Shlomit's+I-Face+Project

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Asher Bloemendal

Rationale The I-faces project idea is to represent the face of Israel, which people are in Israel, how did they come to Israel and how did they live in Israel.

I have to admit that it was really hard for me to choose who I will do my work on. Our restriction was to do the work only on someone who is alive and we can interview him personally but most of the people that represent Israel are dead or that you can't interview them so at the end decide to do the work on my father because that he is alive and it's easy to interview him and of course because that he lives in Israel and represent it in some way.

My father represents Israel at first from the simple reason that he lives in Israel and he is an Israeli. To be added to he made aliya from the Netherlands and a lot of people in Israel are people who made aliya. The third and the fourth reasons are that he learned in a yeshiva and he was in the army, and the last thing is that he likes hummus and falafel.

=** __Profile__  **= Asher Bloemendal like 68% of the people in Israel (According to statistical data of "Nadlanpus"), made "aliya". Asher made "aliya" from the Netherlands- there he lived among non-Jews, but as he said "The Netherlands, which is also called Holland, is a relatively tolerant country, which means that as a Jew you can walk around with a minimum of racist comments from non-Jewish people" so it didn't disturb him.

Asher grew up with Zionistic parents who gave him a Zionistic education and he went to "Bnei Akiva" where he was a member, counselor and secretary. Those reasons caused him to learn in a yeshiva in Israel, to volunteer in Kibbutz "Sa'ad", to do the "Gadna" and later to make "aliya" But, let's not put the cart before the horse.

**Asher as a counselor Asher as a secretary** In the summer of 1980 between the eleventh and tenth grade, Asher came to Israel to volunteer in kibbutz "Sa'ad", and when he was 18 years old in the summer of 1981, he came to Israel to learn in the B.M.T yeshiva. The yeshiva gave him two main values: The first one: to increase his knowledge of Judaism, not only by studying the Talmud but also the Bible, Jewish philosophy, Jewish law, Jewish morals etc. The second: to get a feeling of what the land of Israel stands for. The yeshiva achieved this by organizing two big trips, one to the north and one to the south of Israel, by organizing for 6 weeks in a row every Friday a trip around Jerusalem with a Bible in your hand and by making the students do social work like "ach boger". For those who don’t know, "ach boger" is a program of young students who once or twice a week visit children from elementary and high school in their houses. There, the student helps the child with his homework and play with him as if he was an older brother.

In the summer after Asher learned in the yeshiva, he went to the "Gadna", a course before the army, in order to get acquainted with the army. It was just after the first Lebanon war and the course was almost cancelled, but at the last minute the IDF was close to Beirut and the organizers of the course thought it was safe enough, so the course took place.

On 21 July, 1983, Asher made "aliya" but it was not exactly like he thought it would be. When the interviewer asked him about the acclimation in Israel and about the experience of the aliya he answered: "It wasn't bad, but to tell you the truth I did not find the "Israeli's as helpful as I was told they were."

One of the funniest stories of Asher in Israel is about a policeman; A few weeks after he came on aliya he rode his bicycle from the campus in Givat Ram Jerusalem to Mount Scopus. When he had almost arrived he was stopped by a policeman. The policeman said in Hebrew:" You don't have a light on your bicycle!" so Asher answered: "Me, oleh chadash, you speak English?" Apparently the policeman did not so well because he stuttered: "light". Asher looked at the streetlights and said: "beautiful lights!" the policeman answered: "no, your bike light!" and Asher said: "yes I brought it from Holland, my bike is very light." The policeman tried once more: "no light on your bike!" Asher looked again at the streetlights and said: "Yes the light on my bike, Jerusalem is beautiful." By that time the policeman was sweating all the way and told me you walk now go, go!"

In 1985 Asher went back to Holland to get married, and then returned to Israel. In 1988 he was recruited to the army. His wife was left at home with a three weeks old baby and a two years old child. When the interviewer asked him why he had decided to go to the army he explained: "as a religious Jew I think you should live in Israel, and since there is a saying "Ein somchin al hanes", do not trust in miracles, there is unfortunately no other way than joining the army to defend our country. Another Jewish principle is that there are three mitzvoth that you have to give your life for. One of the three is that you have to let yourself get killed if somebody tells you: "kill this person or I will kill you". I think that if you are not allowed to kill a person to save your own life, there is no reason, to let somebody else serve in the army with a chance of getting killed, while you are saving your own life." Between 1983 and 1985 Asher learned to be a computer engineer in "Ort" which is in Jerusalem, and a year after that he started teaching in the high school of "Ort" but he didn't stay there long. He had a class of 40 students and he saw that it would be impossible to teach them all together because there were huge level differences between the students, so he decided to send the best students out of the class to the library to do a project and they really loved it, but after a few weeks the principal of the school came to him and asked him why there were students of his class out of the classroom. Asher explained, but the principal said that they are supposed to be in class and he didn't accept the explanations. At that point Asher decided that school isn't a good place for him and at the end of the year he left.

Asher worked in a lot of places and today he is working in A.C.T.L. as a computer technician. Today Asher lives in Jerusalem which is his favorite city because it has a holy atmosphere, and it has the characteristics of a city on one hand and of a town on the other hand. It is the place he feels he belongs to.

His message to the people of Israel is that "people should take much more care of each other, should be more aware of, and be happy with what they have."

Asher as a cantor in a canopy

http://www.piyut.org.il/tradition/810.html?currPerformance=1053
 * A link to a site where Asher sings with his father as a small boy:**

**A link to a site where Asher sings ** http://www.piyut.org.il/tradition/903.html?currPerformance=1176__

=**__Background Research __**= 68% of the people in Israel (According to statistical data of "Nadlanpus"), are immigrants; 40% from America and Europe, 16% from Africa and 13% are from Asia. What cause all of them to want to come and live in Israel? Why is our contact to Israel so deep? From where does it come?

The answer is in the ancient sources: (בראשית פרק יב) " ויאמר ה' אל אברם לך לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך אל הארץ אשר אראך " ** "The lord say unto Abraham: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee" ** ** (Genesis chapter 12) ** God has commanded Abraham to leave Haran- the place where all his family lives and to go to Canaan- Israel of today. Abraham takes Sarah-his wife, Lot his nephew and all his money and luggage and leaves. Israel is the land that God had promised us. It's the land that Abraham took all his belongings and left his family in one day "just" because God told him.

The Mishna in Ketubot says that if one of the spouses in a marriage wants to come and live in Israel and the other refuse, the one that refused is the one that need to organize the divorce. And the responsa, "Yecheve Deah" Says that if you want to come and live in Israel and your parents tells you not to do that you should come and live in Israel. From these sources we understand that to come and live in Israel is a mitzvah but from where do we learn that in the bible? Where is the explicit commandment? The Ramban learn it from the Numbers, Chapter 33: והורשתם את הארץ וישבתם בה כי לכם נתתי את הארץ לרשת אותה" " ** "And ye shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it." ** He says that the first part "drive out of the inhabitants of the land" is to the whole Jewish community and the second part "dwell therein" to every Jew separately.

The responsa, "Yecheve Deah" tells a story about four rabbis that left Israel and when they remembered how Israel was they began to cry and said that the commandment to live in Israel equals to all the commandments in the Torah because that there is written in Deuteronomy Chapter 11 about the commandment to live in Israel and immediately after that about all the commandments in the Torah: " וירשתם אותה, וישבתם-בה ושמרתם את כל החוקים-ואת המשפטים-לעשות . " ** "And ye shall possess it, and dwell therein. And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you this day" **

So we can see that people come and live in Israel even when it's hard and there are a lot of dangers because that this is what they are commanded to do, so if you are Jew and you aren't in Israel come fast! ** http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//1155878/@@/item/printer ** more about the mitzvah of aliya: http://www.ou.org/ncsy/projects/zpages/aliyah.htm

=__ Literary connection __=

music by Alan Menken lyrics by Stephen Schwartz You think I'm an ignorant savage And you've been so many places
 * Colors of the wind **

I guess it must be so But still I cannot see If the savage one is me Now can there be so much that you don't know? You don't know…

You think you own whatever land you land on The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim But I know every rock and tree and creature Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people Are the people who look and think like you But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned? Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains? Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest Come taste the sun sweet berries of the Earth Come roll in all the riches all around you And for once, never wonder what they're worth The rainstorm and the river are my brothers The heron and the otter are my friends And we are all connected to each other In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow? If you cut it down, then you'll never know And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon For whether we are white or copper skinned We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still All you'll own is Earth until You can paint with all the colors of the wind.

This song is from the movie Pocahontas- a movie which is talking about the meeting between the people of England and the Indian of the "new world".

In the movie this song comes to say to the English people that they are not the kings of the world and the fact that they were in a lot of places and saw a lot of people don't mean that the Indians that they meet now are savages too. The English people have a lot of things to learn about people and about the world. There is much more than just the people.

The song in the movie is talking to the English people of the 17 century but actually the song himself has a very strong message to people all around the world, we aren't kings of the world there more people outside us, maybe they are even better then we are. And the world, the nature is not an obvious thing we don’t have the permission to destroy the world and to do whatever we want, and actually we don’t want to do it because that we will louse from it too.

So we have a great message in this song but what's the connection to Israel and why did I choose it?

the reason for choosing the song is very simple- it's one of my favorite songs

and the connections, I see two: The first one is in the first stanza: " You think I'm an ignorant savage And you've been so many places I guess it must be so But still I cannot see If the savage one is me Now can there be so much that you don't know? You don't know "

I see it as a question from the Israelis and Jews to the entire world: why do you hate us so much? Why do you always think, in all of the centuries that we are the one that are wrong? Why do we always have to be the one that gives from his one?

The second connection that I see is in the entire song and it's about us and about the Arabs, we both think that Israel is ours, that we can fight over it and can do with it whatever we want, we forget to stop from time to time and think about the animals in this land, about the nature and about a little bit peace.

=** __ Creative Connection __ **=

The idea of peace between the cultures and the mutual understanding is something that I (and I am sure that much more people) dream of. This production I made is a thought that lay in my head for a very long time, and every time when I have to do a creative work it comes in a different way. I think it also fit to Asher's message that "people should take much more care of each other, should be more aware of, and be happy with what they have." Because that the four people which are different are holding their hands together without fights and arguments. All the people look the same and only the clothes are different it comes to show that we are all human been and only the clothes and the out sight make us different. I put all the people on a map of Israel because this is our land and without even a little bit of understanding between each other we won't succeed in living in it together. And at the center between all the people there are the captures that I think that are supposed to be in the mind of us all. I chose 4 of the many cultures in Israel as a small example for the many kinds of cultures in Israel.

=** __Reflection:__  **= When I heard about the project I thought that it will be really fun because that I like to write things and I thought that it will be cool to talk with students from the Atlanta Georgia, I talked with my family and asked them for ideas for the project and there were some really great ideas like to do about the camel that is standing every day in the way to the dead see. But then the instructions had changed and we were told that the project should be about someone that is alive and we can interview. I was very disappointed and embittered because that the only idea that I had was to do about my father and the feeling was that almost all of the class did about family members that came on "Aliya" to Israel. But my feelings had change very fast, I wrote questions that I think that were great and I would have never thought to ask them without this project. I also find out a lot of great things about my father that I never knew. My expectation to have a talk with the students of Atlanta Georgia have gone and faded because that I was busy with my project and they stopped to write back.

I think that if I had more time and I was the one that decides about the project I had say that the literary connection should be connected to the subject of my own work.

My favorite part was to do the interview, not every day you are coming to your father and ask him whatever you want. And I also think that I will really like to do the creative part, I like to do things that I invent.

=** __Bibliography__ **= איזנברג, יהודה. "מצוות ישוב ארץ ישראל" לקט מקורות, 16 ינואר 2008. [|http://daat.ac.il/daat///israel/kdushat3-2.htm] __ אתר נדל"ן המוביל בישראל, __ 30 ספטמבר 2005, 5 ינואר 2008   http://www.nadlanplus.com/news/42 .   יוסף, הרב עובדיה. שו"ת יחווה דעת חלק ד סימן מט שילה, יואל."עליה לארץ ישראל כנגד שלום בין איש לאשתו" היחידה ללימודי יסוד ביהדות, 565, 2004. 8 ספטמבר 2004, 16  ינואר 2008, http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/netzabim/shi.html.

Bloemendal, Asher, computer technician. Interview. Jerusalem, 28 And 30 December 2007

Pocahontas (CD). Walt Disney records, 1995 "The mitzvah of making aliya" 26 January 2008, [|The z pages- information on zionism from NCSY http://www.ou.org/ncsy/projects/zpages/aliyah.htm]

=__Appendix__=

**Interview questions **
Q. You were born in the Netherlands, how was it to grow up between the non-Jews? Did you have arguments with them? Could you walk alone safe in the streets?

Q. Which kind of child were you, a good child or mischievous? How did it come to be realized?

Q. Can you tell me one good memory and one bad memory of your childhood?

Q. Which things have you done before you came to Israel that expressed your Zionism?

Q. Why did you decide to live in Israel and how did your family respond to this decision?

Q. You learned in the B.M.T yeshiva- a yeshiva of Americans; why did you decide to learn there and how was it like?

Q. How do you compete with the fact that all your family lives still in the Netherlands? Are you trying to convince them to come to Israel?

Q. How was the acclimation in Israel, did people help you here?

Q. Which place is your favorite place in Israel and why?

Q. Why did you decide to go to the army?

Q. You are working as a computer technician and in your work you meet a lot of people, what is it like? What do you think about the Israeli population?

Q. You sang in a choir why did you stop?

Q. You have already grownup children; do you think you succeed with their education? Do you think they got the values you wanted them to get?

Q. What is your favorite mitzvah and why?

Q. Do you have still dreams that you want to become true, what are they?

Q. To the end, Can you tell me a funny story about you?

**Interview **
Q. You were born in the Netherlands, how was it to grow up between the non-Jews? Did you have arguments with them? Could you walk alone safe in the streets? R. The Netherlands also called Holland are a relatively tolerant country, which means that as a Jew you can walk around with a minimum of comments from other non-Jewish people. I went to a Jewish elementary and high school, reason that most of my friends where Jewish. I was also very active in "Bnei Akiva" which filled up most of my time after school. When I played sports after school hours I met with Non-Jewish children, but I never had any problems with them.

Q. Which kind of child were you, a good child or mischievous? How did it come to be realized? R. Obviously it is not modest to claim that I was a good child. I think I was somewhere in the middle. Most of the time I tried to be a good child but it did not always work out. What I always liked, until today, is to have a good time.

Q. Can you tell me one good memory and one bad memory of your childhood? R. It is hard to choose between the different good memories, maybe a vacation with my parents in Sweden, or making a record with Pesach melodies with my father. There are a lot of good memories. A bad memory though, is unfortunately a very strong experience. I was befriended with a daughter of one of my fathers' colleagues. She got leukemia when she was six and passed away within a year. I was only a little older.

Q. Which things have you done before you came to Israel that expressed your Zionism? R. As I said, I was very active in "Bnei Akiva". My parents were active in the first Jewish youth movement after the Second World War. They gave their children (my brother, sister and me) a Zionist education. I was first a chanich then a madrich and then a mazkir in "Bnei Akiva Holland". Before I made aliya, I worked as a volunteer in kibbutz "Sa'ad", learned in "yeshivat beit midrash letorah" in Jerusalem and did the Gadna.

Q. Can you tell me about the Gadna R. The "Gadna" is a course before the army in order to get acquainted with the army. When I finished my year in yeshiva they organized a special "Gadna"-program for the students from different yeshivas. It was actually funny because since most of the students were Americans when we were picked up by an army truck we all sung the tune from M.A.S.H. (an army comedy). It was after the first Lebanon war and the first tanks that we met in the north came just back from Lebanon. The course was almost cancelled, but at the last minute we got an ok because the IDF was already close to Beirut, and the organizers from the program thought there was no risk for us. It was the first time I donated blood; in the hospital in Kiryat Shmone.

Q. Why did you decide to live in Israel and how did your family respond to this decision? R. I think that "Bnei Akiva" and specially one of the last shelichim are responsible for my awareness of the state of Israel and the obvious "must" for an orthodox Jew to live in Israel. My family was ambivalent about my aliya. On one hand they were very proud, on the other hand they would have preferred for me to stay in Holland.

Q. You learned in the B.M.T yeshiva- a yeshiva of Americans; why did you decide to learn there and how was it like? R. I had a great time in B.M.T. They aimed for two separate values: one: to increase the knowledge of yahadut, not only by studying Gemara but also tanach, machshevet Yisrael, halacha choemash, mussar etc., and two: to give the students a feeling of the what the land of Israel stands for. This they did by organizing two big trips, one to the north and one to the south, by organizing for 6 weeks in a row every Friday a trip around Jerusalem with a tanach in your hands and by making the students do social work like "ach boger"

Q. What is it "ach boger" can you tell me about it? R. At the time, and maybe up till now, there was a program for young students, to help kids from elementary and high school, by coming once or twice a week to their house, helping them with homework, playing with them as if you were an older brother. I did a lot of work with youth in Holland, but I never encountered situations like here in Israel. The hardest part of it was that I did not get a positive feedback from the child I worked with. Luckily I was told after a few months, that there were improvements in the child's school-work and behavior.

Q. How do you compete with the fact that all your family lives still in the Netherlands? Are you trying to convince them to come to Israel? R. It is not easy. When you have little kids it is very convenient to have the grandparents, uncles and aunts around to do some babysitting or just to pop over once in a while to have a chat. Although without success so far I did not succeed in convincing anyone of the family to join us in Israel by making aliya, but I am still trying without putting to much pressure on them.

Q. How was the acclimation in Israel, did people help you here? R. It wasn't bad, but to tell you the truth I did not find the "Israeli's as helpful as I was told they were.

Q. Which place is your favorite place in Israel and why? R. Jerusalem. There is my house, and it has a very special atmosphere.

Q. Which kind of atmosphere? R. If I would say a holy atmosphere it would sound exaggerated, but the truth is that when I first landed in Israel I had a feeling of coming to the place were I belong. The same thing happened when I arrived in Jerusalem. Besides that, I like a place which has the characteristics of a city on one hand and of a village on the other hand. It is needless to say that the mayor and city council have a lot of things to improve.

Q. Why did you decide to go to the army? R. Lets face it, as a religious Jew I told you that I think you should live in Israel, and since there is a saying "Ein somchin al hanes", do not trust in miracles, there is unfortunately no other way than to defend our country. Another Jewish principle is that there are three mitzvoth that you have to give your life for. One of the three is that you have to let yourself get killed if somebody tells you to kill another person or he will kill you. I think that if you can not kill a person to save your life, there is no reason, to let somebody else serve in the army with a chance of getting killed, while you are saving your own life.

Q. You are working as a computer technician and in your work you meet a lot of people, what is it like? What do you think about the Israeli population? R. There is a lot to improve. Of course there are good and bad people and everything in between, but in general I would say that people should take much more care about other people, should be more aware of, and be happy with what they have.

Q. Are you happy with what you have? R. Most of the time I am, but since I am a human being, once in a while I look at other people and wish for myself to be like them, or to have what they have, but then I realize that first of all things are not always what they look like, and second of all, every person has its own burdens.

Q. You sang in a choir why did you stop? R. Right now I just do not have enough time, but eventually I hope to get back to it.

Q. You have already grownup children; do you think you succeed with their education? Do you think they got the values you wanted them to get? R. Some of the values they definitely got, others less. I think that educating children as a parent is a lifetime experiment. The problem is that you don't have to get a diploma, and for every rule there are twice as many exceptions. I pray that they will find their place, be happy and make other people happy. Q. What is your favorite mitzvah and why? R. Maybe "veahavta lre'acha kamocha". Since I think that everybody has a certain "love" for himself, to love somebody else like yourself, will bring, if done by everybody, all human beings to the same spiritual level. Practically it means to help other people, because if I was in their situation I would like to be helped too.(by the way, sometimes it is harder to accept help than to give help, but you should be aware that by not accepting help you are denying another person to give this help).

Q. Do you have still dreams that you want to become true, what are they? R. I would like to have the time and money to study more and maybe one day to become a rabbi, especially to promote religious Judaism in a not oppressing way to non religious people.

Q. To the end, Can you tell me a funny story about you? R. A few weeks after I came on aliya I rode my bicycle from the campus in Givat Ram Jerusalem to Mount Scopus. When I had almost arrived I was stopped by a policeman. He said in Hebrew:" You don't have a light on your bicycle!" I answered: "Me, oleh chadash, you speak English?" Apparently he did not so well because he stuttered: "light". I looked at the streetlights and said: "beautiful lights!" He answered: "no, your bike light!" I said: "yes I brought it from Holland, my bike is very light." He tried once more: "no light on your bike!" I looked again at the streetlights and said: "Yes the light on my bike, Jerusalem is beautiful." By that time he was sweating all the way and told me "you walk now go, go!"