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Shawarma con Piña: a look at Israel from Yucatan

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Last Wednesday we had an incredible forum presented by one of our students who had spent 2 weeks with us boning up on his Spanish before travelling to Cuba. Itamar is from Israel, and many of his initial observations about life in the Yucatan were comparisons to his home country. One of the first things he noticed, when he came into his second day of class, was that "you guys have shawarma here!" It took us a few minutes, but in the end we discovered that what looked like "shawarma" to him, is known as "pastor" in Yucatan.

Shawarma
Pastor
When we asked Itamar if he would be willing to share his perspectives of Yucatan (and of Israel) with the community, he was excited about the idea and immediately started putting together some ideas. "Food, landscape, and politics" are some of the topics that he wanted to focus on. Israel seems like another world (especially from Yucatan), but he wanted to share with people that these two very different places also have a lot of things in common. They have a coast, beautiful beaches, historical cities, similar industries (exportation of citrus fruits) and more!

At the end of his forum, Itamar shared an activity with us all, writing our names in Hebrew (phonetically), tracing the figures with wax, and painting over the whole thing with water colors!


Thank you, Itamar, for sharing your perspectives and a little bit of your beautiful home with all of us!

Jaffa

Jerusalem
Market at Carmel

Tel Aviv

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