By Aliza Gans, ArtJerusalem

 

Sitting at the cluttered desk in my dorm at Brandeis University, my year in Israel with Masa Israel’s Bezalel Experience (now ArtJerusalem) seems like another world away.  

 

My new campus is not inlayed with white Jerusalem stone, there is no Muslim call to prayer several times a day, and the supermarket down the street is frigid with tight aisles of cans and packages—nothing like the open markets of Machaneh Yehudah.  

 

I leaf through the pages of my journal from that year, festooned with ticket stubs from Israeli concerts, pressed, dried lavender from street corners in Jerusalem, and my nude sketches from life drawing classes at Bezalel Art Academy.

 

I am instantly bombarded by the sights, scents, and sounds of the...