Gerda Vogel Marx 8th Grade Israel Experience Class of 2022: Part 2
Levine Academy Class of 2022

BLOG THREE
by Mia Blum ('22) and Maya Rothstein ('22)

Good morning, and Boker Tov!

We woke up at 7am to Mrs. Hunter's amazing wakeup call of: ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’.

Next, we went downstairs, most of us were not functioning, and enjoyed a buffet breakfast. At the breakfast, we had a special guest *drumroll* a pigeon! After all this excitement with our bird friend, we left the hotel to go pray at the Kotel. It felt very meaningful to pray in this holiest place.

Then, after we finished praying we went on a tour of the Old City and its archaeology. We learned through a comically fun experience to always check if you grabbed the right backpack. If you had this great experience in the old Temple periods, you would go to a stone outside the temple called the Stone of Requirement. There a person was required to take significant lost items and advertise to try to find the owner of the lost item in order to fulfill the mitzvah of “hashavat aveida” (returning a lost item). It was great to see ancient Jewish history through our own eyes and to think about what impact these historical events can have on our lives.

After our amazing morning, it started pouring rain. So, we went to the Israel Museum and saw many historical artifacts. Since each artifact was from a different time or event, they were all unique. In the Museum, after we toured the archeological area, we did an amazing race scavenger hunt. It was so much fun and a cool way to learn about the artifacts. Once everyone finished, we headed to the Jewish Quarter for lunch. We walked around the Jewish Quarter and then walked down to the Kotel from there. It was an incredible experience to put our own notes, as well as everyone in middle school, in the Wall. When we touched the Wall we felt as though we could feel the history of the Jewish people. It was an amazing to be in a place where our ancestors once were.

Fun Fact is that when you are walking away from the Kotel you have to walk backwards because you don’t want to turn your back on the Kotel. We traveled about five minutes, and we were going down to the tunnels along the Kotel Wall. It felt like we were walking through history. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We ate dinner on Ben Yehuda Street at different places and then we got matching sweatshirts. No matter what the weather was, we enjoyed the day and did all our activities. It was a great night to end an amazing day.

A great quote to close this day, Daniel asked Mrs. Hunter, “Is this your first time in Israel?” She replied, “No, I was here yesterday.”

 

BLOG FOUR

by Zoe Blum (’22), Sydney Kramen (’22) , and Talia Fisher (’22)

Good morning! We woke up at 7am with Dana knocking on our door (not the same as Mrs. Hunter waking us up with a dance party, but still). The streets around our hotel were closed off for a marathon, so we had to walk 3 kilometers just to get to our bus. We then went to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum and Memorial. It was so meaningful and symbolic. The museum is shaped like a triangle. Its size symbolized the grip of the Jews’ future, and the carpeting and dips in the floors symbolize the tragedy the Jews went through during those years. At the end of our tour, there was a lookout over the city, symbolizing the Jews’ hope for the future and the many Jewish neighborhoods demonstrating the significant steps in rebuilding our people. Afterwards, we went to the Shuk, and had amazing foods, like a warm orchid rice-pudding-like drink (it was sooooo delicious) and stocked up on snacks for Shabbat. Also, Tannah had made friends with our tour guide at Yad Vashem, Josh, and she forgot how to speak English.

 

VLOG ONE
by Roni Lefkovich (’22), Shira Rahamim (’22), Jordan Zimmermann (’22) Maya Rothstein (’22), and Lyle Pailet (’22)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACP8vB6Ls1c

Prepare to have your heart melt as Roni, Shira, Jordan, Maya, and Lyle share some words about their Shabbat in the holy city of Jerusalem.

Roni: " I felt very connected to the Jewish community".
Shira: "I also really loved walking in the streets and speaking to people in Hebrew that I didn't even know and they just felt like family, as if I already knew them......it's the most I have ever felt like home"
Jordan: "I really loved that we had to give up our phones!!!!!!.....it helped us connect with each other instead of seeing the world through a screen".
Maya: "Having this connection that you've never really felt before".
Lyle: "I've never kept Shabbat before in my life so this was a very different experience.......it gave me a lot of insight on how we should be living in the present, a lot of people are worried about what will happen and what has happened, a lot of people don't realize what is happening".