I walk down the street and rarely take time to think about where I am. This is Israel! This is what they're all talking about; fighting about. It can make me nervous. I take it for granted that I can't go on buses, because, as I have come to understand it, buses blow up. I walk into malls and I'm greeted with 'Yesh neshek?' Do you have a gun? I'm searched and say thank you for it.

There is plenty to be negative about; nothing is perfect. Israeli men have enough testosterone to impregnate the nation, girls appear to steam roll their make up on, a rugby style huddle is an Israeli version of a queue, and taxi drivers think they are part of a high speed police chase. They zip and zoom through amber lights, while all the time reeling with appreciation when you make known that you are in fact Mitnatvim, volunteers. They're shocked that you have decided out of your own free choice to come to this country when so much is happening. So much to be scared about and so much to run away from. Every day to walk out of your house wondering, where the 'next one' will be. How many more to die? Who's next? Me?

I love Israel. I love living here. I love that on Friday nights everyone rushes to the bakeries whether religious or not to buy fresh bread before Shabbat comes in, and on Saturday night you wish friends and strangers a 'good week ahead'. I love it that shop assistants wish me good health in wearing a new piece of clothing, professionals begin their day with chocolate milk in a bag and being invited to a complete stranger's house for a meal is accepted and expected.

I have never felt such pride in singing the national anthem until I lived here. I will never forget the Machon Yom Hashoah ceremony; feeling the overwhelming sense of pride in singing the Hatikvah and the consciousness of being where I was and why.

Living together in this environment is crazy. You have your best friends; your support group, your family you can't imagine being without. The ones who are there for you 24/7 and have grown to know you better than you know yourself. Even now, when my time here is nearly at an end and the realisation of home is setting in, I can't imagine going to bed or waking up to find myself not only in my own room, but without my simulated family there to wish me 'Layla Tov' or to simply encourage me to get out of bed the day after the night before.

This year, these moments, those feelings, how do I encapsulate them forever? I guess that's what I've have tried to create here, an exposure of emotions, through the media of photography and the opportunity to evoke and feel them beyond the boundaries of my time out here.

Rachel Gordon
Machon L'Madrechai Chutz L'Aretz
Machzor 112