FINAL SHABBAT: Friday and Saturday February 25-26

On Friday, we woke up and went to Yad Va'Shem, the Holocaust Memorial. We were all moved by the children's memorial, which can hardly be described in words.  We then saw the sculpture garden, and the many trees planted in honor of the over 23,000 righteous gentiles, which include the woman responsible for saving Gideon's grandmother.  After that, our guide Shira took us into the main exhibit, where we learned about the history of the Shoah, the Nazi plan for the "Final Solution," the role of bystanders and upstanders, the partisan fighters and ghetto uprisers.  We also had a memorial service where we remembered loss and talked together about what we can do to make sure that the memories of those lost can be for a blessing--and what we can pledge to do in the world to make sure that we are working against the forces of such evil.  We couldn't take pictures inside, but the photo is of us in front of the sculpture in honor of Jewish soldiers who fought the Nazis, which included grandparents of a number of us in the group.

In the afternoon, we met Damian, the Youth Director at Kehillat Kol Haneshema, and Shiri and Yael, two 8th graders, and went to have lunch and a scavenger hunt in the Machane Yehuda Shuk. First, we all ate some of the best falafel in the world!  We had to find all kinds of things, like tomatoes, cucumbers, cheeses, halva, special kinds of pita, eat fruits we had never tasted (we chose carambola and persimmons), ask 5 people what their plans were for Shabbat, find Uzi El and have him diagnose our problems and prescribe a solution, and find our way to the site that used to be the Paris Hotel and Casino during the Ottoman Period. Only one group found it-- even a lot of the old timers we asked didn't know where it was!

After that, we went to Kehillat Kol Haneshema and met the 8th Grade Youth Group from Noar Telem, the Israeli Reform Youth Movement, to play fun icebreaker games led by Israeli high schoil studentsand do a little study to prepare for Shabbat. We went to Friday night services together at Kol Haneshema, and then each of our kids went to Shabbat dinner and a sleepover at a home of one of the Israeli youth groupers.

On Shabbat morning, we met back at the synagogue and the youth group led Shabbat morning services for us and then we cut up the food we bought at the shuk for lunch. We had some educational programming and also played fun games like SPUD.

Shabbat afternoon, we had a wrap up program at the hotel and then we walked to the restaurant Spaghettim for dinner. To our surprise, Senator John McCain and his staffers were sitting at the next table!  From there, we walked to a lookout point near the Windmill to have Havdallah overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem.  We were sad to be leaving, but made sure to say "L'hitra'ot" (see you later) rather than goodbye.

On the bus to the airport everyone was planning their next trips to Israel!

The trip was phenomenal, and none of us can wait to go back.

It was a blessing to have the opportunity to lead our students through Israel, and to see it through their eyes.

Chazak Chazak V'nitchazek!
Shira