This summer, Gabriela Kipnis hoped to climb Masada at sunrise. She expected to eat falafel on Dizengoff and swim in the Dead Sea. Instead, she found herself working in the San Francisco offices of the Jewish Community Relations Council. But through her internship there, she still felt connected to Israel, which she has visited three times.
Kipnis, 15, of Berkeley, was one of the several hundred Bay Area teens who suddenly found themselves scrambling for something to do this summer when their Israel trips were canceled because of the current unrest.
In early June, just weeks before some of the teens were scheduled to leave for Israel, the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay, the Koret Foundation and the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education canceled the trips, citing security concerns.
Kipnis was scheduled to go on the East Bay community trip. When it was canceled, she didn’t find one thing to do, she found three. In addition to her JCRC internship, she was a junior counselor at Camp Kee Tov, run by Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El, which she described as “tons of fun,” and also took some speech and debate classes at Stanford University.
And while she enjoyed all three, she said it had been stressful to line them all up on such short notice.
“It was hard to find something that would be at all appealing, considering the disappointment I was feeling,” she said. “Under other circumstances, all the programs would have sounded great, but nothing could compete with Israel.”
While at the JCRC, Kipnis monitored the San Francisco Chronicle every day, to look for bias in its Middle East reporting.
The JCRC had begun monitoring the local newspaper in January, comparing the stories it ran by Associated Press and the New York Times Wire Service with their original versions. “The point of my work was to see if anything has changed,” she said.
Kipnis enjoyed her work, as it kept her feeling connected to Israel, and “doing my part in support of the situation.”
Andrew Shane, 16, of Oakland, was also scheduled to go on the East Bay trip. He is glad to report that at least he saw the Mediterranean Sea, but it wasn’t from the coast of Tel Aviv. Instead, he saw it from Tunisia.
Shane’s family was planning to rent an apartment in Paris this summer, and Shane was going to meet them there after the Israel trip. But after the cancellation, he joined his family in Paris and also accompanied them on a six-day trip to Tunisia.
Shane described himself as “really torn.” His parents would have allowed him to go to Israel, had the trip not been canceled, and “I was really looking forward to it.”
So Shane exchanged the cafes of Dizengoff and Ben Yehuda for those of Boulevard St. Michel. Shane’s family spent part of last summer in Paris as well, so “I’ve gotten to know the city and the Metro system really well. I hung out around the city and didn’t do as much touristy stuff this time.”
He spent a lot of time in cafes, doing his summer reading. He also visited Normandy and Giverny, where Monet painted his famous water lilies.
“It wasn’t a bad substitute,” Shane said of his summer. “It was really fun. I still got to go to that area and see the Mediterranean. I plan to go next year if things calm down, but a lot can happen between now and then.”
Another East Bay Community trip member, Zachary Appleby-Leo, 16, of Berkeley, found himself working at Claremont Meats, a local deli and meat market. “Not that interesting of an alternative,” he admitted. He’s also joined a martial arts studio, and “just hung out and took it easy.”
Still, he said, “A lot of people I know did nothing,” and at least he has been “earning pretty good money.”
Next year, Appleby-Leo is hoping to be able to do more than simply go to Israel for the summer; he wants to spend his senior year of high school there.
He was disappointed because “I know it had a very maturing effect on the kids; I saw how my older brother changed, having gone on it.”
Another teen whose trip was canceled could win a prize for most original summer job held by a Jewish boy. While David Landis, 16, of Redwood City, was guaranteed a certain kind of religious education if he went to Israel, he received another one entirely from working at Oakwood, a Menlo Park convalescent home for nuns.
Landis, who was supposed to join the BJE trip, got the job through a friend who quit, and is working the front desk, answering phones and helping whoever wanders in.
Landis often takes messages from people requesting that a nun pray for a particular individual.
Landis has learned quite a bit about the nuns’ lives and how they have changed since the 1960s.
“Before, they were confined to one area and couldn’t leave this campus; they had to be inside at all times,” he said. “But now they don’t have to dress any particular way; they are a lot more free.”
Landis, who is a musician, was able to use some of his summer earnings to buy a four-track machine to record his music off eBay. “I wouldn’t have gotten such a good deal on it if I were in Israel,” he said. Nonetheless, he was still disappointed that he didn’t get to go to the Jewish state.
He wasn’t that excited about the trip at first, as he wanted to have the summer just to play his music and hang out. But as it got closer, “I realized it would probably be the highlight of my teenage years. Just as I almost made a complete turnaround, it got canceled.”