I'm making aliyah next summer, b'ezrat Hashem, and right now the best choice for ulpan seems to be Ulpan Etzion. What can you tell me about it? Also, is there anything a frum Jew specifically should know? E.g. roommates and stuff.

Pinchas, I'm expecting a reply from you!

I went to Ulpan Etzion in 1997.
It's totally worth it.
My advice is to go in the summer session, however, rather than the winter session, because it's a bit cold (no central heating, just space heaters), and the bathrooms and kitchens aren't terribly clean (communal living and all) so there are lots of nasty bugs that go around in the winter - just about everyone got very sick Add that to the stress of aliyah in general (which makes you more susceptble to illness) and it's not pretty.

However, the Hebrew classes are pretty good, and more importantly, you will meet lots of other single olim in the exact same situation as you. You will meet people who can be your support system even for your first few years in Israel.
My year most of the people there were French and South Americans, with a fair number of South Africans, and a smattering of British, Australians, and Americans.

There are some frum people (dati leumi sorts mostly), and they can request a frum roommate too.

All the food is kosher.

If you're religious, I don't recommend staying there for Shabbat, but if need be you can, they give you a (rather poor quality) Shabbat meal since they don't cook on Shabbat and there are few staff there. There are plenty of shuls in the neighborhood too (great neighborhood, by the way: Baka)

Haven't been there but I can dovetail frum Israeli experience w/Shosh's observations.

All the food is which kosher (personal level)? Ask for the hechsher. Its in the city, it should have Jerusalem rabbinate or JR mehadrin or a badatz. Some govt places (like hospitals) have in house rabbis of very varying reliability on basic halacha, before chumros and minhagim.

Shabbat is a bus away, we get Americans often through the "Shabbat in the Land" Program for Anglo students.
Do you want a frum atmosphere? Baka is definitely not a frum area or close to one. What else is available? Every city or regional council gives Ulpan. Do you need a dorm in?

Okay here we go - I dug up an e-mail I wrote to someone about this while I was there during the summer session and I'm going to add stuff to it at the bottom.


<clip>That said I'm LOVING Ulpan Etzion. (I have heard from people that have hated it though... but all of them were "externals" i.e. they didn't dorm here.) They say that they treat the Internals A LOT better than the externals and I guess it could be true. All I know is they treat me great.

Okay let's answer you questions in order. I have made loads of friends from all over the world. The truth is Americans (especially NYers) are an extreme minority. Most of the students here speak French or Spanish
with lots of English coming from British, South Africans and Austrailans. Don't get me wrong. There are folks from the US and Canada but we like to think the world revolves around us and clearly it doesn't. Though for some reason even the French and Spanish all seem to know English - I wonder why that is?

<clip>I guess what makes it best is that I have an AMAZING teacher. Perhaps I'm just lucky or perhaps all the teachers are great here. And they take a completely different approach from standard "classroom Hebrew" - and I think it's working really well. It's hard to explain but they know what they are doing.

Classes are from 8:15 - 12:45 with 2 breaks (30 min and 15 min) from Sunday - Thursday. But it's not only sitting and taking notes there is a lot of moving the desks in a circle and talking to one another and they have stuff on computers and audio aids also.

The crowd here is VERY mixed and there is just about every type of Jew you could think of. They have separate dorms (separate buildings) for shomrie shabbat and for lo dati. And of course separate buildings for frum guys and gals. (The lo dati guys and gals are in the same building but different floors). In any event there are definitely plenty of religious people here if that's what you are worried about. In fact a guy in my dorm (from Aish Hatorah) actually recruited about 20 people (dati and lo-dati) from the ulpan to go with him to the old city for Shabbat. Pretty cool. There is definitely so much potential for kiruv here. Anybody that is making Aliyah has some connection with Judaism and they actually seem to look up to the dati and ask us all sorts of questions to learn more about Judaism.<clip>

At least that was my experience!

Now I have some things to add. I've been talking to people who went there in the years before me and they said things like what Shoshi wrote above. It seems my year Ulpan Etzion had the most dati people they ever had. They fixed up one of the buildings and let us stay there. We had brand new bathrooms and actually real heat (toward the end of the July - Dec summer session it gets cold). Some dati that didn't mind stayed in the regular dorm. Also the external students seems to be all dati. I had quite a few in my class.

Regardless, there was a very warm atmosphere between the chiloni and the dati and mutual respect which I think should serve as an example for all of Israel.

Also about Rikal reply - the food was Rabbanut Yerushalayim. The chef my year was great guy - who was dati and actually catered meals for several Yeshivas and Seminaries in the area. I actually found the food very good but there were lots of people that complained. I have a personal chumrah about only eating bedatz meat so I requested the vegetarian option they offer. I also asked a rav about trumot and masser which at worse would be considered demi (that means it may or maynot have been taken) and I took off some trumot and masser each meal without a brocha as was told. Breakfast and Dinner were both Chalavi.

Also, Baka is becoming a lot more religious. There is a religions elementary school right down the block from us. It's interesting to watch the parents bring their children there on Friday. Also a five minute walk away is a famous shul called Nitzanim (Rav Benny Elon started it and was Rav there I think). They have lots of nice shirum there. There are also shuls around the block and scores of Sfardi shuls all over the place.

Plus Baka is only a ten minute walk from Kaatomon and less to Emek Rafaim. It's also right near the German Colony and Talbiah. I once even bumped into Rav Adin Shteinzaltz on a Friday night!

I think you'd love it there! And I highly recommend it. The next semester starts July 15 so if you'd have to do a rush paperwork job to make it! The next semester after that would be January 15 you know what? Things warm up in Israel by April so it's not cold for that whole semester. And the summer session has some cold months to - so don't lock yourself in for that like Shoshi said.

Hope that helps and if you have any other questions please feel free to ask.

Kol Tuv,
Pinchas

I know MANY people who have been through Ulpan Etziyon. The vast majority are not religious and the administration of the place certainly isn't but the food is Kosher (Rabbinut I think) and there is certainly no shortage of religious people there. Don't expect a shomer shabbos and certainly not shomer negiah religious environment though.

What is your religious level? If you are Haredi or anything near it I would strongly NOT recommend it. If you are coming off of a secular college campus anyway it might not be a bad idea, for sure it is a great way to meet other people and get a core of friends when you are new in Israel.

I often work with a Rov in the old city who basically has adopted the Ulpan as his "project" and he knows most of the people there, the program and the exact situation. He has many Ulpan students over every Shabbos and makes frequent tiyulim to all parts of Israel. I would suggest sending him an email and explaining your situation and see what he says.

Rabbi David Sterne http://www.jerusalemconnection.org
jerconn@netvision.net.il
or give him a call at 02-627-1283

K-Rebbe

Rav Sterne was the one who we went to in the old city. Was really an amazing Shabbat. He is Chabad BTW. Also it could be my year was a just a fluke but there were plenty of dati there. It was easly 50-50. I don't know if there was an unusual high number of dati my year or if this is a new trend.

I consider myself on the yeshivish side and I had no problem there. I had a very "shtark" roomate.

I know who homesickforisrael is in real life and I think she would love the ulpan.

I guess it just depends on the crowd that comes your year. My year B"H was a wonderful group.

And guess what? If things are bad it's no big deal. You could always look for you own apartment and move out - and still attend class. It is a great place to land though - straight off the plane.

Another point. The director just retired after 30 years or something and there is someone new running the show now so I'm not sure how that will be and what changes if any they may have made...

People are giving very interesting feedback!
It's interesting to hear how the place has changed since 1997.

I agree, that it's fine for a dati leumi person but not for a charedi person.
The kashrut there is not badatz or mehadrin but most likely rabbanut.
I would also agree that the actual kashrut has a lot to do with who happens to be working in the kitchen that year and how careful they are with kashrut (not to mention other things, like cleanliness!).
My year actually this was a pet peeve of mine - as I said everyone kept getting sick, I was out of commission with a viral sore throat for literally more than a month, one girl had to have her tonsils out, three people got chicken pox (one person went back to England for a visit and brought it back - in such close quarters of course it spread...)

Anyway, I didn't feel the kitchen was that clean. And believe me, I am by no means a stickler on these things! If I didn't think it was clean, there were some real cleanliness problems!
There were dogs occasionally going in to the kitchen (a pet of one of the cooks or workers), once I saw them bring in a baby into the kitchen, etc.
On Shabbat, when the staffing was low, sometimes there was barely any food, very skimpy (almost like staff took some of the food home or something.)

As I said, I wouldn't not go because of this.
I think it's a great way to start off in Israel.
Mostly because of the people you will meet there - other olim in your situation.
Some of the Hebrew teachers are quite good too. If you study, you'll learn a lot.
Even if you don't study, you'll gain from it.
Since not all the French speak English (at least they tend not to like to speak it), you will find yourself communicating with a lot of the other students in Hebrew which is GREAT! (there were lots of French students my year - they were the majority).

My roommate was from Chile and she didn't speak English at all. We had to communicate in Hebrew only from Day 1 (I don't speak any Spanish) which was hard at first but great for learning the language.
Don't worry, even if your level is low now, you'll pick it up.

As for dati students (dati leumi students that is), it's true that there is a lot of respect between the frum students and the others.
Many of the French are Sephardim (most of them actually - mostly of Moroccan origin) so a significant percentage of them are at least somewhat traditional, if not all out frum.
In fact, there is less of a divide between frum and secular .

I had both frum and secular friends and no one made a big deal over who was what.
The only difference is some of the frum students tend to try to go away at least some Shabbats, but they invite others to come, etc. There's no clear divider, who is frum and who is not.
It's great and how it should be in Jewish society/Israel in general.
We are all Jews after all!

Most of all, we were all immigrants and we stuck together as such.

My year frum students shared rooms together but didn't have their own floor.
In fact, one building was all women but one was co-ed, and there were frum people on the co-ed floors my year (obviously none of the ROOMS are co-ed, nor are the bathrooms - there are separate for men and women.)

I would also say that Baka is a GREAT location for a dati leumi single immigrant (but I agree not for a charedi immigrant).
Baka is mixed dati leumi and secular/traditional, and has plenty of dati leumi shuls, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi. In fact, RIGHT NEXT DOOR to Ulpan Etzion is a dati leumi school which I believe had a few minyans meeting in it (at least the year I was there).

Also, as someone else said, Katamon is literally a 5 minute walk away which is basically the CENTER in Jerusalem for dati leumi olim singles.
You have dati leumi shuls like Yakar,,Nitzanim, Ohel Nehama, as well as more dati/egalitarian shuls like Shira Chadasha.
Great social scene for a dati leumi single.
In fact, I would say it's better for the frum students than the secular ones!
Many of the secular students ended up moving to Tel Aviv after ulpan, whereas most of the frum students stayed in Jerusalem, and most of them right in the Baka/Katamon/Moshava Germanit neighborhood.

Thanx, everyone, for your input!

I'm planning for next summer- I still have a year of college to finish (Stern). I tend to plan way ahead.

This summer I'm going to be in Israel for most of the time. I'll be learning in the MMY summer program in July, and the rest of the time I'll probably be volunteering, with maybe a little touring, etc. on the side.