TravelBlog

It seems hard to believe that this is our last day in Israel. It's been a tremendous experience to have been here for an entire month, and to experience all of the things we have. We began this morning with a walk through Yemin Moshe, including being blindfolded for part of the walk to appreciate how we can use our other senses. We [Travel Journal]

We were free for Shavuot, so we each went our own way. I went to the tikkun leil Shavuot at HUC with Lisa Rothstein, one of the students from the communal service program at Baltimore Hebrew University who just arrived here. The first couple of programs were not so interesting (an interpretive dance performance and a lecture in Hebrew), but the other talks were [Travel Journal]

After dinner Friday evening, Lisa and I hung out and played Scrabble and cards. In the morning, I went to a shul in Baka called Yedidya. Although it is an Orthodox shul, it is quite liberal (the mechitza is nearly transparent, the Torah is processed through both the men's and women's sides, etc.) Most of the congregation is American or British olim. [Travel Journal]

Today we dove back into our program after the long weekend. In the morning, we had an activity exploring the Kinneret Declaration. This was a statement issued by a group trying to build understanding among the various voices in Israeli society. The exercise was aimed at helping us use the document to think about our own feelings towards Israel and its role in [Travel Journal]

Our first session this morning was a panel discussion of "the Israel experience" with three people who work on different aspects of trips to Israel. It was a very lively discussion, with a lot of participation by the class and the presenters. We then did an exercise to help us think about our feelings about Israel as a lead in to splitting into small [Travel Journal]

Our first visit this morning was to Hamishpacha, a weekly haredi newspaper. It was very interesting to see in that the staff there are more liberal than the stereotypical image of haredim. The circulation is fairly large (120,000), and they seem confident that they represent the mainstream of the haredi movement.

After lunch, we went to Beit Shemesh (a town between Jerusalem and [Travel Journal]

We had a light day today in preparation for Shavuot. Shirel led an interesting text study this morning, which combined assigning attributes such as faith, hope, history, etc. to passages of Torah with a scavenger hunt. Afterwards, we went over to the kibbutz to see the celebration there. There were lots of small children and their parents, and lots of activities going on. [Travel Journal]

We continued our exploration of the different voices present in Israeli society today. Our first meeting was with Rav Dorr, the headmaster of Yeshivat Chorev, a modern Orthodox school. In particular, the school is associated with the National Religious Party, so we got to hear some of Rav Dorr's perspectives on balancing religious life with obligations to the state.

We then went to [Travel Journal]

Our first meeting this morning was with Sara Bogen, who works for the Joint Distribution Committee in the former Soviet Union. She provided an overview of the work to be done there, and the challenges they face. We then went to see Dani Daniel, who runs a program called Tzav Pius for the Avichai Foundation. Tzav Pius is a program that sets up [Travel Journal]

We had a break from our workshops today, and took a trip down to Ein Gedi, a preserve in the desert near the Dead Sea. Although the area is only about 40 miles from Jerusalem, the drive took us about 3 hours because of having to go around the West Bank instead of taking the direct route. We took a hike through one of [Travel Journal]