Days 4 & 5: Shabbat in Israel

Shabbat Shalom! Today was our first and only Friday in Jerusalem and we sure did make it special. We started our day with a trip to Har Hertzl (הר הרצל), the largest cemetery in Israel for the burial of the country’s leaders and political figures. It is also a place of burial for the thousands of Israeli soldiers who lost their lives in the wars of Israel and the victims of actions of terrorism. We even got to visit Hannah Senesh’s grave, which was recently changed after a 70 year old mistake was discovered by an 18 year old student about Senesh’s real birthday. We walked straight from there to Yad Vashem, the Shoah museum, for an amazing 2 hour tour through history. This experience, though dark and quite sad, was very educational and beautifully told the many stories of millions of people from the time of the Holocaust. For lunch we went to Shuk Mahne Yehuda, where we split into groups and bought our own food! Each group had challenges to complete in the shuk such as ordering food in Hebrew, finding the biggest vegetable, finding the cheapest item, and asking Israelis questions. Although the shuk can be chaotic at times, it has a special “togetherness” feeling to it. In the evening we went to the Western Wall. This was such an amazing experience. Once more the sense of togetherness was really felt with the hundreds of happy people praying and dancing.

By Noam