Saving the Best for Last: Our Last Two Days in Israel

Our last two days in Israel continued in the North, first in the Golan and then in Hof HaCarmel (between Haifa and Tel Aviv).  We left Tzfat bright and early (notice a theme?) to climb into the Golan Heights.  We started at Mitzpeh Gadot, where I had gone with my Arab-Israeli Conflict class on our Golan Heights field trip, but it was cool hearing another tour guide's perspective of the site.  Basically, the site was an old Syrian outpost, later captured by the Israelis, which overlooked Israel pre-1967.  We learned about the Israeli spy later captured and killed by Syria who had helped Israel and its efforts in capturing the Golan Heights from Syria.  It was really interesting and the memorial there for the fallen soldiers from those battles is really well-built and thought-provoking.

We continued on to Mount Bental, which apparently is some place that all the birthright groups go to, but I've never been.  It's an old Israeli army bunker left for tourists to see, and it was really interesting, especially after seeing Beufort a few days earlier (in fact, some of the scenes in the movie were filmed there).  The views were also really gorgeous.  We looked around the bunker for a little while, and took lots of pictures.

Then we stopped at a town called Katzerin, where Yael had done part of her national service.  We had lunch there at a cute restaurant called Blue Berry (despite not serving anything with blueberries in them...) and shopped around for a little bit.  I also had Krembo #2 (and final) of the trip.

After Katzerin, we headed to an unplanned stop at the Arbel, a gorgeous overlook on the Kinneret.  We sat there and did some meditation led by one of our American staff, certified yoga instructor, Melissa.  We journaled and reflected, and enjoyed the view, and at least I tried to forget that we were leaving in less than 2 days.

After that we headed off to Kibbutz Nachsholim, where we would be spending our last night and a half.  The Guest House there was really awesome, especially compared to Tzfat. After settling in, we had a lecture by the famous Israeli author, A.B. Yehoshua.  He gave a rather controversial talk on the role of Israel in Judaism and Zionism and basically said that you can't be a "full Jew" unless you live in Israel, where Judaism is lived to its fullest.  He basically said that a secular Jew in Israel is more Jewish than a religious Jew in the Diaspora.  Personally, I didn't really like what he had to say or agree with it, but since I had been hearing about him since at least my high school Hebrew classes, it was pretty cool getting to meet him, and he did spark some interesting debates amongst myself and the rest of the ATID fellows.

After A.B. Yehoshua, we had a fabulous dinner at the Kibbutz, and then covered some important business regarding our activity for the next day, our trip t-shirt design, and various other last minute administrative things.

The next day, we started by preparing for our activity for the rest of the afternoon.  We would be going to Neve Michael, a government sponsored youth village for children at risk (abuse victims, witnesses of violent crimes in their home, etc.).  Our madrich Michael told us that we would be splitting up into four different groups to run four different stations for the kids to do different activities, in addition to touring the facility and eating lunch with the kids.  We spent the morning getting our stations ready.  I was in a group that would be making foam wallets and decorating them, so for us, preparing meant cutting out the foam squares, marking where to fold them, cutting out the velcro strips to close the wallet with, making a sample, and making a sign for our station.  Myself and the other four members of my group vigorously worked to get enough supplies together for 60 kids (it turned out to be way less, but oh well, at least it wasn't way more!).  After a quick walk down to the Kibbutz's beach (did I forget to mention the Kibbutz was right on the beach of the Mediterranean?) we boarded the bus to Neve Michael. 

When we got there, one of the women who works there told us about all the services they provide (which are quite impressive) and some examples of the horrible things the children who lived there had suffered through.  I felt so bad for all of them for having to go through that, and it made me really excited to work with them.  After the introduction, we were given time to get our station together (which included helping the people who work there normally clean off the table we would be using - apparently they weren't nearly as prepared as we had hoped).  Then, we went to the dining hall to eat lunch with the kids.  I was with a group of crazy wild boys, but it was fun talking to them.

Then it was time for our stations.  When the director explained to the kids what we would be doing, they were all really excited, so it was nice to know how much it meant to them.  Our first two groups were really quiet and super cute - they really enjoyed decorating their wallets, and were really well-behaved.  The next two groups, which included more older boys (and who we had been warned by our staff had been crazy at the other stations as well), were a little difficult and out-of-hand, making us ready to be done - 2 hours working with kids is a long time!!

After we finished our stations, we attempted to clean up the glue that was stuck all over the table we were working on, but eventually gave up.  I was reminded of and frustrated by Israel's total inability to recognize the usefulness of paper towel, as toilet paper doesn't really work well to get dried glue off of a table, but whatever.  We did a short wrap-up as a group, and talked and talked about the activity, which seemed to be successful overall with all four groups, though there were some snags, and it was very exhausting.

Before going back to the Kibbutz, we stopped in the town of Zichron Yaakov, which, among other things, is known for having the best ice cream.  We did some last minute shopping around, I went to a candy store (only to find, to my extreme disappointment, that they were out of vanilla Krembos), and then to the ice cream shop, where I got belgiun waffle ice cream, which was surprisingly delicious.  At Zichron Yaakov, Eliyahu, our medic/guard, left us, which was very sad, and we sang him a rounding farewell rendition of "Eliyahu HaNavi". 

Once we got back to the Kibbutz, we had some free time to pack, shower, rest, and prepare for the banquet.  I somehow thought it would be a good idea to take on the responsibility of making a slideshow for our final banquet, which I for some reason forgot would stress me out.  Me, in my perfectionist montage zone, was on hyper-tension mode, trying to cut down 2000 pictures and put them into a slideshow, all in an hour and a half.  Well, I managed to finish it just in time, though I didn't look over it, so there were some kinks - like the fact that the auto-movie maker decided to stop making the movie halfway through the pics.  But whatever, people seemed to really like it.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  After free time, we went to the banquet, which was a special private dinner in a private room of the dining room of the Kibbutz, served to us rather than buffet.  There were multiple courses, some of which were delicious (who knew I liked sweet potato soup?) and others were lacking (honey glaze is not the cure all of food).  We had fun hanging out and being treated though, reminiscing and sad that our trip was almost over.  There were some toasts, and then the boys sang "Here's to you Rabbi Hirsch Chin" (to the tune of "Mrs. Robinson"), which was hilarious to say the least.  After that, we did the slideshow, which everyone loved despite my totally screwing it up as I am cursed to do, but ce la vie.  After that, we got in a circle, and each of us was individually spoken to and then given a wooden camel figurine from the staff, which was cute, and everything they said about each of us was really nice.  After that, we had our gifts for the Israeli staff, who were really wonderful.  We sang one last round of Lecha Dodi, and finished up some last minute talks and business before having a few hours to rest.  Then we said our goodbyes to those extending their trip, and headed off to the airport.

And so, another amazing journey to Israel came to an end.  I miss it so much already, and am kicking myself daily for only having Aroma once while I was there (what could I have possibly been thinking??).  Anyone know of other ways I can get back to Israel for free???  Suggestion box open!  I am hoping to staff a birthright trip this semester, so if anyone has connections with Israel Outdoors, hook me up!

Love for Israel, and praying for the safe return of all the members of the IDF fighting in Gaza for the safety of Israel,

Leah

Kol HaKavod L'Tzahal