The second seminar of the program was back in October in Tel Aviv, Netanya, and Jerusalem. On Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early and headed to a kibbutz where we learned about the interactions between Jews and Arabs in Israel. It was an interesting lecture, and they discussed programs where Jewish and Arab children switch lives for a week so that they can see that they are really just the same. Apparently there are a lot of pro-peace programs like this that are currently taking place in Israel. While many of them have their flaws, at least there are people out there trying to make a difference. After the lecture, we made our way down to Tel Aviv where we visited the Yitzhak Rabin Center. Yitzhak Rabin was the prime minister of Israel who was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist. We had a tour of the museum and then afterwards our group held a small ceremony to celebrate his life. I was asked to read a speech at the ceremony. It turned out to be the eulogy given by his granddaughter, or as I am now calling it: the most depressing speech in the world. After the ceremony, we went back to Netanya where we stayed the night in a hotel not too far from where we live. I thought this was silly, but it is what it is, I guess. At the hotel we had a mock traditional Yemenite wedding henna party. If you are confused at to what this is or why it happened, that makes two of us. It was fun though! We put on traditional Yemenite clothing and danced around for a few hours. The henna part, which I passed on, consisted of having a scoop of henna put in your hand, leaving an awkward looking brown stain for a few days. No thank you!
The next morning we left for Jerusalem. We had lunch at the overlook of the city. I remember it being the first place I visited on my birthright trip two and a half years ago, so that was pretty interesting. We also hiked through through a small tunnel nearby that used to be an aqueduct. This was one of those occasions where I was thankful to only be five feet tall, as I was the only one in my group who did not have to bend over at all or worry about hitting my head in the darkness. This was easily my favorite activity of the weekend. It is always exciting to go on a pseudo-adventure! After this, we had some free time to explore the Machane Yehuda shuk. I have always loved Machane Yehuda, and it was a great opportunity to further enable my gummy candy addiction.
The main reason we were in Jerusalem for the seminar was to attend the MASA opening ceremony. With about 3,000 people in attendance, our program was lucky to be given seats that were in the fourth and fifth rows of the huge theater. While the ceremony was definitely entertaining, as it was full of performances and interesting speakers, it felt a little bit like what I would imagine joining a mega-cult would be like. Some of the dances involved lots of Hebrew chanting, mysterious lighting and costumes, and an overall eerie atmosphere. The event was very impressive and well put together, but I was slightly disturbed nonetheless. After the ceremony, we spent the night at the wonderful Crowne Plaza hotel. Because of the ceremony, all the other hotels in the area were booked so MASA decided to splurge for our group. It was awesome to stay there, and the food was amazing. The next day, we went on a hike. We were told it would be more of a stroll and were very surprised to find that it was an actual full-fledged hike. Besides being unprepared in the footwear department, it was a pleasant hike, and had some very nice views of Jerusalem. Following the hike we had a short tour of the Old City which was pretty standard. We ended the seminar at the Western Wall, before heading on our three hour bus ride back to Netanya.
That's all for now,
Melanie
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| At the henna party. We were making "M"s because we all have "M" names. |
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| View of Jerusalem from the overlook. |
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| Gummy candies at Machane Yehuda market. |
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| The Kotel. |
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