Stephen, second from left, with his new friends

“The British tanks will not get stuck in the mud like Canaanite chariots, and the sea has not closed in on the British Navy as it did on Pharaoh’s army. The age of miracles is gone, David.”

“It is not gone! Our very existence is a miracle….”
—Exodus by Leon Uris

I was hooked on this stuff. David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Ari Ben Canaan—I just couldn’t get enough. For months I had been reading everything I could get my hands on about Israel.  Every story I read and every fun fact I learned only fueled my strange obsession with the Jewish state. After finishing Exodus, my mind was made up: I was moving to Israel.

Of course, at 15, I thought I was only dreaming. Then one day, while reading about Israel online, I stumbled upon a link to a program that promised everything I had been looking for: a three-year, all-expenses-paid program at the Mosenzon Youth Village in Hod HaSharon that would allow me to finish my studies in Israel. It sounded too good to be true. I asked my mother if I could go to a boarding school in Israel, to which I quickly got a stern, “No!” But 10 months later, I was on a plane to Israel to start a new life in a land I had only read about.

Life in Israel started out with many surprises and, as the year went on, they kept coming. My classes were taught in Hebrew, and I focused on learning the language. I attended school with other new immigrants, with whom I would be integrated into the regular Israeli educational system during the next two years. It was a large adjustment for me, having just gotten used to being the only child still living at home. My new “family” came from all over the world. The only thing we initially had in common was our interest in Israel. Adjusting to two roommates, coed dorm buildings and suddenly having my peers become my family was a lot to handle.

For the first time, I found there were real consequences to leaving my towels on the bathroom floor! If you let your bathroom go, you may very well find that your toilet is taken away while you’re in class. It became almost a nightly ritual to wake up to a blood-curdling scream from one of the girls, which could have originated from anything from a spider to a boy playing a prank. I learned to lock my door at night, lest I get an unexpected visit from a friend or counselor with way too much time on their hands.

Coming from a very non-Jewish community in Oregon, I had never really had any Jewish friends or, for that matter, met an Israeli. I had always thought of myself as a moderately religious Jew, until I found myself being called a heathen for my less-than-kosher eating habits. I found myself immersed in myriad Jewish beliefs. There were atheist Russians, Chabad New Yorkers and everything else in between. I had gone from being “the Jewish kid” to feeling that my identity was based solely on my actions and not my beliefs.

I quickly realized that my stay wasn’t going to resemble Hogwarts. I learned many of the workings of boarding school by making mistakes and listening to someone yell at me in Hebrew until I corrected the problem. I found myself learning half of my subjects via hand motions. But language and a six-day week were the least of the differences between American and Israeli classrooms. I went from reading Shakespeare in English class to conjugating Hebrew verbs. A field trip was no longer a trip to the aquarium, but rather a six-hour hike through the Negev Desert.

The difference in the student-teacher relationship was such that it eventually stopped surprising me when I saw a teacher and student getting in a shouting match, which ended in the teacher, student and occasionally both walking out of the class. A girl complained of the heat, and she got a cup of water splashed on her. Even student council is different in Israel; we don’t plan dances, but petition (albeit unsuccessfully) for soap and toilet paper in the bathrooms. But in the end, somehow I was able to come out of it knowing a satisfactory amount of Hebrew to return for another year of classes taught only in Hebrew.

During my time in Israel, my image of the Jewish state changed, as it naturally would. Just as all Americans aren’t alike, I learned the same was very much true for Israelis. I found that Israelis have changed drastically from the idealistic days of Israel’s founding. I have yet to find someone whom I would compare to Ari Ben Canaan. On many occasions, I found Israelis to be a very rude and obnoxious people. And I found that their political and religious beliefs were as diverse as their backgrounds. Although I soon figured out that I wasn’t in the Israel of Leon Uris, I came to accept and love it as it is.

My first year of life in Israel was my most life-changing year to date. I was able to get over my original infatuation with the Jewish state. I learned to live alone, but at the same time to be able to rely on my peers to always be there for me when I needed them. There were days when I would sit in my bed wishing with all my might that I could just eat Panda Express alone in a room of my own. But there were also times when I dreaded the day that I would have to leave my new family for the two-month summer break. My idealistic view of Israel had been replaced with a respectful and more realistic understanding.

The only thing I know about next year is that it will be nothing like I imagine.

Stephen Staszewski is an 11th-grader attending Mosenzon Youth Village in Hod HaSharon, Israel. He’s from Eugene, Ore., and enjoys traveling around the world and going on adventures with his friends.