The End

Well this is it. My final post, probably. Yesterday was the last day of the program. Thursday I will leave Bet She'an and stay with my family in Bet Shemesh until my flight next Tuesday. I have had a wonderful time. I've had great experiences, gained a lot of work experience, learned a lot, and made some good friends and connections.

Last Friday I did work on my presentation. For Shabbat dinner I went to the Egyptian family's house that I went to with the Taglit-Birthright group from Cleveland a few weeks ago. They were happy to have me over. Dinner was extravagant and delicious. I had a good time talking to the grandchildren and hearing them both compliment and criticize my Hebrew. Saturday I didn't do anything special. I worked on my presentation and final report.

Sunday I went with Ilan and Octavian again to Horvat Omrit to work with the group of students from Macalester College. We worked with them again on mortar and stone conservation of the steps of the temple. After we finished with our teaching Ilan took us to some sites that he has worked on around Tiberias and that aren't usually open to the public. First we went to the synagogue at Migdal, which dates to the time of the Second Temple. It has mosaics and frescoes, as well as a stone block that is carved with images from the Temple, including a depiction of the Menorah. Nearby the synagogue are some excellently-preserved mikveh baths. After visiting the synagogue we went to see the theater that was part of the ancient Roman town of Tiberias. We didn't stay long because we had to head back to Bet She'an, but it was cool to see parts of the region that tourists don't normally see. I have never visited Tiberias, but I really hope I can go for a weekend trip sometime.

Sunday evening I left Bet She'an and went to my aunt and uncle's house in Bet Shemesh for the night, so I could wake up early and head over to the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem for our final presentations. My presentation went very well I think. It was a short summary and explanation of the work I did at the synagogue of Maoz Haim. The presentation was a spoken conservation report. I talked about the history and importance of the site, the problems and conservation issues, and the conservation work we did. I also gave recommendations about further work that needs to be done. It was quick and painless. After the presentations we had a quick meeting with the staff to give and get feedback, and then we were done. I headed back to Bet She'an.

So there it is. My time here is finished. I survived over five months studying conservation and working with experts and professionals all over the country. I really enjoyed my time here. It was a challenge getting accustomed to the way life is here in Israel, but I loved it all the same. My Hebrew has greatly improved. I had some wonderful experiences that I will never forget. I am so glad I went on this program. Thank you to the staff, Shelley, Alison, Ornit, Michael, Kamil, Raanan, all the professionals we worked with, and everyone else that was involved in the planning and execution of the program.

Even though I am sad that the program is finished and I will be leaving next week, I think I am ready to head home. I'm ready to go back to the US and see my friends and family again, to watch bad television and eat both delicious home-made food and icky fast-food.

If you want to hear more about my experience or know anything specific, just ask! Also check out my photos, I just added some new ones!

Entering the Final Stretch

Well the end is near! I can see the finish line. Wednesday was my last day working with the guys at the synagogue at Maoz Hayyim. On Monday I will be giving my final presentation and report at the IAA offices in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, and then Saving the Stones 2014 is finished. After that I have about a week before my plane leaves to return the US.

This week it was my job to do the finishing touches to the face of the wall of the apse that we had done coping on. Finishing involves adding mortar to the cracks and seams on the front of the wall to make it look smooth and neat. Over the course of the week I worked on another section of the wall inside the apse, adding mortar and stones to the cracks to fill in the wall. I am also working on my final report and presentation for STS. I am focusing on the coping and finishing work I did for the apse and southern wall of the synagogue.

Wednesday night a group of families from my synagogue back in Cleveland, Bnai Jeshurun Congregation, came to visit Bet She'an, and I joined them for the evening. We went to Yardena, a Kurdish village near Bet She'an that has been set up to display Kurdish Jewish culture to visitors. We baked special pita, watched a short film about Kurdish culture, saw some traditional dances, and ate a delicious dinner.

Yesterday (Thursday) I went with Ilan (the boss) and Octavian, one of the other workers, to the site of Horvat Omrit near Qiryat Shemonah in the Upper Galilee. A small group of students from Macalester College in Minnesota is conducting excavations there, and we are giving them a short introduction to stone conservation. We are working with them on the stairs of Herod's temple, the third temple he built, after the Temple in Jerusalem and the temple at Caesarea. Thursday we taught them the basics of adding mortar to cracks and seams in the limestone. They are working today on their own, and we will go back on Sunday to finish up the lesson. My job was mostly as the translator, since neither Ilan nor Octavian speaks English very well, and neither of the staff from Macalester speaks Hebrew. In my translations and explanations I was able to test my knowledge of what I've learned over the last five months about stone conservation. Direct translating from Hebrew to English was difficult, but because I know the process and methods I understood what needed to be said. Ilan told me later that I did better than just a normal translator exactly because of this, because this was the work that I was doing and I understood the methods.

Better Late than Never

Sorry guys about not posting earlier. The days are long and tiring, and combined with the World Cup I just can't seem to find the time or energy to write sometimes. Also I haven't been doing anything new, so posting about doing the exact same thing two or three times a week just wouldn't be interesting for you guys to read or for me to write. So here is a summary of everything I did since my last post.

The weekend after my last post I visited my aunt and uncle in Bet Shemesh. The other guys who I'm working with in Bet She'an had vacation days Sunday and Monday so I had some days off I could make into a trip and not worry about getting back to work on time. I had a nice relaxing few days with my family.

When we got back to work starting Tuesday we finished the reconstruction and conservation of the wall of the apse. Because of lime mortar limitations it took all three days of the week to finish, so there isn't really anything new there. Now that it is done the wall looks really nice. When you go to some archaeological site to visit and you see those flat, smooth wall tops, usually about a couple of feet high that look like nice cobblestone streets, that's what we did. In my opinion our work isn't nearly as good as some examples at really famous sites, but it gets the job done. Don't tell my boss I said that!

On Thursday evening the Taglit-Birthright group from Cleveland came to Bet She'an, and the people at the Partnership connected me with them so I could join them. I went with them to a local household for a wonderful Egyptian-style dinner, and then we went to the archaeological national park to see the sound and light show. It was similar to the light show at Masada. Since there is no famous 'story' for Bet She'an, the narrator talked about the history of the sight with accompanying cartoon images. After the ten-minute presentation the show continued with a tour of the site, with lights illuminating some of the more important 'attractions'. Walking through the bathhouse and the market in the semi-dark was cool. After the tour Lior, part of the staff of the Partnership, took me to a bar outside of Bet She'an to a meeting with some Israeli students who were starting a program to make young people in the region more involved in the city and with groups that visit from abroad, like Cleveland. We stayed there for a short time and had a drink, and then went home.

The rest of the weekend was pretty routine. Friday was American Independence Day, and I celebrated by sleeping in, eating and translating some documents from Hebrew into English for my final presentation. Saturday I had Shabbat lunch with the landlord, but otherwise it was the same. Nothing special.

That was my weekend. I promise I will post again later this week. I am starting some new work that I will be using to prepare my final presentation for the STS practicum, so I can talk about that in my next blog. Until next time!

Jackhammering Away

Welcome back to my blog everybody! Sorry I haven't posted earlier this week about work but they've been working me hard and I've been falling asleep early. I will catch up on everything with this post.

Sunday and Monday we were continuing with the coping of the wall of the apse. The work was more of the same, and we finished early each day because we ran out of mortar to work with. There really isn't much else to say about the work, and like I said I was pretty worn out after and didn't do much besides eat, sleep, and watch the World Cup.

Starting Tuesday we had some more interesting work involving a jackhammer. After the excavation of the site in the early seventies there was some rudimentary conservation work done. Back then, the go-to material was cement, which we now know is a big no-no. The conservation work they did was to put all the mosaics onto a cement floor, as well as putting a cement cover layer over most of the walls. Now we had to remove a lot of this cement, using a jackhammer. We took out part of the cement floor that was extra and didn't have any mosaic on it, in order to reconstruct part of an older wall that used to be there. Then we destroyed the top of the eastern wall of the apse that had been reconstructed in the seventies using bad stone blocks and cement. Tuesday the entire day was spent hammering away at the cement. Unfortunately I didn't get to use the jackhammer this time, but there is still plenty of cement that needs to be removed, and maybe I will get to help with that. Part of preparing the wall for new stones involved removing dirt and other material that was beneath the cement, and that was my job. I was digging out the dirt and small stones that were in the wall, as well as removing the dirt at the broken end of the genizah inside the apse. It was basically like doing archaeology, complete with finding pottery.

Wednesday and Thursday we started reconstructing the wall that we took apart. The amount of material that we removed meant that we have to build two or three courses of stones within the wall, which requires several days in between laying each course down so the mortar can dry and harden. Yesterday and today we placed the edge stones as well as the first layer within the wall, and next week we will hopefully finish filling in the rest of the wall. We also rebuilt the side of the genizah that was missing.

If you may have forgotten, Thursday is the last day of the work week here, so I'm done with work for the week. Sunday and Monday are also vacation days for the work team, so I won't be resuming work until next Tuesday. If I do anything exciting then I will write another blog post, but if not then I will write again at the end of next week. Time to go watch Team USA crush (or at least tie) the Germans!

Oh I forgot to mention, I found this little guy in my kitchen when I got home!

An Exciting Weekend with Cleveland

Happy new week to all my followers! This post is going to cover what I did over the weekend. Normally I just include my weekend activities in the following week's blog, but this past weekend I did quite a bit more than I normally do, I so thought it deserved its own post.

You may recall that Thursday afternoon I had a meeting with the Jewish Agency in Bet She'an who works closely with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, its partner city. At this meeting, in addition to talking about the hospitality available to me while I am here, we also talked about groups, organizations, and people I know that will be visiting Bet She'an from Cleveland over the summer. The first group that comes to Bet She'an is the group Israel-Cleveland Next (ICNext for short). ICNext is a group of high school students that spend two years learning about "the core issues of Israeli society and the geopolitical situation in Israel today" and "initiating, organizing and galvanizing peer involvement in educational, political and cultural activities designed to build support for the State of Israel" (quote from their website). Part of their program is connecting with Israeli students their age and traveling to Israel to get a first-hand look at what they learn about back in Cleveland.

Since I am very involved in the Jewish community in Cleveland I know quite a few of the people on the program, as well as some of the staff members. For this reason I thought it would be good and fun to spend some time with them while they were in the "neighborhood". Avigail, a staff member of the Partnership office in Bet She'an, set up the meeting between me and ICNext on Friday morning. I went with another of the staff of the Jewish Agency to meet ICNext at Kibbutz Nir David, a kibbutz just outside of Bet She'an and ate lunch with them in the cafeteria. After lunch we all went to a private part of the river that runs through the kibbutz and feeds the natural springs known as Gan HaShlosha or Sachne. We spent the afternoon there relaxing on the banks or swimming. I didn't go swimming, but everyone who did looked to be having lots of fun. That night I had Shabbat dinner with the landlord again, and it was just as delicious as last week.

The next morning Amnon, the leader of ICNext, took me to an art museum in Ein Haroud near Bet She'an. He was doing a training program for the Israeli group Shinshinim, where Israelis take a gap year between high school and the army and become involved in volunteer and service activities to promote connections between Cleveland youths and Israel. The visit to the art museum was to start training them to be able to lead discussions and activities for teenagers at galleries in Cleveland of Israeli and Jewish art. While at the museum we had a tour of the galleries and learned how to best engage teenagers in a visit to an art gallery that they may not feel connected to. The visit was very interesting because these two aspects were combined. After visiting the museum we went to one of the Israeli's homes for lunch, which was a delicious feast. That night I joined ICNext for an evening of pizza making and "drum-circling".

It was really nice to visit with the kids from Cleveland. Getting to see familiar faces and speak English was a welcome break from working with Israelis every day. It was like a little visit from home.

Israel-Cleveland Next's website: http://www.icnext.org/
Information about Shinshinim: http://www.jewishagency.org/beit-shean-valley-springs-and-cleveland/program/9566

Another week come and gone

Hey guys, here is another post from me about my work. I'm still in Bet She'an and working in kibbutz Maoz Chayim. I'm still having fun even though the work is pretty much the same. I hope you enjoy reading!

At the synagogue we are still doing the same work along the wall. Eventually all the walls of the building need to have coping, so we are working one section at a time. The building is shaped as a basilica, with an apse and three rectangular sections separated by pillars. Tuesday we did coping on the section of wall left of the apse but before the corner of the building, and yesterday we worked on the opposite side, on the right section of wall next to the apse. We didn't quite finish that section of wall because we only have a limited amount of mortar to use everyday and we used it all before finishing. We do as much work as we can with the materials we have, and if there is still time after we use everything we do cleanup work and prepare for the next day by getting stones ready that fit into spaces in the top of the wall.

Today we finished the section of wall that we didn't do yesterday, and then moved on to the right side of the wall of the apse itself. This section has more of the large stones along the edge remaining, so we are only filling in between them. One thing I find interesting and somewhat controversial is that if there are stones already in place that are significantly higher than the level of the coping, the stones are removed and smaller ones put in its place. I'm not sure if this is an aesthetic or safety decision, but the removal of authentic and original material during the conservation process always involves tough decisions.

Something else I've noticed is that the work we did yesterday and today is not as good as the work we did on Tuesday. Our coping of the wall on Tuesday was more level and consistent, while our work since hasn't been done completely correctly, isn't level and has more holes. Whatever the reasons for the differences in the work, I'm still learning and getting to actually do things. Over the last three days I have been given more and more independence in what I do. Tuesday all I really did was watch and refill buckets of mortar, but today I did a lot of the mortar cleaning and smoothing, as well as throwing the dirt onto the wet mortar. At the very end I also did the entire process for a small area of the wall that had been forgotten and needed to be finished before we left. It feels good to be trusted to do the work without direct supervision.

After the work day was over I had a meeting with people from the Jewish Agency office in Bet She'an that are involved in maintaining the partnership between Bet She'an and Cleveland. We went to lunch and talked about Saving the Stones, my work, and what I am interested in doing while I'm here. They seem to be very interested in helping me get comfortable here and I am looking forward to being involved with them.

New week, new work

Welcome back to my fabulous blog everyone! I hope you are ready to hear about the work I have done and will be doing this week, because I'm ready to tell it. It might be a little short, but enjoy! In other news, how about that World Cup? I've been trying to watch as many of the matches as I can, but because of the time difference they are usually really late and it's hard for me to stay up watching and wake up early for work. Spain and Portugal's crushing defeats, Argentina, Italy and the US's close victories. I can't wait to see more!

There is one important thing I would like to mention. Due to political and secrecy concerns I am unable to talk about or show the location and nature of my work for the past week. I have removed all of these details from my previous blog posts and cannot elaborate further. Sorry for any inconveniences! Sunday and Monday were the last days at my previous site. These days consisted of cleaning up the site, removing some of the scaffolding and artificial construction, and gathering up all the tools and equipment.

Today we (the team I was working with and will continue to work with) started working at a new location. Now we are doing conservation work on a 3rd century synagogue in a kibbutz near Bet She'an. The site is inclosed in a makeshift building to protect it from the elements and human hazards. The synagogue has some pretty cool mosaics, but we're not working on them. Today we did consolidation and covering of one part of the wall of the building, called coping. Capping the top of a wall helps give it stability as well as help protect it from erosion.

The process of coping starts off with cleaning and wetting the top of a section of the wall. Then lots of mortar is put on the surface. Stones are then placed into the mortar, and excess mortar is removed. The mortar on the edges around the stones are cleaned and smoothed to make it look good, and finally dirt is thrown onto the mortar to make it look older and more natural. The stones we used were all original stones found at the site that had been removed either during the excavation or other conservation works. We added one course of stones to the top of the original wall, making it a fairly flat surface. First we put large stones on the border of the wall, then the opposite side. Finally we filled in between these two lines with smaller stones.

Nothing else is new with me here in Bet She'an. The apartment is still wonderful, and I am enjoying my work. Soon I hope to make connections with the municipality and the Jewish Federation Partnership from Bet She'an's twin city of Cleveland and get more involved in the community while I am here.