ARTS & CULTURE
Monday, December 1, 2014 9
The Obiter goes abroad
No. 4 – Aryeh Samuel in Jerusalem
marie park › arts & culture editor
T
his week, the Obiter travels to one of the
world’s oldest cities, a cradle of human history, and origin for three of the world’s most
widespread faiths: the beautiful, timeless,
and stately Jerusalem in Israel.
Giving us a first-hand glimpse into the heart of this
ancient place is Aryeh Samuel, currently in the third
year of his Juris Doctor, who hails from New York and
holds and undergraduate degree in Economics. Aryeh
participated in the exchange program to Hebrew
University in Jerusalem (one of the many offered
through Osgoode’s partner schools across the globe)
for the summer of 2013.
Hebrew University is the second oldest post-secondary institution in Israel, and is considered the best
university in Israel by several rankings. The Faculty
of Law, located at the Mount Scopus campus, offers
students from its partner schools the ability to participate in an exchange semester. Courses are offered
in English or Hebrew.
“I wanted to experience legal education in a different setting,” writes Aryeh. “I wanted to be able to
appreciate what assumptions I have about the world
and law, that may
not be assumed in
another culture
or legal system.”
Seeing beyond the
limits of an insular legal education found in a single university setting was not his
only reason to go to Hebrew University. For Aryeh, the
exchange was attractive in that it was heavily subsidized, provided three credits towards his degree, and
because of his personal connections to Jerusalem.
Aryeh described some of the most anticipated parts
ê The University’s front entrance.
of the trip. The city is home to a number of important
historic heritage sites: the Western Wall, the Old City
of Jerusalem, the Holocaust Museum, the shooque (or
the old market), and the pristine beaches in northern Israel. Visiting these places was the highlight of
Aryeh’s exchange.
And of course,
no coverage of
another country is
complete without
talking about the
food. Israeli cuisine is unfamiliar to many Canadians, save a select
number of wildly popularized items like hummus,
falafel, shawarma, halva, pita bread, and maybe even
more recently, shakshuka. Canadians are in dire need
of a better introduction to the cuisine of Jerusalem.
Aryeh gives his suggestions: a Yemenite dessert called
“The city is home to a
number of important historic
heritage sites . . .”
ê An aerial view of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem captures the scale of the campus in its surroundings.
mufleta and an Israeli staple called sabich, a sandwich
combining an unlikely pair of egg and eggplant.
An extended stay away from home can be difficult,
especially considering that studying abroad is commonly a student’s first time being completely independent in a radically different place, but some things
can help to avoid homesickness. “When we were
away, Toronto had been hit with a major rain storm,
one of the biggest in its history,” Aryeh recalls. “[In
Toronto,] buildings had flooded, highways were completely submerged in water. It was a bit sad not to be
home experiencing that with my family, but otherwise I was not homesick at all.”
As for the educational component, Aryeh took
courses directed more toward public international
law, though not entirely relevant to the work he may
do in his articling job. Another course, though, was
in advanced torts involving statistical analyses i