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Personal Statement:Hebrew/Jewish Studies/Modern GreekTSR Wiki > University > Applying to University > Personal Statement Library > Hebrew/Jewish Studies/Modern Greek
Hebrew/Jewish Studies/Modern Greek Personal StatementI grew up with what some call a 'bagel connection' to Judaism, knowing that having a Jewish mother made me Jewish too, but experiencing little more. During 2007, I toured Israel with a Jewish Youth Group to find out more about my heritage. Every moment in Israel was thrilling. Later, I visited Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka in Poland with another group and will return this year to visit Sobibor. I then read Primo Levi's 'If This Is A Man'. My reading and the visits increased my curiosity in Jewish history and Israeli culture. This summer, I attended the London Jewish Cultural Centre's two-week Ulpan, where I learnt some vocabulary and to read Hebrew. I enjoyed a talk from the writer Neville Teller and later read Teller's 'One Man's Israel'. I attended a course on 'The Case of Israel-Palestine' and read David Grossman's 'Death as a Way of Life'. I read Colin Shindler's 'What Do Zionists Believe?'. While in Israel, we visited a museum of Theodor Herzl's life and his role in Israel's birth. We were told that he was the revolutionary founder of modern Zionism; Shindler showed this was not entirely the case. The differences between these viewpoints surprised me and I became interested in Zionism's role in Jewish Youth Groups. I keep news scrapbooks on Israel, the Middle East and Greece and listen to the IBA's international broadcasts. As part of the committee running Jewish Society, I enjoy debating and team-based exercises. After discussions on possession and exorcism in Judaism, I read Anksy's 'Dybbuk'. The play expanded my knowledge of Ashkenazi culture; I want to understand more of Jewish culture in pre-WW2 Germany, in Israel and around the world. I am reading Fishman's 'Russia's Modern Jews' and have read Edward Kessler's 'What Do Jews Believe?'. I found Kessler's explanations of Jewish traditions to be occasionally simplistic, for example the reasons behind the sounding of the Shofar. I do not think one can take Maimonides' explanation (the Shofar's purpose being to wake the congregation) as the last word. Rabbinic and philosophic debate on complex ritual attracts me. I see political co-operation within the Mediterranean Union as a vital way of building closer relations between the Arab world, Europe and Israel. Having read C.M. Woodhouse's 'Greece: A Short History' and Fleming's 'Greece: A Jewish History', I would like to find out more about Greco-Israeli relations. I attend Ancient Greek Society where we follow a GCSE curriculum. I attended a two-week French immersion course this summer; I am a dedicated student of languages and culture. I am interested in learning Arabic to better study the Peace Process and would like to study Germany to understand better Ashkenazi culture. I am a dedicated, enthusiastic student. I enjoy asking questions, thinking for myself and reading widely. I consider culture, language and communication. I learn how beliefs and opinions affect lives and how to take others' views into account. One learns how individuals' motivations shape the world we occupy, as well as analytical skills and logical problem solving. All these skills are vital to studying Greece, Hebrew, Judaism and Israel. I write for the school 'Government and Politics Society' magazine, most recently an article on Israel, and was runner up in a school Creative Writing prize. In a course on 'Exploring Our Neighbouring Countries', we traced the Yiddish language from the Rhone valley to the 1908 Czernowitz summit. I felt comfortable and at home. I know this is what I want from a course; working on absorbing subjects with others who are equally absorbed. I know I will give everything to studying the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Israel and Hebrew. Universities Applied to:
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