Tel Aviv & The North
Day Four, Five, Six & Seven – Sunday to Wednesday | 2/17 – 2/20
Our first stop of the day led us to the Beit Guvrin Caves. The students took part in an archaeological dig and discovered pottery (and even an animal bone!) from the Hellenistic period, 2,300 years ago, and crawled through the Maresha Cave Labyrinth.It has been called a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is known for a near-perfect tablet written by the Romans on their perspective of the Hanukkah story. Next, we explored the Israel Children’s Museum’s incredible exhibit, Dialogue in the Dark, taking a tour led by a person with visual impairment of a completely dark room leading the students to explore what life may be like living with blindness. The bus took off for lunch at a local mall for a quick break, and from there we headed to the institute for the Advancement of Education in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, also known as “The Jaffa Institute”. We learned about the work of the institute and the students packed 48 packages in the organization’s food pantry for local families. We ended the night with dinner in the hotel and reflected on takeaways from the first leg of our time in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow morning we will be headed off to the North for our two night stay at Kibbutz Degania Bet in the Sea of Galilee!
We said goodbye to Tel Aviv and headed off to the ancient Roman city of Caesarea! Andras took us on a tour of the Herodian Theater and the excavations along the Mediterranean Shore, teaching us about Jewish life in the Roman City. After, we went to a Druze village in the Carmel Mountains for lunch in a family’s home and learned about their culture. Once we had our incredible feast we proceeded to the Hand in Hand School (“Yad b’Yad”), a bilingual school with Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian students combining peace education and top academic standards and building partnership and coexistence between the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. We said our goodbyes and left for our stay and dinner at Kibbutz Degania Bet, the first established Kibbutz in Israel. Everyone went to bed early(-ish) in preparation for another day in the green North!
Our first morning in the North took us to hike the Banias Stream at the foot of Mount Hermon. A far cry from the bustling streets of Tel Aviv followed the hike to the top of Mount Bental in the Golan Heights, providing an overlook of the abandoned Syrian town of Keneitra and understanding of the intricacies of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. For lunch, we headed to a small shopping area, where some of the students (and staff!) had incredible hummus at Hummos Eliyahu! Next, we drove to the mystical Kabbalist city of Tsfat to visit The Otzar HaStam Center to learn about the history of this Jewish community. Andras took the group inside of a beautiful Sephardic synagogue and the students strolled around the Artists’ Colony of shops and galleries. We left back for the hotel for dinner and an early(-ish) sleep before our big following day.
The students were ready (and only a tad sleepy) for our 6:30 A.M. breakfast before we headed to two of Israel’s must-see destinations: Masada and the Dead Sea. We took a cable car to the top of the mountain and learned about King Herod’s mountain palace and the site of the Jewish Zealots’ last stand against the Roman Legionnaires. After we descended Masada and had lunch at the site, we set our sails for the Dead Sea! The students played with the mud and experienced the saltiness of the water. From there, we swam (only kidding, took the bus) to Genesis Land, a Biblical-style encampment in the Judean desert for camel rides and a hafla feast. The bus took off from our journey to enter into Jerusalem! When we arrived to the hotel, the staff and students held a discussion to reflect on the past days and shared thoughts on what we have seen and the State of Israel today. After an incredible talk, the students took off for bed to be ready to explore Jerusalem tomorrow!
