Yitzhak-Rabin-O-Rama!!!!

Last Thursday marked 11 years since Yitzhak Rabin’s unfortunate death. To celebrate, the Americans and Frenchies joined forces against our will and practiced all week long for what was to be the tekes (ceremony) of the millennium! In the previous chapter of this saga, we were left with an alluring cliffhanger as I accidentally and drunkenly volunteered myself to recite two lines from the biography of Mr. Rabin during the 11th annual Merkaz Klitah Ye’elim tekes. This sanction came with an additional burden: I would have to perform my speech in costume.
Before you question my sentiment, let me just inform you that I don’t get dressed. Ever. My classroom is 2 flights of stairs and about the length of my second tow (albeit the longest toe on my foot) away from my apartment, and I therefore vowed never to set foot inside the room in anything besides sweatpants. Thanks to the former prime minister, I was forced to break my oath of living standards and adorn jeans and a white top for the tekes. Bah!
Anyway, I was a little embarrassed to read the 12 words in front of the entire school. Why, might you ask? First of all, I came to this country at the bottom of the Hebrew level latter. In other words, while many of my peers were already fluent or on their way there, I could barely tell the difference between a gimmel and a daled. I still have to draw out a five and then erase the top in order to correctly sribbble a script tsadik! In addition, class is mainly taught orally, so I’m still a little bit illiterate. I read Hebrew about as skillfully as a blind first grader with dyslexia. Not only that, but I can’t actually pronounce United States in Hebrew, and my section happened to be the one about how in 1968 Rabin was Israel’s ambassador to the goddamn bee’artsot habreet or whatever. I’m also fairly certain that my American accent makes me sound like a trashy hick, mostly because I haven’t quite figured out how to pronounce the Israeli R-sound.
When my time came to read, I gripped the microphone with my right hand and held my transliteration cheat sheet in my left as I did my best to read without stuttering. When it was all over, I looked up to see expressions of bewilderment on the faces of the dirty Russians in the audience. I continued to search through the crowd for a smile, and landed on my madricha, or program counselor/director. Yael was absolutely beaming, with what she later called the joy of a proud parent. She lied through her teeth that my accent was "one of the best," but at least I'm kinda sorta able to pronounce "kol kach" correctly.
Wow, that was a long-winded tale about a 30-minute tekes that occurred last Thursday morning. I headed up to Tel Aviv Friday morning for some hardcore shopping and harder core partying. Saturday, the only thing open in Tel Aviv (and perhaps the entire nation!) was the art museum. After an unfulfilling stroll through the Israeli modern art exhibit, I headed toward impressionist and post-impressionist wing, even though I can’t actually differentiate between the two. I met face to face with my sworn enemy, Cezanne, and laughed in the face of his horrid constructive stroke. After we all felt sufficiently cultured, we headed toward Rabin Square for the super mega tekes!
I’d have more to report about this event if I actually knew what happened. All I know is I met up with a bunch of other people from OTZMA and we somehow found ourselves in the front row of this massive rally of boisterous youth who were protesting every issue from Palestine to Peace. I’m not even joking about that either – I was violently sidechecked by some angry lesbians who were shackled together by a huge metal chain after another bastard heckled us for wearing "shalom achshav” (peace now) shirts because he said they were inappropriate. How any of this had to do with the life or death of Yitzhak Rabin, I’m not really sure, but simply being there and standing shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, face to back, heel to toe, essentially squeezed like Krembo candy with thousands of hippies was somewhat exciting. The songs were in Hebrew, the speeches were in Hebrew, but besides the whole language barrier thing, I’m glad I was able to experience the Jewish see-and-be-seen event of the year.