Look, I gotta be real with whoever (or is it whomever?) is reading this right now. It’s 11:41 pm and I just want to go shower then sleep. But nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, apparently it is more important to work on a blog about a panel that I struggled to listen to. However, I will begin with a few positives regarding this panel. Before I really dive in, I need to give a little background. We had already been in this room for an hour after sitting through an interesting discussion. The bar at this point for the next part of the morning wasn’t set high, but it wasn’t low by any means.
We were given roughly a five minute break in between the first and second part of the morning. As soon as we were back and seated in the room, a group of folks walked on in. One of them looked like a middle aged if not early sixties Orthodox man. He spoke no English. Then we had this smaller Jewish man from Toronto, Canada, with glasses. That is the best I can describe him. Next, we had a lady with long, curly hair. And last was another short Jewish man. This panel of diverse Jews (in the sense that they come from different sects of Judaism) tried to explain how this program they were apart of was helping to untie Israelis into being one group of understanding people. The group was called “Living Together”. But, one problem remained. Their panel discussion was confusing, which made it hard to concentrate.
The only thing getting me through was the promise of shawarma for lunch. The tender meat, the tasty veggies, lest we not forgot the hummus smeared inside so perfectly, and of course the fries on top. Oh those fries! Also, during this whole discussion there was a table of snacks. I went over and grabbed some Bomba to nibble on as nothing says passing the time like consuming some unidentified fried calories of what I think is peanut butter.
Despite all my negative ranting, I want to say something positive. That positivity manifests itself in the form of the Orthodox Jew. This man, who, mind you, speaks no english whatsoever, gave a great story about going out of one’s way to learn something new and talk to someone different. He managed to explain how he had met a lesbian woman who he was stuck in a taxi with, and how they at first were very uncomfortable. But after some awkward conversation, and some arguing, they managed to somewhat understand one another enough to joke around and just have casual conversation. This story was brought to you by the Toronto Jew who translated it all, by the way.
Alright, this is Max Kornblut signing off to shower and go to bed.