For the first post of the newest cohort, Gabby Polyakov shares her reflections on our Orientation. Enjoy!
Hello everyone!
An amazing experience has just begun!
•We are the 8th cohort of LA Diller Teen Fellows•
We are all embarking on a new journey of creating a Jewish Identity, practicing Leadership, connecting with Israel, and practicing Tikkun Olam.
This past Sunday was our first workshop and orientation. Sami and our Junior Counselors, Rachel and Leora, led us through a lot of different activities which helped us get to know everyone else in the room. We started by introducing ourselves by saying our name and, either saying our name backwards, saying a nickname, or spelling our name with our butt. After this, we went through the program summary, calendar, and fellows responsibilities. After hearing what this program is all about, I became very excited to start the Diller program.
Our next activity was the Meeting Clock. Everyone went around and scheduled when to meet the other fellows. When a certain time was called, we met up with the person in that time slot and discussed the topic that was presented to us. At this workshop we got to meet four different people. We talked about our most disliked food, most embarrassing moment, what we did over summer, and what our personal hashtag would be if we had one. We had three minutes to talk about each topic. It may seem like a short amount of time, but my group always had extra time left over.
After the Meeting Cock, we shifted gears, and started talking about what it means to be part of the 8th Cohort of Los Angeles Diller Fellows. We were split up into five groups to make small skits to describe what each word meant. Each group had a different approach to describe their word. It was very interesting to see the different interpretations. Then, as a whole, we talked about what it meant to be in this very special program.
After this,we created our first project as a group.. It was a rolling wall. Everybody had a piece to contribute. From both of these activities we learned that each big project has smaller components in it and in order to accomplish the task, we need teamwork.
After this,we created another object as a whole group. We made a Community Kotel with our own “blocks”. Each person received a “block” and we wrote our names, something that we want to focus on in this program, and something that we can share and teach to others. Each block of the Kotel was a representation of each individual part of this big program.
Our parents joined us at this point for the second part of the welcome meeting. We watched everyones’ introduction videos. I was nervous about showing my video to the others, because I thought it was uncomfortable and weird, but after it was done, I was relieved. I realized that a lot of others were also feeling the same way. After all of the videos were done, the parents and the fellows separated into different groups of three families in each. We talked about this midrash and we discussed our names, their meanings, and more:
“Every man has three names: one by which his parents call him; another, by which he is known to the outside world; and a third, the name which his own deeds have procured for him.” -Tanchuma Vayakkhel
The junior counselors took the fellows out of the room and we asked them any questions that we had. We played more name games, Indian Chief, and Categories.
Overall, this first meeting was exciting. Between all the workshops, retreats, North American Seminar, projects, and Israel, we are all ready to engage in this wonderful journey of new friends and many great memories!
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