Reflections on Taglit Birthright 2014

It is the second to last day of our Taglit/Birthright journey in Israel and it is another day of contrast.  Our students began the day with a visit to Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem institute dedicated to preserving the memories of the Holocaust and teaching us all of its enduring and painful lessons.  It will be a somber morning for our students; some have grandparents who are Holocaust survivors, for others this will be their first face-to-face encounter with this profound sadness.  We will follow up with a discussion on individual and collective Jewish memories.  Can we have shared memories with Jewish people around the world; now, in the past and in the future?  How do these memories frame and shape our lives and actions?  These are wonderful young men and women and they will embrace these complex and painful discussions.

Upon leaving Yad Vashem, our students will travel to Machane Yehuda, the vibrant, bustling outdoor market where the Jews of Jerusalem will be buying fruits, vegetables, cakes, challah and wine for the Sabbath.  Those who have been to this market on the day before Shabbat understand how fully it represents the vibrancy and energy of Jerusalem, Israel, Judaism and the Jewish people.  The market almost assaults our senses with sights, sounds and smells; vendors hawking their wares; the aromas of sweet spices; Orthodox Jews rushing to get home as the afternoon turns toward evening.

It is this sense of contrasts that perhaps best describes our journey thus far in Israel:  Our 24 hours of rushed travel, followed by the wonderful tranquility and peacefulness of Shabbat on Kibbutz Degana Bet.  The pain of visiting the site of the assassination of Israel Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin, followed by a visit to the bustling streets of Jaffa, alive with Israel/Oriental fusion restaurants, coffee shops and antique dealers.  A visit to the magnificent ancient mosaics of Tzippori, followed by a delightful guided tour of the artist village of Ein Hod.  It is perhaps through these days of contrasts that our students are coming to see and understand the richness and diversity of Israel, Israelis and the Jewish people.

The journey has been both a collective experience but also an intensely personal one for each of us.  Each student, in their own way, has made a personal connection to the land and people of Israel.  A student and I shared a taxi ride through the streets of Jerusalem. The driver, who wore a kippah, began asking about our lives in America.  Soon, he and I were singing Z’mirot, Sabbath songs together.  When the ride ended the student enquired: “Are all taxi drivers in Israel like this?” We talked about what it meant to be in a Jewish country.  Last night, with great trepidation, another student phoned his 103 year old great aunt who he had never met and never spoken to before.  “What should I say?  Will she understand me?”  “Tell her about yourself,” I counseled.  Later that evening he came to me with a wonderful smile on his face.  He had spoken to his great aunt; she was raised in England – even at age 103 she was lucid and thoughtful.  A Jewish connection was made between nations and generations.

Our ‘mifgash’, the encounter with the Israeli soldiers who joined us for half of the trip, was perhaps most emblematic of the bonding that took place between our students and the land and people of Israel.  Before the Israelis arrived, Hillary, our tour educator, asked our students to draw pictures representing their image of the Israeli soldiers we were about to meet.  The aggregate images of guns, falafel, kippot and payis displayed their notion of these peers from Israel as somewhat alien beings.  Over the days the American and Israelis were together they learned about each other, laughed and shared music.  At the end of our time together Americans and Israelis hugged and cried.  The collective sentiments of these wonderful young adults were shared by an Israeli soldier and then by one of our students:

“We didn’t know what to expect, but you are just like us.”

“I’m so proud to be Jewish and to call these people our people.”

Our second and last Sabbath in Israel will soon be upon us.  Tomorrow night we will board the British Airways jet back to the States.  We have traveled the length and breadth of this nation.  Each student has embarked upon and, hopefully, just begun, his or her own Jewish adventure.