Welcome to our newest cohort of Fellows!
To start the year off strong, we have a first post from one of our new fellows, Hannah Rapoport!
We began this 15-month long journey on Sunday by walking
into a room filled with people we had never met before. Sami led us through a multitude of activities
the entire day that helped us meet new people, and start to get to know each other. We started off
with a name game where we told the group what we did over vacation, then
repeated everyone else’s name and what they did. Although we all had amazing
summers, we are all excited to start Diller.
We also went around and filled peoples names into time slots in 'meeting clock'. When a time was called, we met
with the scheduled person and talked about things like our most embarrassing
moment and our favorite food. We also
got to know somethings we had in common with people when we created a human knot
and crossed arms with someone we had something in common with.
Then, we went
around the room and put our initials on five pages with Values we most connected
with. We then met with bigger groups, and eventually came to an agreement (or Brit) that
on our five values of our Cohort were leadership, friendship, Jewish identity,
community, and Tikkun Olam.
Coincidentally, three of the five words we chose are all pillars of Diller!
We then had a meeting with our parents where
we discussed in small groups a midrash about names and identity. After the welcome meeting with parents, we
went back into the room where our incredible junior counselors Michelle and Shana answered
questions we had about Israel, and the program in general. We then played a competitive game of
Categories. Overall, between our monthly
meetings, weekend retreats, North American Seminar, and Israel, we are all
really excited about the new experiences and memories that lay in the coming
year!
