1Eating Sodexo in the Holy Land

By Taylor Steinberg

If you didn’t know, Birthright is essentially a free trip to Israel for Jewish people1 from

ages 18 to 26. It’s meant to be educational, and it’s made possible through very generous

donations. I wanted to go because, well, it’s a free trip to another country, and there was a niche

culinary focused trip, which immediately drew my attention. I ended up applying while I was

abroad in London, totally not intending to go, because I thought that I would just put myself into

the system that way, but then the interview came up, and I panicked, and cancelled my

application.

The next year, I applied again. I figured that my senior year winter break would be the

perfect time to go, because who knew where the hell I’d end up after I graduated? It would be

best to go when I knew I wouldn’t be doing anything else other than sitting on my butt in front of

the TV. So I applied again, and weeks and weeks went by without hearing anything after my

interview. By the time November rolled around, I figured that I hadn’t been accepted, so I

shrugged and figured that I could probably find some time within the next five years to go.

Then, in mid-December, I received an email saying that I’d been accepted––someone had

cancelled and I was next on the list! I even got a free 15 hour extension because the person who

cancelled had paid for it. How cool is that?

So in December, I came home from school, transferred my stuff from trash bags to

suitcases, and had my mom drive me to the airport. Going up the escalators, I started to get

nervous, because I had no idea who I would be travelling with, maybe the email was a scam,

maybe we were in the wrong place, etc, etc. But we reached the top and saw a sizable group of

1 Really, only one of your grandparents has to be Jewish. That’s the only requirement.

2people around my age, maybe a little older, surrounding a girl wearing a shirt that said Israel

Experience. She had a pile of name tags around her neck and as we got closer, we could see that

she had a clipboard with a piece of paper taped to the back of it with Spices of Israel and the trip

number on it.

“Hi, what’s your name?” She sounded too bright and chirpy for nine in the morning.

“I’m Taylor Steinberg,” I replied. I hoped that there wouldn’t be another Taylor on the

trip.

“OK, awesome. I don’t have a name tag for you, but I do have blank ones and Sharpies.”

After going through the short ordeal of making a lanyard for myself, she said, “You’re all set.

Just hang out; we’ll check in and go through security together. Oh, I’m Shoshana, by the way.”

I thanked her, hugged my mom, waved goodbye, and then I was surrounded by a bunch

of people who I didn’t know, and because I have a limited amount of social skills, I didn’t know

how to talk to any of them. Blonde hair, brown hair, one guy wearing a red puffy vest who

towered over the rest of the group, one Asian guy… too many different people to meet in so little

time.

So I just stood there, next to my suitcase, and hoped that someone would come to me

first.

***

The flight there was interesting, to say the least. We were on a Boeing 747, so there’s a

group of three seats, an aisle, a group of four, an aisle, and then another group of three. Joy of all

joys, I got to be on one of the inside seats of the group of four, and strangely, our trip wasn’t

seated together. I guess because it’s run by donations and we flew on a commercial flight, we

just got whatever was left over.

3Regardless, the woman who sat in the aisle seat next to me immediately fell asleep, with

her head on the tray table, so if I had to pee, I had to literally climb over her in order not to wake

her up. And the people on the other side of me were an orthodox couple who brought their own

food, so every once in awhile, they would pull out gefilte fish or some kind of smelly, breaded

fish cakes or something, and eat it loudly when I just wanted to sleep.

After twelve hours or so, the plane landed, and as soon as that fasten seatbelt light went

off, I stood up and stared at the woman next to me. Of course, getting off a plane never goes as

quickly as you want it to, but after a few minutes, I was officially in Ben Gurion Airport, and I

was about to start an adventure like one I’d never been on before.

***

After baggage claim, the Israeli soldiers who would accompany us on the trip greeted us

with smiles, shouts, and signs. All of us then gathered in an out-of-the-way hallway for a

reminder of Birthright’s alcohol policy (you can buy bottles of alcohol to bring back as gifts and

you can have a drink or two from the hotel’s bar or on a night out. You can absolutely not get

blackout drunk.) and the fact that we definitely could not miss any of the activities planned. If we

broke any of the rules, then we would be sent back to America on the next flight out.

After that rather foreboding speech, we had a few minutes to exchange money, and then

we were deemed officially ready to explore. We hopped on the bus and headed into the city of

Tel Aviv.

***

I got off the bus and I felt absolutely drained. I hadn’t slept much on the twelve hour

flight, and combined with the fact that I’d been wearing the same clothes for about thirty six

hours, the seven hour time delay, and me meeting close to fifty other people, I just wanted to go

4to wherever the hell we were staying, change into pajamas, and sleep for twelve plus hours. The

tour guide, however, had different ideas, and before he said a word to us, he gave a loaf of

challah to one of the staffers, and he gave plastic cups and a bottle of grape juice to the other.

“Hello, everyone,” he was beaming and he motioned with his hands. I just stared at him

and wondered when we were going to get back on the bus so I could sleep. “Before I tell you

about this wonderful city of Jaffa, I’d like to officially welcome you into Israel, the holy land, by

doing the traditional blessings over the bread and wine.” The braided loaf, now half gone, made

its way around the circle to me, and I ripped off a small piece before passing the bag along to the

girl next to me. The male staff member, the one with the juice, came around next, and he handed

me a cup. I held it out for him as he poured me probably half a shot’s worth of grape juice, and

then he moved on. Boaz, the tour guide, continued to speak emphatically about the admittedly

beautiful landscape behind him, but I was only hoping to get the whole ordeal over with ASAP. I

looked around the circle while he spoke and saw lots of squints and scowls, what I would

consider resting bitch faces. No one seemed to be especially enthused about standing in the circle

and listening to this especially energetic man speak.

Finally, once everything had been passed around and he finished saying what he felt like

he had to say, he asked for a volunteer to bless the bread.

Dear god, not me. I thought I knew it, but with my propensity for hating participating in

general and my eyes closing against my will every few seconds, I just stood there with my eyes

closed. Nothing happened for a few minutes because everyone was hesitant to volunteer.

After what felt like an eternity, someone blessed the bread and someone else blessed the

“wine” and then we ate and drank. Boaz started to talk about the significance of where we were

standing and I just hoped that I could sleep soon.

5***

Unfortunately, after Boaz enthusiastically shouted at us about how Jaffa (pictured above)

functioned as an important port in the ancient times and how Jonah, if he actually existed, would

have been eaten by the whale in these waters, we went on an hour long walking tour of the

surrounding area. Not many people were around, so Boaz was able to be loud and emphatic

without an outsider telling him to quiet down or move along. We visited the Andromeda Rocks,

named as such because many think that Andromeda, of Greek mythology fame, was chained to

those very rocks to be eaten by a sea monster. Luckily the valiant Perseus saved her, though, so

everyone learned their lesson (in the simplified version, at least). I hoped that I could have been

saved from this tour.

At one of the stops, there was enough space to take a group picture of all forty eight of

us, so a nearby tourist, upon seeing Boaz snap a few pictures with his cellphone, came over and

offered to take our picture so that our tour guide, a rather integral part of our trip, actually looked

like he was a true element in us travelling around Israel.

After this, we walked back to the bus and went for a short ride that let us off at an official

city bus stop in Tel Aviv. I was still tired, but upon hearing that we were now going on a tasting

tour, I perked up and hurried along with the rest of the group.

6We passed a few people on the way, but they didn’t seem to pay much attention to us,

which was weird because sidewalks aren’t meant to hold a conglomerate of forty-plus people.

Our group was actually so large that we had to divide into two so that the last half wouldn’t be

run over crossing the street.

All of us eventually made our way to the first restaurant, which luckily, was on a corner,

so we could gather around without spilling into the street. One of the outside walls was also a

counter, so we didn’t have to go in and disturb all of the people who were eating at the tables

inside. Boaz, however, did go inside to talk to the waiter, and sooner than later, five or six

different bowls of hummus sat on the counter, accompanied by pita, onions, pickles, and various

types of olives. Boaz tried to tell us about the restaurant and how hummus became an important

Israeli food, but I wasn’t listening. I was off in happy hummus land because I had never had such

tasty hummus before. I have tried making my own before, because my mom had bought me an

on-sale Cuisinart food processor, and of course I’d had store bought hummus before (in both

America and London), but this stuff was so smooth and so nutty and it had just the right punch of

garlic that it warmed my insides and made me forget just how tired I was.

The one on the left has labneh (Greek yogurt) on top, the one on the left has black beans.

Both are plentifully bestrewn with olive oil and parsley, and I was surprised by the delicacy of

the bowls they were served in. Most restaurants in the US serve their dishes on plain sturdy white

7plates that are made to last as long as possible and showcase the food. The bowls this restaurant

used reminded me of the bowls that I would use at home––the edges were very thin and they had

flowers painted on the inside. If you dropped them, you knew that they would break.

After ten minutes or so, after we gobbled down eight bowls of hummus, Boaz led us to

the next place, which was two blocks down the road and sold bourekas. They’re a lot like the

Greek spanakopita, which as I previously mentioned, is one of my favorite foods. Spanakopita

could actually be considered a boureka because all they are is just some kind of filling (meat,

cheese, potatoes, spinach, etc) encased by phyllo dough.

I think these in particular had potatoes and cheese in them. There was also a meat-filled

variety being passed around, but they both made me very, very happy. Sometimes things like

these are very greasy because the layers of phyllo are stuck together with melted butter and

there’s fat in the filling, but these were golden brown and crunchy on the outside and the samples

I had melted in my mouth. Boaz joked that these were the Israeli TV dinners––when they’re not

cut up for multiple people to taste, they kind of look like empanadas made with especially flaky

dough. They’re essentially meat/potato/cheese/veggie packages.

We then backtracked to the stand on the corner we had just passed. He sold fruit,

smoothies, and two different custard desserts.

8

The one pictured above is called malabi2. It’s pink because it’s made with rosewater, so it

tasted like perfume, and it also had finely shredded coconut and chopped peanuts in it for texture.

I enjoyed the peanuts, but the coconut was so delicately shredded that it felt like fur on my

tongue. The dessert was warm, which freaked me out, because I was expecting it to be similar to

ice cream. I took a spoonful, wrinkled my nose, and passed it along to the next person. Another

dessert called sahlab was also being passed around, in small cardboard coffee cups. They’re both

very similar; sahlab is basically the drink version of malabi. They’re made out of the same

ingredients, are the same temperature, and taste almost exactly the same.

We spent less time at the stand than we did at the other restaurants because I don’t think

these sweets delighted anyone’s palate. I heard a lot of “I don’t really like this,” and “ugh, pass it

on to the next person,” and a lot of the cups were half-full when they were tossed into the trash.

We were looking forward to the last stop on our tasting tour to get that floral taste off of our

tongues. In order to get to this last stop, we walked another two blocks down the street,

bypassing the bourekas stand and reaching the end of the “market.” I personally wouldn’t call

this short string of restaurants and food stands a market, but I’m a privileged American whose

idea of a good market is Portobello Road in London, which runs almost the length of Notting

2 I actually had to research what these were called because in the haze of my sleep deprived mind, I forgot. I also might have tried to repress this memory because the hummus and the bourekas were so good and I disliked these dishes immesely.

9Hill, which is to say that it’s blocks upon blocks of different stands and vendors, which is to say

that it’s very large.

Regardless, on the left is Boaz, taking a plate of samples from the woman behind the

counter, and on the right is a plate of unsweetened pistachio halva. I wasn’t excited upon hearing

that we were trying halva, because usually it’s too sugary sweet and crumbly, but I savored the

unsweetened varieties we tried. Halva, for those who don’t know, is a Middle Eastern candy

made from tahini (sesame seed paste) and either honey or sugar syrup. I have no idea how they

made it “unsweetened,” but it was still perfectly sweet. The texture was firm, but not hard as a

rock, and it didn’t crumble to bits in my hand or in my mouth. It was like fresh fudge: decadent,

thick, and filling. My sweet tooth felt satisfied after I had a few pieces.

Boaz then proceeded to tell us to enjoy ourselves, walk around the three blocks that the

market comprised, and grab some lunch. We had an hour and would meet at the dessert stand

from which we had the strange custard dessert earlier.

We all went to the two restaurants that we hadn’t tried earlier, across the street from each

other on the first block. One was a pizza restaurant and the other was a shawarma joint. I ended

up at the shawarma restaurant, because who eats pizza in Israel? Instead of getting a pita filled

10with fatty meat freshly sliced off of the rotating spit, though, I got a falafel pita filled to the top

with thick cut french fries.

While eating something like this typically is the stuff of my dreams, it wasn’t as good as

it could and should have been. Maybe it was because twenty people lined up at the register and

the workers wanted to get us the food we ordered ASAP. You can probably even see that the

fries are barely even cooked, and to add to that, it wasn’t all mixed up in the pita.

Have you ever gotten a wrap or a burrito in which everything was layered so that in one

bite, you got all lettuce, and then in the next, you got all chicken? It’s not very good, right? And

every single mouthful was like that, which is awful because then the flavors and textures don’t

blend and you don’t feel satisfied. Well, this pita was like that, and biting into the fries on the top

and then the falafel beneath them was like trying to take a bite out of the scum from the deep

fryer. Even though I had shawarma repeatedly throughout the trip, I wish I would have just

gotten it then, because I don’t think I’ll ever eat falafel again3.

After that, though, I had about fifteen minutes left, so walked to the next block and ran

across the street to the gelato place that had caught my eye earlier.

3 I’ll talk about this more in a future section, don’t you worry.

11

I couldn’t read much of what was on the board behind the counter, because it was in

Hebrew, and even when I was in Hebrew school, the language didn’t make much sense to me.

Luckily, though, there was some English, and there were a few signs that said 100% vegan on

the walls. I took a few minutes to look around at the sink in the corner and the cans of chocolate

sauce for sale lined up on the wall next to it. A group of women were finishing their order as I

nosed around, and I quickly became nervous because they all spoke in Hebrew.

After they left, I peered into the display case in an attempt to decide what I wanted.

“Shalom,” the woman behind the counter said.

“Um, hi. Shalom,” I replied, looking down at the various colors of the Italian ice cream.

“Do you need any help?” Oh my god. Thank god. She spoke English that I could

understand.

“Is this green one pistachio?”

“Yes. Would you like to taste it?”

Obviously. Who was she kidding? “Sure.”

12She took one of those small, brightly colored plastic spoons and dipped it into the vat of

frozen non-dairy cream. I took it from her and let it slide onto my tongue. I rolled it on the top of

my mouth and closed my eyes.

This shit was good. Really good. I’ve been to Italy, the birthplace of gelato, and I can’t

say that I’ve had anything better. It was so velvety and smooth; this was the first time I could

actually discern the texture of gelato from the texture of ice cream. I kept searching for chunks of

ice or some kind of diminishing factor, but I could find none, and as it melted in my mouth, it

coated my tongue like silk. I couldn’t help but close my eyes and tilt my head back as a smile

arose on my lips. And it was vegan… I wish I’d asked what it was made of.

“Would you like to try another flavor?”

“No, I’ll take a small pistachio, please.”

She scooped some into a cup, put another small spoon in it, and then handed it to me. I

paid for it, sat at one of the stools at the counter at the other side of the store, and looked out at

the sidewalk and store across the street as I observed that for being one of the most

technologically advanced cities in the world, it certainly didn’t look like it. I compared the

images and videos I’d seen of Tokyo to what I’d seen of Tel Aviv so far and it didn’t make sense

to me. I checked my phone for the time, discovered I had about three minutes left, finished my

gelato, and then met up with the rest of the group.

I dreamed of gelato as I slept on the way to our next destination.

***

On the second day of the trip, we went north. We hiked Mount Arbel and visited the

military lookout at the border of Israel and Syria. I got a hot cider from the cafe and then we

went to an unconventional wine tasting. Instead of making wine with just grapes, they made

13fermented, alcoholic beverages from at least twenty different kinds of fruit, a few different kinds

of nuts, and chocolate. We tried pomegranate, blackberry, passionfruit, and dark chocolate wine,

and I ended up buying a bottle of pomegranate wine for my dad and a bottle of dark chocolate

wine for fun. The chocolate liquor was thick and syrup-y, so I thought that it would be especially

tasty over ice cream.

On the third day, we stayed in the north, and we went to Tzvat. I wished that we could

have spent more time there. Of course, the first thing we did was go on a guided tour with Boaz,

but he didn’t seem to be as excited as he was during the first two days. Maybe he was starting to

feel sleep deprived, just like the rest of us. When we went to see the Abuhav Synagogue, he told

us that he couldn’t go in because the rabbi didn’t like outside tour guides to lecture inside the

synagogue. He then went on to say that he thought that the rabbi and the people who ran it were

greedy and didn’t know how to run the synagogue properly (it’s worth noting that he didn’t

proclaim this to the entire group, I just overheard it when another girl asked him why he

wouldn’t go in.). Regardless, I went in, and I saw the ark that housed the oldest torah in Tzvat.

We then moved onto hear and see a presentation from a local kabbalah artist. Kabbalah is

essentially Jewish mysticism (don’t ask me for any more information about it because I’m still

not sure what that means), so all of his work was 60s-70s style psychedelic paintings. He spent

about a half hour explaining what six or seven of his paintings symbolized, and they all involved

some kind of numerology and environmental symbolism––while I did find it interesting, I did

tune out after the third painting because I was still tired and he wasn’t the most charismatic

person in the world.

When he finished, everyone seemed to let out a big sigh, and then we had a few minutes

to purchase some prints or postcards if we so chose. Once everyone was outside, we moved to

14the center of town, and we had another hour to shop and eat lunch. I abandoned everyone else to

go find some food, and I ended up at yet another shawarma restaurant. Instead of ordering

another disappointing falafel pita, though, I bought a shawarma wrap.

This was so much more satisfying than that disgusting thing I had on the first day. This

had the right amount of fat so that it felt decadent and satisfying, and I got the right amount of

creaminess from the garlic-y hummus spread on the inside of the pita, crunch from the tomatoes,

cucumbers, and onions integrated throughout, and chewiness from the heavily seasoned chicken

that warmed up the rest of the ingredients. I liked it so much that I gobbled it down so fast that it

was gone much more quickly than I thought I was eating it.

As I deposited the paper wrapper in a trash can, I spied a bakery across the street. Being a

lover of pastries, baked goods, and sugar in general, I looked both ways to make sure no cars

would run me over, and then ran over to see what they had. I’ve always got room for dessert.

15

The way this bakery worked is that you grabbed a box, filled it with what you wanted,

and they weighed it and priced it at the register. As I looked around at all that they had to offer, a

few people from my trip came in and looked around as well. Two of those people bought babkas,

which are essentially sweet chocolate Challah breads, and I heavily considered buying one too,

but I probably would have eaten the whole loaf in a day or two, and I already felt like I was

letting myself go a little too much, so what did I do instead? I bought myself six different

pastries. One was a sufganiyot, which is a jelly-filled, powdered sugar covered doughnut.

They’re in the boxes on the bottom row in the picture, and they’re typically a Hanukkah treat. It

was a week or two past Hanukkah at this point, but when it comes to doughnuts, who cares. Two

of the other pastries I purchased were filled with lemon curd (middle left in the picture). I also

got a chocolate croissant (not Israeli, but delicious), a chocolate-filled puff pastry square

(basically the same thing as a croissant, but in a square shape), and a za’atar coated roll. Za’atar

is a Middle Eastern spice blend that consists of sesame seeds, sumac, oregano, and cumin, and

while it can be dusted on chicken or fish, it’s most typically used on bread or pita in combination

with a drizzle of olive oil. So while not dessert, it was a treat, and it was the first thing I enjoyed

on my trek back to the meeting place. I enjoyed the doughnut and the chocolate square on the

bus to our next destination, which was a farm.

16We went to pick broccoli for the hungry for an hour and a half. When I woke up from my

nap, most people seemed to be excited about picking vegetables. Admittedly, I was too. I was

ready to move my legs and discover what picking broccoli would be like, because I’d never done

it before.

The bus let us off in the front of the farm, so we had to walk through a field of beets and

another field of cabbage before we reached the broccoli. Upon our arrival, one of the owners

gave us five gallon buckets and knives and told us to cut the dark green ones, unless the lighter

green ones were very large. Once we had a full bucket, we would dump it into the shipping

crates placed inside the wide row going through the middle of the field. Now that we had our

mission, we split off into one or two people per row, and we all started cutting.

I worked across from Louisa, who worked in admissions at New Hampshire College. She

really liked to take selfies: every once in awhile, she would pull out her camera, snap a pic of

herself, look at it, laugh, and then put it back in her pocket. I basically ignored her in favor of

filling my bucket up with extremely fresh broccoli.

Once my bucket was full, though, I pushed my way through the individual broccoli plants

(the opposite way of the way you’re supposed to go, which would have been to backtrack

through the row and walk through the center aisle towards the middle of the field) and deposited

my finds into the growing pile in the shipping crate. Louisa’s bucket was only about half full, but

she followed my lead.

“Hey, can you climb into the crate?”

“What?” Her question seemed very out-of-the-blue.

“I want to take a picture of you inside the pile of broccoli.”

17Well, I knew she wouldn’t kill me if I said no, but it was just a picture and it would be

fun anyway. “Sure, OK.”

So I stood in a bunch of broccoli and hoped that the farm or the distributors would wash

it before they sent it out.

***

The next morning, we packed up our suitcases and travelled to Jerusalem, where we

would spend about three days of our trip. We visited the military graves on Mount Hertzel and

went to Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust museum. We went on another guided tour, although

with a guide the museum provided, and at the end, she led us to the children’s memorial.

Although the entire museum is exceedingly depressing, the kids’ memorial is truly

heartbreaking; for the 1.5 million children who died, there are only six known names. The

memorial is set up outside of the main museum, and inside, you walk down a dark catwalk, with

1.5 million lights hanging around you. The six names are repeated over and over in the

background.

18That night was New Year’s Eve. We were supposed to have a night out in Jerusalem, but

there was a rumor going around that there was political unrest in the city, so instead, the

Birthright organization organized a big party for all of the trips around Jerusalem at the time. I

went, because it was mandatory, but I brought Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and I sat outside

the dance hall and read. A few people from my trip tried to make me excited on the bus ride

there, but once we were inside the building, everyone else scattered, and I was happy to be left

alone for a little bit.

Overall, the night was uneventful. I ate a 20 shekel ($5) overcooked hot dog just before

midnight and slept soundly until the wake up time the next morning.

***

Because we were staying in a dormitory, we ate in a traditional cafeteria. And what did

this cafeteria serve? A very limited selection of food from Sodexo. At least in Ithaca, there’s an

attempt at incorporating some local food and there’s a salad bar, pizza, burgers, a main entree,

etc, but in this cafeteria, there was the main option, a vegetarian option, and then a smattering of

extras like yogurts at breakfast and dips at dinner.

I looked down at my rather sad plate of two “cheese blintzes,” if that's what Sodexo

wanted to call them, and followed the line of my fellow trip mates to the connected condiment

bar.

I sighed and looked at the wonderful, vast selection of sliced red and green peppers and

cucumbers along with two or three different containers of white and beige sludge. I wrinkled my

nose and turned around to the metal water keg, but I saw something shiny out of the corner of my

eye.

19“Is that chocolate pudding?” I walked over to the back counter, where rows of different

plastic covered cartons swam in semi-melted ice.

“I think so,” Reuben, who worked as some kind of engineer in DC and who I had talked

to about aerial silks at dinner the previous night, said. While I went for what I was pretty sure

was a strawberry yogurt, he picked a container of the chocolate custard up and placed it on his

tray.

“Really?” I said. I didn’t mean for it to slip out, but I hadn’t had chocolate pudding in

years, and it was breakfast. Who eats any kind of pudding for breakfast?

Luckily, he didn’t take any offense (he didn’t seem to anyway), and he said, “Yeah, why

not? We are in Israel, after all.” He went to go get a glass of water and I followed him all the way

to the long table, where I tried to avoid thinking about what I was putting into my mouth.

***

I loved the Israel Museum. It reminded me of the V&A in London in that it was an art

museum that you could get lost in, and you’re never quite sure what’s lurking around the next

corner. It probably also helped that going meant that we would be inside on a rainy, chilly day,

and that we could run around unattended for three hours. I saw an unfinished Andy Warhol in

one of the back rooms that I loved entitled “The Last Supper (Mr. Peanut).” It was a humorous,

unexpected injection of Americanism into my day, and it featured the basic image of The Last

Supper. All of the saints were lined up at the table, with Mr. Peanut floating above the person

next to Jesus and a big GE logo in the top right-hand corner. It reminded me of 30 Rock and that

I would be home in a few days, so seeing it was refreshing, and it helped motivate me to be

pleasant to my tripmates. There was also a special exhibition called “Happy Birthday,” and one

20piece featured in it was a giant plastic cake, probably about eight feet in diameter, with a piece

sliced out of it. It made me giggle.

Before we left, I ordered a hot chocolate from the cafe, just to preemptively ward off the

cold wetness outside. They poured a thick chocolate syrup into the bottom of the cup and then

streamed warm milk on top, so it was a real hot chocolate and not some powdered crap like we

enjoy here in the USA. The worker gave me a spoon to go with it, because otherwise, I’d pretty

much just be drinking hot milk until I hit the bottom of the cup. For the last fifteen minutes I was

in the museum, I sat on a bench near the entrance. I savored every drop of that just-sweet-enough

decadence and watched all of the people around me interact.

***

From the museum, we went to a conventional mall for lunch and had (you guessed it) an

hour until we had to be back on the bus. I walked around for a bit, assessing what restaurants

were there and if I could buy gifts for my family there, but I was extremely underwhelmed. I

ended up not buying any gifts, because I found nothing suitable, and the falafel pita I got for

lunch was probably one of the worst meals I’ve ever eaten.

The yogurt sauce glopped on the top was watery and flavorless. The falafel crumbled to

bits and tasted like cat food (and believe me, I’ve actually eaten cat food, and it does not taste

21good). The lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers inside didn’t seem to be particularly fresh

because they also didn’t have much taste or much crunch.

As I sat down at a table, Katie, another girl from my trip, who is a Home Economics

teacher from Texas, sat down across from me with a large bag of McDonald’s. I took a bite from

my pita and complained about how bad it was. She unwrapped her Spicy Chicken Sandwich and

mentioned how pricy it seemed to be.

“I got three of these, plus a large fry and a soda, and it was 120 shekels. That seems like

too much to me, right?”

“What is that, like $30? Yeah, that’s pricey.” I took another bite and actually regretted

that I hadn’t gotten McDonald’s or Pizza Hut. “Well, this thing was about $4, and it tastes like

shit, so…”

“Yeah, I bought so much because there’s no way I’m eating more of that cafeteria food.”

“I know, right? We’re supposed to be on a culinary trip and here they are feeding us

prison food, essentially.”

“I know.” We both ate in silence until I had enough of my gross pita.

“I’m just gonna toss this and see what else is around. I’ll catch you on the bus.” Katie

nodded and I threw the third of the sandwich I had left into the trash. I ended up visiting a chain

bakery and buying a few cookies and a large bialy because I just wanted to soothe what that

falafel had done to my appetite and my soul.

***

The next morning, as I walked into the cafeteria and saw the men working behind the

buffet wearing those button down blue shirts with the red name tags, my heart fell even further

22into my stomach. I grabbed my tray, plate, and utensils, and with each step forward I told myself

that I had to eat, or otherwise, I would starve until lunchtime.

The other group of people staying in the dormitory with us was already there. They were

a conservative Judaism focused birthright group, but we didn’t see much of them. My true love

could have been sitting at one of those long, off white formica tables and I will never know.

Regardless, today they were serving cardboard-like pancakes, and they were only

handing them out two at a time. Those pancakes were about as big as my fist, so I have no idea

how they thought that two of them would be enough to fuel anyone, let alone the larger males on

my trip. Also, Sodexo didn’t provide us with syrup that day, but they did have a big bowl of what

I thought was Nutella, but later learned was just a highly processed chocolate spread4. Yum.

The sides of peppers and cucumbers looked even worse than they did the day before, but

the tub full of ice and yogurt still stood in the back. I hustled over there for something that I

might actually enjoy eating, but there weren’t any strawberry yogurts out, and eating plain yogurt

is just as unappealing as eating small, dry pancakes that have obviously haven’t even been made

freshly from a mix. They’ve been sent frozen, just as they are, and heated up in their humongous

industrial oven.

The chocolate puddings were still there, though. I turned around to try to find Reuben,

but he was gesturing wildly to one of my roommates at the end of the line. I looked down at the

two sad, chocolate spread smothered pancakes on my plate and just said fuck it. I was on

vacation anyway, and I certainly hadn’t cared about what I was eating when I had that falafel pita

and gelato on the first day.

4 Yes, technically Nutella is “just a highly processed chocolate spread” as well, but at least they’re working on cleaning it up and making it nutritious. The spread that I ate on this occasion was probably literally all sugar.

23I grabbed one of those chocolate puddings and enjoyed it while I sat at the table and

remembered my childhood. It tasted exactly the same as those Jello chocolate and vanilla swirl

pudding cups that my mom would buy on occasion as treats for my dad and I when I was

younger. I ran it through my teeth and thought about how much processing it took to create

everything that I’d eaten that morning, and I was glad that I would be coming back to America

so that I could be in control of what I was eating a few days afterwards.

***

The last night we had to eat in the Sodexo-catered cafeteria, one of the Israeli soldiers

travelling with us suggested that we order sushi, so after we “ate” some kind of meatballs made

with fish, she ordered three gigantic party platters, and we all convened in one of the open

classrooms across the street.

We ordered so much sushi that the restaurant gave us whole bottles of soy sauce to

accompany the rolls, but we were all so hungry and fed up with the cafeteria food that we

polished it off in eight minutes.

***

That night, we packed up our stuff again, but this time, we packed ourselves small bags

with all of our essentials in addition to our large suitcases. We were heading off to the Bedouin

Tents for the night, and then the next day, we would be hiking Masada and visiting the Dead Sea,

24so we had to pack an outfit suitable for mountain climbing, a towel, a bathing suit, and

everything else we needed in order to be hygienic.

We spent most of the day on the bus, and once we got to the tents, we attended a

sustainable cooking workshop, in which the tent-dwellers explained how they created and used

satellite dishes and other kinds of found equipment in order to cook their food. We then had a

talk with the chief of the Bedouins, and he showed us how they made their coffee and tea. The

coffee was far too bitter for me (I don’t enjoy coffee much anyway), and their tea was too sweet.

But then we had an hour or so to relax before we filed into the dining area for dinner.

Eight of us gathered around the table and ate with our hands the way many, many

cultures do around the world. Using bread as a utensil is amazing and I enjoy it fully whether I’m

eating Indian food, Moroccan food, Israeli food, Ethiopian food, you name it. It helps that I just

love bread, but the foods that you pick up with the bread have to be delicious as well, and they

sure were here. We had juicy chicken drumsticks, lamb meatballs, couscous, hummus, tabbouli,

cabbage salad, and it all played together nicely no matter what ratio you had in your hand. This

was the first time I felt like I was eating real food during the trip––sure, while eating pita and

sweets and street food is great, I knew that this was grown from the earth, was fresh, and was

lovingly cooked by people who cared.

25Breakfast was much less exciting, because it wasn’t served community-style, and we had

to eat it pretty quickly, because we had a jam-packed day. To hike Masada, we went up the

Roman Stairs, which as my lovely iPhone 6 told me, was about 25 flights of stairs in 20 minutes.

Needless to say, I was sweating by the time we reached the top. I ended up next to Reuben again

and complained about how I needed to get back into shape. He sympathized, and before Boaz

started lecturing, we talked about the importance of cardio in a well-rounded workout schedule.

We both agreed, though, that strength training was also important, because only doing cardio

means that you’d simply become a smaller version of yourself, and strength training builds

muscle, which burns off more calories in the long run.

Boaz started his tour then, and we spent about two hours exploring the ruins of King

Herod’s castle at the top of the mountain before hiking down the aptly-named long-ass winding

Snake Trail. At least we were going downhill to grab some lunch before heading to the Dead

Sea.

I did pack a bathing suit and towel in my backpack, but I wasn’t comfortable with the

idea of going into the Dead Sea. I felt bloated, greasy, sweaty, and dirty from having not

showered and from sleeping in a tent the previous night, and I knew that we would have to sit on

the bus for a couple of hours afterwards… Regardless, I still filed into the bathroom/changing

room with the rest of my female trip-mates and shimmied into my bikini. I was super thankful

that my mom had given me a cover up before the trip as I glanced down at my stomach

protruding over my bathing suit bottoms.

By the time I got out to the beach and the sea, most of my trip-mates were in the water,

floating around. I was still torn about going in because I didn’t feel comfortable with how my

body looked and how I felt, but I was in another country in front of a body of water like no other

26in the world. People starting noticing that I was standing there and started calling my name,

urging me to come into the water.

Oh, alright, I decided, and I threw off my cover up, deposited it next to my towel, and

stepped in, not sure what to expect. Once the water was at about waist height, my feet left the

ground, and then I started to float on my stomach. I paddled out to the rest of my trip-mates and

watched them have fun floating on their backs and their stomachs. After a while, Boaz called for

us to come back to shore, and so we all came in and wrapped ourselves in our towels before

heading back to the changing rooms.

My issue with the Dead Sea is that they don’t have any showers in the changing rooms,

so because I wore jeans in order to hike Masada, I didn’t want to get sand all over them, but that

involved me showering outside, so I had to wear my dirty bathing suit under my clothes, which

made me feel even grimier, dirtier, and smellier than I’d been before I went swimming. And

even though I didn’t know what it was called at the time, it ended up giving me impetigo5 all

over my upper back. It doesn’t help that I was stuck in my bathing suit and my sweat-infused

clothes for five or so hours because not only were we going back to Tel Aviv that night, but we

had the privilege to visit one of the soldier’s homes.

5 A bacterial skin infection. It causes red sores that can break open, ooze fluid, and develop a yellow - brown crust (thanks, WebMD!)

27

His family was so generous in welcoming our nasty, filthy, Dead Sea-y asses into their

home, and they had tables upon tables of falafel, pita, french fries, and all of the accompaniments

such as hummus and tahini. They also had a few pizzas and a grocery store’s worth of juices and

sodas… it really was an incredible welcoming.

After we met the Israeli soldier’s parents, sister, and girlfriend, his father and a few of his

father’s friends took us downstairs and showed us their shul (their in-the-building community

synagogue). It was pretty small and basic, with white walls and about seventy five or so theater-

style seats, but they said they’d fit over two hundred people in the space before. They attempted

to tell a few jokes, showed us their torah, and explained how spirituality worked for them, and

they would have loved to tell us more, but we had to get to Tel Aviv so we could go for our

second night out.

We got to the hotel, moved our stuff into our rooms, and had about an hour and a half to

shower and get dressed up. I think I was the last person to shower (out of the three girls in my

room), but I didn’t particularly care because at least I could shower, and I didn’t bring any make-

up with me, so it didn’t take me all that much time to get ready. When the time came, we were

led to a few acceptable bars, shown the meeting place, told we were supposed to meet at 1 A.M.,

28and then, we scattered. I ended up sitting outside the bar closest to the meeting place with Boaz,

Shoshana, and Julia (from New York, graphic designer. She saw that I was reading Rebecca and

said that she’d worked on a design for the back cover of a different edition a few years ago. She

also confessed that she had a crush on Boaz.). I didn’t drink that night; I was too tired and

already felt like crap from the Dead Sea and eating too much white bread (pita) and fried/fatty

foods (falafel, shawarma, schnitzel, etc), but that didn’t stop me from going with a few others to

buy an ice cream sandwich. Reuben, a few others, and I all went down the street two blocks and

around the corner to Cookeez, which had caught all of our eyes on the walk to the various bars

we could visit.

Sandwiched between a vegan chocolate peanut butter cookie and a whole wheat

chocolate chip cookie is cheesecake-flavored gelato, and while it wasn’t the most incredible

thing I’ve ever eaten, it certainly satisfied my sweet tooth, and after we all finished, we headed

back to the meeting place bar, and I resumed my previous seat. The rest of the night was nothing

special––I sat in my seat at the bar and crossed the street to the meeting place at 12:55 A.M. I fell

asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next day, or really, later that day, we visited the Tel Aviv City Hall and we visited

the artist’s market. I bought most of my gifts for my family at the market, and that night, the last

night, we went to a cooking workshop, and we cooked a huge, communal dinner.

29

This isn’t even half of the table! The actual workshop itself was poorly organized and

run, but the end product was delicious, savory, and satisfying. I helped make the kabobs (which

really weren’t kabobs, they were just small meat patties because they weren’t put onto sticks at

any point) and a beet and apple salad. But others made tahini, lemon chicken, falafel, tabbouli,

chocolate cake, shakshuka, fish… let’s just say that there were more than fifty people eating and

we had enough food left over to make about thirty boxes to donate to charity.

The next morning, most of the trip left at six or so, so I heard my roommates pack up

their stuff and leave, but I didn’t actually wake up to say goodbye because I had the extension

and would fly home at 12:30 A.M. the next morning.

While I hadn’t made any new friends for life or found myself a lover, I had a lot of fun

and I solidified my agnosticism. The night before the trip, while my mom was checking what I

had packed in my suitcase, my dad told me not to come back wanting to make aliyah, which

means wanting to move to Israel and become an Israeli citizen. I have never been religious, and

the only reason why I decided to go was because I like to travel, and it was free and food-

focused. I looked him in the eye and told him that it wouldn’t happen, and guess what, I’m an

American through and through.

30On the trip, I felt a bit like Dina, the narrator of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere… although I

don’t feel like I was as unlikeable as she was, and I certainly was friendlier, I did want to be an

outcast. I went on the trip for myself, because I wanted to go experience the food in another

country, not because I wanted to make friends. People did reach out to me, and I responded to

them, but I’ve always been introverted and self-centered. No one was mean to me or hurt my

feelings, but I’ve always been more comfortable on my own. I am a part of the Facebook group,

and I’m Facebook friends with maybe five or ten of the people from the trip, but I didn’t get to

know them well enough for me to call them friends in real life. I won’t be returning to Israel

anytime soon, and I have also decided that I would never eat falafel again and that I would stay

away from fried foods as much as I possibly could. When I got home, I didn’t eat until dinner,

and all I wanted were some fresh vegetables and a not-deep fried protein like a roasted chicken

breast or baked salmon. Luckily, that’s exactly what I got, a simple mom-made meal of roasted

broccoli and butternut squash with baked pork tenderloin. I passed out at 8 P.M., just minutes

after I finished eating, only to wake up at 9 the next morning. My mom took me to get my back

checked out at the local CVS, where I got antibiotics, and then, I didn’t have to do anything until

the start of my last semester of college at the end of January.