Cleaning Guns - Hatzerim Airbase (1996)

For a couple weeks I participated in the SAHAL program, which is essentially volunteering with the IDF.  You are helping out the military by doing the BS work that would normally be done by soldiers.  Here we are at Hatzerim Air Base in the Negev desert cleaning UZIs, M-16s, and Galils.  Our supervisor Oren, nicknamed "Vegas" by one of us because he had spent time there, was really nice - even though he would confide in me that American girls drove him up the wall, especially when you had to deal with a bunch of 'em at once. No shit, chaver!

The newest recruits had to sleep in those tents in the background.  Suckers!!  Also funny, the soldiers on the base who had screwed up and lost their gun (or misplaced it) had to walk around with fake guns painted red and made of wood!  Talk about shaming someone into never making a mistake again...

The OTZMA X Songbook - Eli, Eli (1995)

A mandatory entry in the American Jew's songbook is Hannah Szenes's "Eli, Eli."  Her story of Jewish nationalism and anti-Nazi heroism is legendary:

In 1941, Hannah joined Kibbutz Sdot Yam and then joined the Haganah, the paramilitary group that laid the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces. In 1943, she enlisted in the British army in the Woman's Auxiliary Air Force as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class and began her training in Egypt as a paratrooper for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).  In March 1944, she and two male colleagues, Yoel Palgi and Peretz Goldstein, were parachuted into Yugoslavia and joined a partisan group. After landing, they learned the Germans had already occupied Hungary, so the men decided to call off the mission as too dangerous.  Szenes continued and headed for the Hungarian border. At the border, she was arrested by Hungarian gendarmes, who found the British military transmitter she was carrying, used to communicate with the SOE and other partisans. She was taken to a prison, stripped, tied to a chair, then whipped and clubbed for three days. The guards wanted to know the code for her transmitter so they could find out who the other parachutists were. She did not tell them, however, even when they brought her mother into the cell and threatened to torture her too.

Whilst in jail, Szenes used a mirror to flash signals out of the window to the Jewish prisoners in other cells, and communicated with them using large cut-out letters in Hebrew that she placed in her window one at a time and by drawing the Magen Davidn the dust. She tried to keep their spirits up by singing, and through all the things Szenes went through she still kept her spirit high and stayed true to her mission. -  Wikipedia
 

This is a songsheet handed out (probably on a Shabbat) during OTZMA X:

Volunteer Card From My Life-Changing Year

I can't remember if I've said it before on this blog, but my year in Israel as part of the OTZMA program changed my life forever - and here is where it all began.  After arriving in the country we filled out these cards, which gave us volunteer status for 11 months.  I have reflected on that year almost every day of my life...and that was 1995-96!

Erotic Massage (Without Sex!) - 2007

Professional Erotic Massage

30 minutes - 150 NIS

45 minutes - 190 NIS

4 hand massage - 200 NIS

Without Sex!

Body Naked Girls!

Come to us or order

Free Ride To The Place

Please tell me the point of being massaged by naked girls when you can't have sex?!  Even so, my wife wouldn't let me call.

Pretty Things Receipt (Beit Shemesh, 2010)

I happened to find this in my wallet today...months and months after I crammed it in there!

Jeffrey Seidel - Judaizer of the Secular Masses!

 

(May 15, 2000) Most American visitors will recognize the name on this card.  Jeffrey comes off like a real nut, but his heart is in the right place.  You could usually find him hanging out around the Kotel looking (hunting?) for the secular visitors.  You'll always have a free place to stay as long as you can handle the Orthodox lifestyle.

Check out Jeffrey's WEBSITE for further reading...

Bus Trip Through the Desert (6/2000)

Anyone who has ever had to sit on a long-distance Israeli bus knows how they can seriously suck.  There is always some douchebag who likes to keep a window open when everyone else just wants to relax in the air conditioning!

My friend Anya and I were leaving the hot comfort of Eilat for the cooler temperatures of Jerusalem.