Hi there everyone! Ma Nishma?

All is well here at the Ulpan. Last week I started the project up in the north of Israel with Efrat, teaching Hebrew to a group of young people from Australia. The kibbutz is only 40 minutes away from the Kineret and is really beautiful. We received a great welcome from the people there who are very warm and friendly and the students seem to be a lot of fun. I am starting to think that there may well be worse places to work and live for six weeks…..
During the project I will be living on the kibbutz from Sunday to Wednesday and then Thursday, I will be teaching students in Tel Aviv. What a contrast!
Last Thursday was one of my students, Batya's last lesson. Batya has been coming all the way from Beer Sheva to study with us here at Tel Aviv and it was quite emotional to say goodbye to her. We both felt as if we had travelled a quite a journey together. It was intense at times but amazing to see how Batya's self-confidence as well as her Hebrew skills. We hope to see her back here soon. Well done Batya!
Well I need to go and finish the preparation for the Australian students' lessons this morning and so I wish you all Shavua Tov!

Shalom le kulam! Ma shlomchem?

I hope that you all enjoyed Rosh HaShana as much as I did. Hearing the shofar sounding out in all the synagogues at this time is always an incredibly special time for me and for the nation in general. This week I have had 2 Dutch students learning Hebrew with me. One of them, Bram, (who you have all hopefully read about in the Ulpan Aviv’s Tishrei newsletter…), was back from Holland this week and started his 2nd course with us. It was great to see him back again and even better to see that he has not lost any of his Hebrew whilst he was back in Holland! Our other Dutch student is doing an intensive, intensive course… There are many students who visit Israel for only a very short time but still want to have an opportunity to learn Hebrew all the same. For this group of students, we offer the possibility of doing an Aviv course in just 5 days, studying 5hrs a day instead of 2½ hours a day for 10 days. It really is an intensive course, but I am happy to say that Rob made great progress in that week and we look forward to studying with him again. Another of our students, who is a nurse, has already tried 3 other Ulpan programs before coming to us. Her major frustration was to not be able to put in to active practice what she had been learning. Although we have also been looking at grammar, Vicki has enjoyed having the opportunity to express herself verbally and shows great promise in this area! Well, only 24 hours until Yom Kippur and although it is a hard time is always a special time for me, with the hope of redemption and a clean start for the coming year. I wish you all an easy fast and look forward to my next blog just before Succot and my moving to the North for the next few months.