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An American Gingit* takes on Tel Aviv

Come into my head, world. My name is Stacey Maltin and I am a 24-year-old actor, writer, dancer, and journalist. I was born and raised in San Francisco, California, USA…a truly beautiful and amazing city if you ever get the chance to head out there. Truthfully I think Tel Aviv appeals to me so much because it reminds me of San Francisco. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s totally different, but there is a very positive vibe that both cities share. They are both great cities with a beach. Two must-haves for positive living in my mind.

 

At 18 years old I headed off to New York to attend New York University where I studied theater, dance, and journalism. After graduation I moved to Brooklyn and had been acting and working and loving my New York life.

 

So…what am I doing working at Ynetnews in Tel Aviv? Well, if you had asked me four months ago if I thought I would be spending six months to a year in Israel I would have told you to stop taking your crazy pills!

 

However…after I came to Israel for the first time on Taglit in May/June 2008, I had a little thought tickle in the back of my mind that maybe I should be coming back here. I ignored said tickle for a few months…continued living my life the way I had been.

 

BUT…after many traded emails with friends I had met in Israel asking when I was returning to the Holy Land, I started looking for ways to get back. My first thought was short term volunteering. I was looking at a couple of weeks to maximum one month of doing work on an army base or a hospital. I wanted to give back to a country that I felt had given me such an amazing gift when I got to come on Birthright.

 

Then I was home over the American Thanksgiving holiday. Really, I should credit my long stay in Israel to my parent’s decision to retire and move Florida. Sorry mom and dad, but a girl can only lay by the pool so much. As it is, I fatefully googled ‘Programs Israel’ and up came tons of different options. The one that caught my eye was WUJS Tel Aviv, an internship placement program that allows post college young people the opportunity to work and live in Florentine while taking Ulpan (Hebrew Classes).

 

On a whim, I sent a preliminary application, and an essay about why I wanted to live in Israel and what I wanted to do here. As quickly as I filled out the forms, I made my decision that coming to spend time in Israel is extremely important and exactly what I wanted to do with the next bit of my life.

 

SO, now that I am here I am working as a reporter for the Ynetnews English site and I am teaching hip-hop dance at Pure Studios in Tel Aviv. For all you dancers out there, the studio is beautiful and offers many different types of classes so come and check it out.

 

Two months into my stay here I still love it. I feel blessed to have met the beautiful people that I met here last summer who showed me how amazing a country Israel actually is, and who made me want to explore it further. Now I’m not naïve, and I know that Israel, like any country, is not without its massive amounts of problems, and in future blog entries I’ll be talking about those as well.

 

But for now let me say that for a country with so much war on its hands, Israel is a pretty peaceful place.

 

Hakol Shalom. Hakol Ahava.

 

I know…it’s a little hippieish, but it’s my blog so that’s what you get.

 

*Gingit means redhead in Hebrew

 

Stacey Maltin is a 24 year old NYU graduate who is working and living in Tel Aviv for the next six months.

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.26.09, 15:17
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