and Gabi and our JC’s led a discussion that helped us critique the retreat. We discussed the components that were successful, as well as areas that needed attention and improvement. This feedback will be helpful as we plan for future activities. This was an extremely productive and beneficial process because it helped us realize: 1- that not everything we do is going to be perfect the first time we do it and 2- the more we are able to focus on and acknowledge the parts of our leadership skills that can use some polishing, the more effective we will be as leaders.


Next, we went over the agenda for the NAS. Finally, reviewing an actual schedule coupled with Gabi’s comments about our Israeli partners (who are arriving in less than a month), put into perspective the reality of the upcoming visit. The discussion made us excited and a bit nervous about how much preparation there is left to do before we can welcome our Israeli cohorts into our homes. I believe I can say that all of us in California are very excited for the arrival of our partners and we are anxiously looking forward to our time with them. It is less than 3 weeks before 40 Jewish teenagers will have an experience of a lifetime. NAS here we come.

~Izzy Nickel cohort 17